Eddie Huang Quotes

I tried my hardest to be the opposite of a stereotypical Asian student.

It was an ongoing struggle to say no, I don't want to be a part of the perpetuation of this stereotype.

I'm one of the cliches that has grown up.

As an American roughly the same age as Barack Obama, I will not be ridiculed or reduced to a stereotype. I want to age appropriately.

My first spoken word poem, packed with all the wisdom of a 14-year-old, was about the injustice of being seen as unfeminine. The poem was very indignant, and mainly exaggerated, but the only spoken word poetry that I had seen up until that point was mainly indignant, so I thought that that's what was expected of me.

Growing up in the '50s and being in the '60s, in that revolutionary time space, I thought freedom was what I was looking for. Slowly but surely, it became clear that the last thing I was interested in was freedom. Because if you're going to be free, you have to be free from something.

I don't think I would be a writer if I had stayed in Chile. I would be trapped in the chores, in the family, in the person that people expected me to be.

I got to the point where I was fed up with so many people telling me how and who I was supposed to be.

The essential problems remain the same... The kids I write about are asking for the same things I wanted. They want two contradictory things. They want to be the same as everyone else, and they want to be different from everyone else. They want acceptance for both.

I was always a class clown, so I never had trouble fitting in; I just had trouble finding out where I really wanted to be.

Fitting in is boring. But it takes you nearly your whole life to work that out.

I don't know where I come from but I'm here now so deal with it.

After boarding school in Switzerland, at, like, 14 or 15, my life clicked, and I just realized, 'I don't want to be like anyone around me at my school. I don't think the world revolves around money.'

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife – this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.

Body and soul, Black America reveals the extreme questions of contemporary life, questions of freedom and identity: How can I be who I am?

I actually spoke to one of the heads of a studio, and he said I confuse middle America. Basically, when they see a black person, they see athlete, they see rapper, or they see criminal or something like that. And then when they hear a British accent, they hear posh, so they hear lawyer or doctor.

I wanted to try and get out of the stereotypical Geordie girl. I stopped wearing fake tan and wore WAG dresses. But I was really miserable.

There have been moments in my life when I've become numb to certain aspects of myself that I found frightening. Or I've conformed to certain morals of society and then maybe rebelled or found a way out.

I really don't want to be a stereotype.

I know, if I would have won 'X-Factor' and if I would have continued in that lane, I would have spiraled out of control. Performing on there was good, but it wasn't me. It was me compromising for the judges, just different people around.

Everyone always says, 'We don't want to be pigeonholed.' But sometimes, your pigeonhole is a great place to be.

My mother didn't set out to surround us with white students or colleagues. My mother just sought a quality education. People have these expectations of who they think you should be. And I say it's because they don't really understand Malcolm X - or his wife.

We fight the stereotypes, but in fighting them, we show them. There are stereotypes for a reason.

I don't want to feel like I have to change myself or my image.

You don't realise how cool your culture is until you get out of that phase of trying to fit in.