Michael Steger Quotes

My biggest regret is that I didn't teach my two children how to speak Spanish.

I grew up Mexican.

The fact is I do feel very Spanish, like when I'm talking to my wife and daughter in Spanish at two in the afternoon. I even think in Spanish when I get angry!

I'm very much an Arab, although I need to practise my Arabic more.

I lost my accent pretty quickly, so everyone assumes I was born and raised in America. But I'm very much still in touch with my Filipino roots. That will never go away.

As a boy, when I was bad, my mother would chew me out in Spanish. And since I was bad a lot, I learned a lot of Spanish!

I grew up speaking both languages, and for me that's really important.

I don't speak Spanish, and I get so much crap for it. Oddly enough, it was the first language I learned, but somehow I lost it throughout the years. I can understand pieces of it, but I don't speak it. I need to speak it. I want to teach my kids Spanish.

I really love Anglo music, and the language as well. Like, my kids, they - born here, Miami. So I just - a little bit more familiar with the language.

Even though I am very tied to and close to my heritage, I learned Spanish in college; I didn't grow up with it. Growing up in South Texas is different from Miami or L.A. where it is a necessity to speak Spanish.

My first language is both English and Spanish. My mom was raised in Los Angeles, so with her we spoke English, but my father was born in Cuba, so with him we spoke Spanish.

I grew up in The Bronx. I mean, I was born and raised in New York City. And I started singing in Spanish because I was always just connected to my Latin roots.

Everyone has a Latino inside them.

We spoke French at home and I didn't know any English until I went to school. My mother was French and met my father when he visited France as a student on a teaching placement.

I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage, to love my first language, Spanish, to learn about Mexican history, music, folk art, food, and even the Mexican candy I grew up with.

I've never hidden the fact that I'm Jamaican; I will never disown my roots or influences.

My mom came to the U.S. very young, and then she married very young. But she was never American. She was always Scottish and would make sure that I knew that I was, too.

It is asked of me that I give my first speech in this house in a language [English] other than my mother tongue [French.] …. Even if I knew English as intimately as I knew French, I would still give my first speech in the language of my French Canadian compatriots

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

I speak English. I grew up speaking Bengali. This is the normal, the known, the obvious composition of who I am. Then there's Italian, this strange, other component of me that I've just created. It was a creative process just to learn the language, never mind to start expressing myself in it.

My mother at a young age put me in bilingual, so my strength is really more in Spanish. Even though I live and I was born and raised in the States, you know, in the Bronx, in Spanish I get my point across. And when I'm writing music, when I'm doing music, it's easier for me, and I know exactly how to express myself.

I grew up speaking Arabic at home.

My parents would dress us up in traditional Vietnamese clothing to go to school for heritage day. We have a Vietnamese nanny that my parents wanted us to have so we could stay in touch and know where we came from.

Spanish is actually my first language, growing up, and I understand the culture. I understand the culture; I understand what the people want.

Neither of my parents had English as a first language.