Sheila Heti Quotes

Yeah, I'm from North Carolina, but grew up in Eastern Europe, and became a woman in London.

I was born in Iran, left at a very young age - less than a year old - and grew up and was educated in the West.

I'm a first-generation American, so I had friends from several cultures while growing up, including Indian and Iranian friends.

My mother was actually born in Ohio but raised in West Virginia where her family had a laundry. She has a West Virginian accent. My father was born in China, but he's the son of an American citizen. My paternal grandfather was born in San Francisco in 1867.

II grew up in Australia, but I'm not from there originally. Like, my dad's South American, so I know what that's like to grow up in a culture that's not your own.

I'm first generation in the country - my family's Mexican.

I don't really remember much about Kosovo. I only remember growing up in London, where my parents had to basically start from scratch.

I was twice-born. I'm Mexican by nature and Hungarian by nurture.

I was raised in Maryland. My mom was born in London, and my dad was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

I am second-generation American, and my grandparents are from Puerto Rico.

I went to a predominantly African-American school. I didn't even understand our immigration system. I knew my parents immigrated here.

I think everyone is kind of an immigrant somehow, and I wasn't raised in an American society at home. My household was a Jamaican household, so I got all my traditions, all my roots and culture intact, so I'm able to support both countries.

My family came from Spain in 1725, and if people want to consider me Hispanic, they can, but I didn't advertise that way, and I'm an American first.

My parents are super westernized. My mom listens to western music, my dad was like a pub landlord so he properly embraced English life. But the truth is they both came from tiny villages in Sri Lanka.

My parents immigrated to this country from Jamaica with no more than a fifth-grade education.

The idea of ignoring your past, only to confront it later in life, is a familiar experience whether you come here from Hungary or French Canada or Ireland.

There's so many Chinese or Asian Americans that were either born in another country like I was and raised in America or born in America and raised in America. They're normal Americans, and they just happen to have a different heritage.

I feel lucky. I grew up in an open-minded, multi-cultural community in West Vancouver in Canada. There were people who had escaped some kind of oppression. Some of them were first-generation immigrants, others were one or two generations back.

I was born in Canada, but both my parents are Syrian - they moved to Canada in the '70s, and I was born in a 100-percent-Arab house.

I came to Canada at a young age and I've been here for most of my life, so being able to play for this country is a really great experience and joy.

I consider myself a brown American or a man of color before I would say Sri Lankan, to be honest. I didn't grow up there. There was a pretty brutal civil war there from 1983 until 2009. So we weren't able to go back very much. I've gone back as an adult. But I grew up in Pennsylvania.

When my father came out on stage wearing a big cowboy hat and a shirt lettered 'Bar Mitzvah Ranch' to sing 'Home on the Range' in Yiddish, it was his way of saying, 'I want to be an American.'

I've got that Mexican blood in me.

My parents left Iran in 1979 and moved to France and then moved to the U.S. My brother was born in France and I was born in New York, and then we moved to D.C.

I keep my Scottish connection. I know where I was born, and that's an important part of my history, and I think all immigrants are the same. But if I could live anywhere in the world, it would be Australia.