Harvey Fierstein Quotes

Growing up, I thought I was white. It didn't occur to me I was Asian-American until I was studying abroad in Denmark and there was a little bit of prejudice.

Am I Latin? Am I American? What the hell am I? I love my culture and I'm very proud of my culture.

Immigrants want to change our values and our way of life.

The challenge facing America in the next century will be the shaping, at long last, of a truly common public culture, one responsive to the long silenced cultures of color.

I exist in this hyphen. I'm an Indian-American-Muslim kid, but am I more Indian, or am I more American? What part of my identity am I?

I find myself increasingly forced to think of my ethnic identity instead of the national identity I adopted as a boy in 1976. That is discomfiting for me, and a tragedy for America.

When we were growing up we were all asked to accept ourselves as British citizens, and I still hold on to this idea that multicultural Britain is possible.

In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion-, and even nation-centred cultures.

I consider myself to be blessed. I have a family that is a mix of different religions and different ethnicities. I hope everyone can look beyond the bikini or beyond the whole beauty pageant stereotype of Miss USA, and realize that what I'm doing is more significant than just that. It represents the United States as a country of opportunity, where you can do anything you want to, and ethnicity and religion cannot stop you.

Isn't it a characteristic of the age we live in that it has made everyone in a way a migrant and a member of a minority?

Culture makes the whole world our dwelling place; our palace in which we take our ease and find ourselves at one with all things.

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or when the stranger enters the gates, never, thereafter, to be a stranger.

Back home I had always been comfortable around people. I was the troublemaker, always being funny - that's just who I am. I'm Latina; I've always had that extra little flavor. But when I got to New York, it became about being comfortable with myself in a place where I didn't know many people, and that was the big challenge. Ultimately my personality helped me build relationships with the people I was working with, and I was able to stand out.

When I arrived in Beirut from Europe, I felt the oppressive, damp heat, saw the unkempt palm trees and smelt the Arabic coffee, the fruit stalls and the over-spiced meat. It was the beginning of the Orient. And when I flew back to Beirut from Iran, I could pick up the British papers, ask for a gin and tonic at any bar, choose a French, Italian, or German restaurant for dinner. It was the beginning of the West. All things to all people, the Lebanese rarely questioned their own identity.

You can't let the debate of the day mask the fact that Canadians care deeply in their country. Including Quebecers - from all origins and language. Quebecers care deeply about their country. The idea of Canada and its unity is not something that is set in stone forever, or that is solved. We need to always work towards building this country.

Whence all this passion toward conformity anyway? – diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you'll have no tyrant states . Why, if they follow this conformity business they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive toward colorlessness? But seriously, and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.

What do we call our Harlem Renaissance? Maybe in the future, it won't be just Latino, maybe it'll be more multi-multi, because, you know, people are such fusions now, of so many different cultures.

My parents sent me to a school across town, an integrated school, where I had the chance to meet and grow up with people who were from other parts of the world. ... I remember feeling that I would never have anything to contribute on St. Patrick's Day. I couldn't tell the stories that they might have been telling about their forebears and I felt left out.

Je suis autant Chinois que Fran c° ais. I am as much Chinese as French.

It's not enough to be American. You always have to be something else, Irish-American, German-American, and you'd wonder how they'd get along if someone hadn't invented the hyphen

Because of the internet and communications, the clash of cultures is much more direct. People feel, I think, less certain about their identity, less certain about economic security.

This will arguably be the third great revolution of America, if we can prove that we literally can live without having a dominant European culture.

Weirdly, when I was in drama school my accent probably got stronger because of that sense of identity when you leave home and go to somewhere where there are loads of people from different places. Holding on to being Welsh and where I was from was a real crutch for me.

Our cultural strength has always been derived from our diversity of understanding and experience.