Geraldine Brooks Quotes

It always trips me out that America, the most powerful and magnificent nation in the history of the world, whose might was built by immigrants from all over the world, only speaks one language.

My mother is a German who was brought up in the U.K. So, there is so much cross-cultural exposure I had as a child. But Mumbai is my city.

I've always loved writing, and my heritage has been interesting, growing up in a bi-cultural family. My mother being Vietnamese and my father being French, it's like an East-West meeting in my house.

I think the whole, like, cultural diversity and the arty side of London is really, really great. And how it's so historic as well.

I was born in Lebanon and emigrated to the U.S. and went back. I'd been raised in a French school in Beirut. Lebanon is a peculiar place, so bicultural it goes along with you. There is a Western influence, an Eastern influence. Most people are fluctuating between those identities.

I think that Mexican-American kids live in a global world. It's not even bi-, it's multi-. You know, for those of us who grew up with different countries on our block, different nationalities, you know, we moved into multiple worlds.

I grew up having two different perspectives - one in English, one in Spanish. Two different cultures, very different - but I think that, to me, it's one. I'm just as American as I feel Latin.

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

New York City is home to so many people from so many places and the uniqueness of it is that you never feel a foreigner. English is almost hardly ever heard in the subway. In fact, it's weird.

The fact that over 50 per cent of the residents of Toronto are not from Canada, that is always a good thing, creatively, and for food especially. That is easily a city's biggest strength, and it is Toronto's unique strength.

Explain to me what Italian-American culture is. We've been here 100 years. Isn't Italian-American culture American culture? That's because we're so diverse, in terms of intermarriage.

My work has been much more Caribbean and eclectic. I am interested in people, and where they come from happens to have fallen within an area of Africa.

I'm very optimistic because I think that the real strength of a nation like the United States comes from blending cultures. There's no way that you can close the frontiers anywhere. The borders are there to be violated permanently.

I have 5 children of my own. They are bilingual, like most second and third generations. But they speak primarily in English and they couldn't find anything on television that represented who they are in this country.

I have a very strong identity that connects me to Argentina and to Latin America, but at the same time, I have a deep connection to the music from the United States and music from Europe, too.

I'm as proud to be Chinese as I am American.

I didn't move to Miami to live in a Spanish-speaking province.

Miami is America’s most diverse city… We have 140 languages we speak..

I have to confess I do have a slight preference. I do think, naturally, that people from India and Australia are in some ways more likely to speak English, understand common law, and have a connection with this country than some people that come perhaps from countries that haven't fully recovered from being behind the Iron Curtain.

In Cardiff, I've heard a number of accent mixes that weren't previously heard before such as Cardiff-Arabic and Cardiff-Hindi. This pattern is repeating itself in many urban communities across the U.K.; people are especially keen to develop a strong sense of local identity.

I grew up surrounded by both Haitian and Japanese culture.

I grew up in a unique environment where I was immersed in both Japanese and American cultures equally.

I still feel Ghanaian, but my mentality is more European.

I've got that Mexican blood in me.

I'm an Australian. And I'm speaking generally here, but Australians in general aren't patriotic or nationalistic. Our country was built by immigrants. So, by my experience, I've seen the way immigration has transformed nations. They are the key people who quite literally build civilizations, be it culturally or musically.