Lulu Wang Quotes

My dad is an ob-gyn - he's retired now - and he wanted to come to the States to make a better life, for opportunity. My mom said that, on the plane ride here, I did not want to speak a word of English - I spoke Tagalog. And then, after the first day of school, I didn't want to speak anything but English.

Anyone that has come to America past the age of eighteen will be able to understand when I say that you can never shake your accent.

When I first moved from Shanghai when I was five, I just thought of myself as Chinese.

I was an immigrant when I came, and one of my biggest things was I really wanted to fit in. I didn't want to be, 'Oh, look at that guy;' I wanted to be part of the crowd. Which is a weird thing, because the more successful I got, the more out of the crowd I became.

I arrived in the U.S.A. in 1935, to San Francisco. I got the boat from China, and I didn't even speak English. I could read a little, perhaps write a little, but that was all. It was a 17-day journey, and I learnt to speak English from the stewards.

I'll always be a foreigner.

I suppose that was my first bit of acting, the acquisition of an English accent. It was really just an attempt to be understood.

My mother is American. I first went to school in America, and we came back when I was about six to rural Norfolk. In primary school, I was teased immediately and mercilessly. I probably dropped that accent within about 10 days.

What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech.

America is remarkable, don't you think so? When I came to Washington, I was twelve years old. I spoke English with an English accent. It was assumed that it would go on in that way.

Every different social group that I encountered had its different set of rules, so you learn very quickly how to pick up the nuances and change yourself accordingly. When you are not from anywhere, you have to try to find what's universal. You are always trying to fit in.

I do think of myself very strongly as a New Zealander, but when I moved out to the States, I was aware that I didn't want to just live in a satellite community of only other New Zealanders.

I remember, the first time I came to the United States in 1996, I didn't speak a word of English at the beginning. I am very thankful for this country and the opportunity music has given me... My three kids were born here in Miami; they speak Spanish at home, but English with all their friends.

I didn't move to Miami to live in a Spanish-speaking province.

I didn't choose to come to the United States, but being raised here has shaped exactly who I am today, and I can't imagine that being taken away from me.

I was born in Australia and am proud of my Australian provenance, but I am now an American. Like so many naturalized citizens, I felt that I was an American before I formally became one.

My father, when he arrived in this country found it difficult.

My family settled in Cairo in 1980. I was nine. I missed Libya terribly, but I also took to Cairo. I perfected the accent. People assumed I was Egyptian.

Definitely that was a big part of my childhood: wanting to fit. As an immigrant, you talk funny, you look funny, you smell funny. I wanted to do nothing but fit in and talk English and sit with everybody else.

I came to this country when I was 13 years old, I couldn't really speak English, and I had an accent.

The first 10 years of my life, I lived as 'Matangi.' When I came to England in '86, my first week of school was terrible because I would put my hand up to answer things, and no one would choose me because they couldn't say my name. My auntie came from Europe to visit us, and she was like, 'Just call yourself something else.'

I was six when we came to this country. When I was 14 or so, I still had a lot of trouble with it.

My grandfather came over from Puerto Rico and raised his kids speaking English so that it would be easier for them to assimilate.

A lot of what I experienced growing up in the U.S.S.R. and coming to the U.S. as an immigrant actually reflects itself in Whatsapp. Experiences from our youth shape what we do later in life.

We moved to Gambia from Sweden when I was six years old because my dad was from there. It was definitely a culture shock.