Yasmine Hamdan Quotes

As I stand here today and tell you about these, I am heavy with an awareness of the fact that I am in more than one sense a product of both the Chinese and Western cultures, in harmony and in conflict.

I am constantly swimming on the margin, neither 100% American, French, nor Lebanese. I am none of those. I am the result of those three. Sometimes it's an asset: no one can put you in a category. That I do not make typical Lebanese, European or American films does not bother me.

I don't think you lose culture because you act different cultures.

Literally everything good about this culture comes from mixing.

Culturally, I'm not 100 percent Korean. I'm very mixed and very open.

I have a lot of cultures within me - I'm basically chop suey.

The mixture of the Trinidadian people and the Indian people has caused a new culture to emerge.

The salt of any interesting civilization is mixture.

I'm half Egyptian, and I'm Muslim. But I grew up in Canada, far from my Arab roots. Like so many who straddle East and West, I've been drawn, over the years, to try to better understand my origins.

I've always felt very much from a mixed culture - mainly English and French, but also Nigerian, Thai, Mexican. Everything's had its influence on me.

The question really isn't whether I'm American, Russian, Iranian, Azerbaijani, or anything else. I've been shaped by all these people and cultures and I feel quite comfortable among all of them

I am hopeful that the concept of 'cultural appropriation' is a passing fad: people with different backgrounds rubbing up against each other and exchanging ideas and practices is self-evidently one of the most productive, fascinating aspects of modern urban life.

Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It's a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You're acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I'm a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life.

I ended up very American and very Indonesian and a little bit of a lot of things.

I mix things from my Somali culture and my American side.

I'm a fan of mixing cultures together.

When I arrived in Beirut from Europe, I felt the oppressive, damp heat, saw the unkempt palm trees and smelt the Arabic coffee, the fruit stalls and the over-spiced meat. It was the beginning of the Orient. And when I flew back to Beirut from Iran, I could pick up the British papers, ask for a gin and tonic at any bar, choose a French, Italian, or German restaurant for dinner. It was the beginning of the West. All things to all people, the Lebanese rarely questioned their own identity.

I come from a specific area in Beirut where it's multicultural, and it's a culture that blends with multiple cultures - it's unbelievable lifestyle.

I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven't melted.

I'm a little bit like a turducken: I'm sort of like an Indian person, wrapped in a British person, wrapped in an American kind of thing.

Many countries had a hand in raising me. I am the product of many contradicting philosophies and cultures... My entire universe is comprised of these foreign traditions. If any one of these experiences are to be ignored, I wouldn't be the same.

I think that Mexican-American kids live in a global world. It's not even bi-, it's multi-. You know, for those of us who grew up with different countries on our block, different nationalities, you know, we moved into multiple worlds.

America is this incredible mosaic of immigrants, so people really want to be anchored in some kind of culture as well as the one they are living in.

I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.

I grew up having two different perspectives - one in English, one in Spanish. Two different cultures, very different - but I think that, to me, it's one. I'm just as American as I feel Latin.