Russell Peters Quotes

I'm about as Chinese as Herbert Hoover.

I think of myself as being Jewish and Irish, despite the fact that I'm English.

I don't consider myself an Iranian comedian; I consider myself a comedian who happens to be of Iranian descent.

I come from an immigrant family, but I know no other nationality apart from British.

I am not an African. I am an American.

I feel Anglo-American.

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.

The fallacies of the Melting Pot theory have also become obvious. Years before the war [WWI] it had become increasingly apparent that the Melting Pot was no longer successfully performing its function; that the American population was losing its homogeneous character; that various nationalities of recent immigrants were forming more and more compact racial "blocs," each bloc tenaciously maintaining its own racial character, customs, and traditions.

We can't restore our civilization with someome else's babies.

It was very hard for me, for most of my life, to feel American, or call myself American, and that is a very complicated topic that would require a very long conversation.

I discovered I was an Asian American when I arrived in the U.S. I didn't identify as that before I came here. People started calling me that, and I started being treated in a specific way.

I may be brown on the outside, but on the inside, I'm all American.

I grew up in America - I was born and raised in Texas. I might look different, but at the same time, I'm pretty American.

I'm certainly proud to be Cuban American, and it's a fantastic opportunity for anybody - regardless of their ethnicity or nationality. It does carry a measure or pride to know where you're from and to know what your roots are.

Jews have had to carry around their own sense of self in a carpet bag and I think perhaps too much emphasis might be being put on nationality and on the other hand patriotism, that sort of thing.

It's a complicated issue, but I define myself as an American, primarily.

I think there is a problem in France that anyone who is not European, you want to know where they come from and why do they come from somewhere or why they speak English or why they are human. That's the big barrier for all of us that are coming from some far, far away countries. But at the end of the day, we are all artists.

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

It's strange; when I was younger and people would ask, 'Where are you from?', I'd say, 'West Africa', which was odd because I'm obviously not African, but it was my home.

I'm black and Cuban, Australian and Irish, and like most people in America, I'm someone whose roots come from somewhere else. I'm a mixed race, first-generation American.

Nationality is a very curious thing. The blood is Scots and the temperament is Scots, but I am, in fact, 100% American.

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

I'd work to make it hip again to spend time in our fabled and fabulous land. But with a Puerto Rican father and a Jewish mother, I would probably be better suited as mayor of New York.

I discovered that there is Indian blood in my ancestry on my father's side - a fact that had not been talked about in my family. No wonder I've often been cast in exotic roles - Indian princesses, Russian revolutionaries, Algerians, Gypsies and Greeks.

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.