Elaine Chao Quotes

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.

Never, ever, have I felt really accepted in Hollywood.

Jews have had to carry around their own sense of self in a carpet bag and I think perhaps too much emphasis might be being put on nationality and on the other hand patriotism, that sort of thing.

I've always craved to belong to somewhere, but I never have and never will.

I would find myself backing away from all of the 'isms', all of the communities. I have always been able to be misused by every community But that is OK. I would rather be misused than neglected.

I can't tell you how much I love Target and Costco, that kind of culture, because it's something I never felt a part of. I've always felt like a tourist because I have never fit in anywhere.

I think a lot of what I've done is about people feeling as if they are part of the world but also not part of it at the same time. I don't know whether that's from being a gay kid, but I definitely think that resonates with me.

The essential dilemma of my life is between my deep desire to belong and my suspicion of belonging.

My parents - they tried to become American, they tried to become British, they tried to become Scandinavian - nobody wanted them, anywhere.

I've gotten used to being a foreigner.

Most of the discrimination I have encountered centered on the view that I am not a part of this great nation, even though I grew up in Ohio, graduated from law school in Washington, D.C., and received my commission in the U.S. Air Force in 1991.

I'm one of these guys who always feel like the outsider, you know? I'm always longing to be part of something, you know?

I never felt welcome in the heteronormative groups.

I'll always be a foreigner.

Who included me among the ranks of the human race?

Being a foreigner is not a disease.

When we talk about communities, we seldom discuss the margins. But for every person nestled comfortably in the bosom of a community, there is someone else on the outskirts, feeling ambivalent. Ambiguous. Excluded. Unwilling or unable to come more fully into the fold.

I think you only really feel like an outsider if you've been an insider.

Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, the color of my skin and my rather peculiar background as an Ethiopian immigrant delineated the border of my life and friendships. I learned quickly how to stand alone.

My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.

Most Americans have parents or grandparents who immigrated to this country, and we know the hardships they faced, from learning the language to dealing with prejudice.

I think there is a problem in France that anyone who is not European, you want to know where they come from and why do they come from somewhere or why they speak English or why they are human. That's the big barrier for all of us that are coming from some far, far away countries. But at the end of the day, we are all artists.

Whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic or the Pacific or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, or what our last names are, or how we worship.

I always identified myself as non-Swedish. I was never discriminated against, because I looked Swedish and speak without an accent. But I had an outsider's perspective.

I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.