Riz Ahmed Quotes

I am white. I am Jewish. I am an immigrant. I am a Russian American. But until recently I haven't focused so much on those parts of my identity. I've always thought of myself simply as a normal, unhyphenated American.

I mean, a Mexican boy couldn't be anything else but an Indian. And why did you take the name of Quinn, they used to say to me. Hey, you're an Indian, so I played Indians.

Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African.

I think of myself as being Jewish and Irish, despite the fact that I'm English.

I'm an immigrant writer, or an African writer, or an Ethiopian-American writer, and occasionally an American writer according to the whims and needs of my interpreters.

It's a complicated issue, but I define myself as an American, primarily.

Racism always exists cheek by jowl with, inside, and alongside culture and class. As a rule, it is inseparable from them. That is why, for example, food, language and names assume such importance in racial prejudice.

I'm 100 percent Irish by birth, grew up Italian, and yet I constantly get cast as playing Jewish.

I find myself frequently introducing myself to someone, saying that, you know, I've grown up black and biracial in the United States.

I don't see myself as a 'black actor,' I'm just Shemar Moore the actor.

The race is your face. Obviously, I come from a mixed background. Who I am and how I look and being black.

I don't see myself as a 'black actor,' I'm just Shemar Moore the actor. I'm very proud to be black, but I'm just as much black as I am white.

There are some Chicanos who don't want to be Chicanos - they want to be Mexican-American, Hispanic, or even Spanish.

I'm a half-breed. You know, I'm Puerto Rican and Norwegian from descent, and I grew up, born and raised in New York City, and I stood out amongst my friends in my community. I was very blond-haired, white, and 'Lemonhead' was the name that they gave me.

I struggled with being a Latino growing up in Los Angeles. I felt very American. I still do. I went to 35 bar mitzvahs before I went to a single quinceanera. I could talk all day about my culture and what it means to me.

When I think of my work, I'm aware that I'm American and African at all points and times. And without a doubt, my experience and understanding of America was shaped by having immigrant parents.

I'm a daughter of the middle class with a strong sense of social mobility and individualism, like the waves of immigrants, like my Spanish grandparents, who made Argentina.

The irony is that, coming from a white-collar British background, I tend to play blue-collar Americans!

It was very hard for me, for most of my life, to feel American, or call myself American, and that is a very complicated topic that would require a very long conversation.

My mom is African-American, Native-American, Irish, and Creole, and my father is of Jewish, Russian, and Polish descent. It's made me who I am. Because of my diverse background, I think I can relate to many different people, different stories, and different communities.

Our immigrants joined a settler culture, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant, that demanded assimilation to its norms.

I'm a proud Londoner, a Brit, European, of Pakistani heritage, a Muslim - we all have multiple layers of identity - that's what makes us who we are.

I don't consider myself an Iranian comedian; I consider myself a comedian who happens to be of Iranian descent.

Growing up as Chinese-American, as someone who experienced racism, questions of 'otherness' are always at the forefront of my mind.

I pride myself on being Japanese American.