Nazanin Boniadi Quotes

People would write me hate letters. How dare I try to represent Hispanics when I was so white? I tried to make them see it was racism.

I remember people saying: 'You look funny, your hair is so black, you have a flat nose,' but I didn't think of it being racism, and I still don't. But there was a sense of difference, of being an outsider.

I had a funny last name, and I didn't look like everybody else, and I got faced with a lot of racism.

I am a singer. You love me or hate me based on my music. If you are judging me based on my nationality and religion, you are a racist. This is very offensive. I cannot encourage that.

I was racially discriminated against for years as a child in Leeds because I was an Italian.

When you're walking down a street and you are a brown-skinned person or you're a person that lives in an immigrant community, there's no differentiating on - solely on the basis of what you look like. They don't walk down the street saying, hi, I'm an immigrant; I'm here legally or not.

We judge people based on their clothes, social class, and, dare I say, ethnicity. Our comedians make light of these stereotypes regularly, and we laugh at their accuracy.

You deny that man is really so prejudiced as I suppose him; talk to him then of some foreign country, ask him what religion he is of.

There are a lot of people in Beverly Hills who come from the Middle East, who are very much a part of the Beverly Hills fabric, and their kids grew up with the privileges of Beverly Hills. And yet they still have to deal with a lot of the prejudice against them for being foreign-born.

I've never understood people who say they're not a practicing Jew. You never hear a black guy say he's not a practicing African-American. What does it even mean?

I refuse to be stereotyped.

I don't think my work does reflect my nationality - I don't like the idea of nationalism.

Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.

You'd never know that listening to people in the UN but tribalism is the father of racism.

Being black, Latino, or Asian is not a genre. Romantic comedies, thrillers, action - those are genres. I think there's a lot of people who want to have the conversation. I don't think people are afraid of it, I just think it's the time to have that conversation. Race is not a genre.

I am certainly not racist; I even like the British.

I was sometimes called 'coconut' when I was at school.

It's interesting: I think, as a Latino actor, the biggest challenge is being called 'Latino' because immediately, the world has a perception of what that means.

We are never racist against somebody who is very far away. I don't know any racism against the Eskimos. To have a racist feeling, there must be an other who is slightly different from us - but is living close to us.

You don't judge a book by a cover. I'm not your typical rap look.

A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact.

No one tells every white person in this country how to be. No one tells every Hispanic, or Asian or Jewish person in this country how to be. There is no single definition of whiteness or single definition of blackness.

The greatest guarantee for the preservation of a person’s identity is language and faith, and all Armenians must carry these two values.

The greatest guarantee for the preservation of a person’s identity is language and faith, and all Armenians must carry these two values.

My face couldn't play Jewish.