C. C. H. Pounder Quotes

I've always been 'other' in all the spaces that I've been in. Even when I first moved to America, just the idea that I was a dark-skinned black girl from England with an accent. It's one thing to be a black girl, but it's another to be a dark black girl. I was chastised for that. I was chastised for the way I spoke.

Because if you weren't born white, you were forced to see differences; or if you weren't born what they called normal, or if you got injured, then you were left to explore the world of the different.

Because of my Asian-ness, I couldn't be anonymous - what I said, what I ate, what I did at the weekend were startlingly different to what everyone else did. I was also a performer, quick and chameleon-like, good at accents, so that made me stand out.

Try and fit in in a New Zealand playground with an Armagh accent - it doesn't work.

I was the only black girl at my junior high school. I had an afro, a Jamaican accent, I looked really old.

I remember people saying: 'You look funny, your hair is so black, you have a flat nose,' but I didn't think of it being racism, and I still don't. But there was a sense of difference, of being an outsider.

People in New York are surprised when I open my mouth.

Foreigners are not like the people I am used to here.

I know that for me, a lot of people will look at me and they'll think 'Somali' or 'outsider' instead of 'Minnesota.'

Just because I grew up a white guy in America doesn't mean that's the music of my life.

I'm three quarters Scottish, but I sound English. I don't really see British as a race.

My children don't look Hispanic.

I'd like to talk in my own accent, but then there's that thing about getting typecast as, 'The British guy.' The role that makes you, that's normally what you're cast as forever more. Like, if I did a huge film with my British accent, that would be that.

When I got to Florida, I was a British kid, but I was also an Indian kid: a brown kid with an English accent. Talk about being an outsider. And that's become the theme of a lot of the stuff I write about.

When I was at school, you had to choose; there was a lot of pressure to assimilate. You were an Aussie, or you were one of 'the wogs' - which was everybody else. But I didn't want to be in either group, so I felt like an odd one out.

In Geneva, I was seen as an outsider. In the U.S., I was considered Eurotrash. And in London, I'm seen as an American.

I'm very happy to be a foreigner in Japan, and I can't think of a more wonderful place to live, but at the same time, I would never want to be Japanese, because they are subject to stresses that I am not.

Color categories are on steroids in Latin America. I find that fascinating. It's very difficult for Americans, particularly African-Americans to understand or sympathize with.

My mum made a conscious decision not to teach me any Indian languages so I wouldn't talk with an accent.

I still have an accent. But when I return to Prague, I speak the language yet do not know what they are talking about.

I lived in an all-black neighborhood, followed by an all-white one, and other kids in the always called me Mexican in both neighborhoods.

I've never worked in my natural accent, having studied so hard to get rid of it when I moved to England as a child where I was bullied at school for 'talking funny.'

I always identified myself as non-Swedish. I was never discriminated against, because I looked Swedish and speak without an accent. But I had an outsider's perspective.

There are some Chicanos who don't want to be Chicanos - they want to be Mexican-American, Hispanic, or even Spanish.

I'm a half-breed. You know, I'm Puerto Rican and Norwegian from descent, and I grew up, born and raised in New York City, and I stood out amongst my friends in my community. I was very blond-haired, white, and 'Lemonhead' was the name that they gave me.