Jessica Hagedorn Quotes

Libya is divided into tribes and clans.

Welcome to the brave new world of American multiculturalism. From a nation of diverse peoples united by a common culture, we have become a people divided by a common malady.

Language is the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind.

Harlem for me is Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C., in one place. You have very significant churches that have had national ramifications. At the same time, you have politics. On top of all that, you have entertainment because you have 70 years of music that came out of here, and if you scratch that, gangsterism happens.

Centuries of history risk disappearing if Islamization, which up until now has been underestimated, gains the upper hand.

When I went to school, I didn't know a lick of English, but it was okay because there were so many immigrants in the area, a lot of the kids didn't speak a lick of English, either. It was normal to have a wicked accent.

As a woman of colour, as a person who is a minority, I believe its important that other people know about my language and I don't necessarily have to explain. In the same way, when I read 19th-century literature and if I have to understand a Latin phrase or a French phrase, it is incumbent upon me to learn it.

St. Louis is a very interesting city in terms of accents.

I think it's about the feeling more than a language. And I think that we and every culture in the world has to keep their own language just to bring something else, something different, and show a different vision of the world, actually. And that's why I'm trying to keep my language.

South Africa is really diverse, with many cultures and 11 official languages, so there are lots of different Christmas traditions.

I have done films in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada. I don't find any difference.

I have sung in all languages, and so every people know me - Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu.

People just think Africa is this one thing. So if you're from Nigeria, then you're the same as somebody from Kenya; not realizing that within Nigeria, right, we have 250 different ethnic groups, right? Two hundred and fifty different languages.

I was born into a Turkish family that had acquired Italian citizenship. Many members of the family subsequently became British, French, Brazilian, and German, so there was a bit of everything. It was not uncommon for people in the family to speak seven languages: English, French, Ladino, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, and even Greek.

The Church controlled so much in Ireland for so long. I'm not going to get into whether or not religion per se is a bad thing, but my point is the political aspect in Ireland was way out of kilter, and it wasn't right.

If you look at our world, we're becoming so much more diverse in every sense of the word. It's not just about culture or identity. It's also about the different ways we communicate.

Politics and church are the same. They keep the people in ignorance.

I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church.

To be of mixed blood is a great gift for a writer. I have one foot on tribal lands and one foot in middle-class life.

We no longer want to be a melting pot, because we don't understand what is already melted.

The Church was as concerned with this world as the next: I saw that virtually all of the achievements of Africans seemed to have come about through the missionary work of the Church.

The Church responds to antiquated social realities, and those realities remain much more current in Utah precisely because of the Church.

How is the newcomer to deal with Rome? What is one to make of this marble rubble, this milk of wolves, this blood of Caesars, this sunrise of Renaissance, this baroquery of blown stone, this warm hive of Italians, this antipasto of civilization?

Speaking more than one language and living in a multicultural family and environment did not seem like anything but what it was: the world I lived in.

Many of the most difficult questions concerning the role of ethnic minorities centers on language.