Elizabeth Rodriguez Quotes

Everyone who thinks I'm not Mexican simply because I was born in the United States is wrong.

Who does get to claim Americanness? You know, my brother was born in this country. And is he seen as American? So, I mean, it brings up a lot of interesting questions.

I don't call myself Latin, I call myself Puerto Rican.

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.

I spend more time in New York than the Dominican. I play here, I live here, so why not become a citizen?

I am not an African. I am an American.

I was born in the USA, which many people still find hard to believe.

I am an Israeli-born American citizen.

I was born here. My children were born here. What the hell do I have to do to be called an American?

What about a white South African who comes here from Africa. Is he an African American?

We can't restore our civilization with someome else's babies.

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.

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 am a permanent legal resident of this country, I was born in Korea; my parents came to America for a better life for our family, I've lived here nearly my whole life, and even though I consider myself through and through Korean and American, I guess when it comes down to it, anyone can take away my identity. It doesn't belong to me.

I am first-generation American, so I didn't grow up in the South or have any relatives who were slaves. My forefathers were colonized.

I live in the U.S., but I'm from Brazil.

I have two Filipino nannies who have British passport and not me. I don't need British passport. When you were running around in an animal skin, my ancestors were building the pyramids.

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

I'm a little bit of everything. Sometimes people think I'm not Puerto Rican, because my name doesn't sound Spanish.

I'm Korean-American. Not Colombian. My parents are first-generation, and I'm like... in-between, because I moved over here when I was four or five.

It's very important to me that people see I am an American and I was born in the States.

I am Dominican American. My father was born and raised in the U.S. and his heritage is German and Eastern European, and my mother hails from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

I couldn't be more American if I tried. I was born in Ethiopia, but I was raised and educated as an American.

My father is from Newark in Nottinghamshire and my mother is from the very north of Ireland. They've ended up in Scotland, where my father - well, both of them - will always be seen as having come from somewhere else.