Taiye Selasi Quotes

My family is a Jewish Iranian family, but I was born in Turkey and raised in Italy. So it's a very mixed background.

While I am most at home in London, I cannot really label myself as either British or Trinidadian. I write in the English language and live in the U.K. I find it hard to say that I am an entirely British writer, especially when I supported Trinidad in the 2006 World Cup and also support the West Indies cricket team.

My family spans many world religions, ethnicities and nationalities. The truth is that I don't have one identity. I'm Scottish, British, European, Humanist, Atheist and in part at least, culturally Jewish.

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 might live in Manhattan or Edinburgh or Cardiff. I think of myself as without nationality.

The question really isn't whether I'm American, Russian, Iranian, Azerbaijani, or anything else. I've been shaped by all these people and cultures and I feel quite comfortable among all of them

I consider myself a Londoner first, and then I consider myself Brazilian before I consider myself English.

I don't even know if I'm British any more. I'm transatlantic, I'm European.

I'm a first-generation kid in this country. I so identify with America and its culture. I'm a citizen, I was born here. I'm American. At the same time, like most first-generation kids, I have this other identity to another country back home, which is India.

If you ask me where do I belong, it would be somewhere in the Irish Sea almost - born in Hong Kong, Chinese mother, Portuguese father from Macao, lived in Europe most of my life.

I'm a third-culture child. It's an interesting concept. Having an American father, a South American mother, born in England, grew up in Hong Kong, went to school in Europe - it makes me a third-culture child, which means you take on the culture of the place where you live. So I'm very adaptable.

I grow up in the States, in Miami, but I was born in Guatemala, and my father's Cuban, and in 'Body of Lies,' I played an Iraqi.

I guess I'm kind of a mutt. I was born in the U.S., my parents are from Mexico, and I grew up in Switzerland. It's weird because I sound American, but I spell theater 'theatre' with the 'r' before the 'e'.

But I don't think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director. Whether I'm French or Australian or whatever, it's really not important.

My father came from Germany. My mom came from Venezuela. My father's culturally German, but his father was Japanese. I was raised in New York and spent two years in Rio. My parents met at the University of Southern Mississippi, and they had me there, and then we moved to New York. I'm not very familiar with Mississippi.

Inside me I'm Ghanaian, and I'm proud to be African. But of course I'm Italian. I was born in Italy. I've never been to Africa in my life, but I will go one day.

No, I'm not a French designer either. I'm from nowhere. I'm a European, old European is all I am.

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.

I am an American citizen born in Kuwait of Egyptian parents. I grew up in Great Britain, Malaysia, and Egypt and have lived in the United States since 1965, when I was seventeen.

My parents were born abroad. I was born in France, but I feel comfortable everywhere - I don't see the borders.

For Americans I'll always be Israeli, and for Israelis I'll always be American. But I really have no need for definitions.

We are African in origin and American in birth.

I am constantly swimming on the margin, neither 100% American, French, nor Lebanese. I am none of those. I am the result of those three. Sometimes it's an asset: no one can put you in a category. That I do not make typical Lebanese, European or American films does not bother me.

My dad's from Zimbabwe, and my mom is Danish, Irish, and Norwegian, so I have influences from a lot of different places.

My family comes from New Zealand, but I'm a London girl. I was born and raised in London, but I've got the blood of a New Zealander, so I always kind of felt like I didn't belong - in a good way.