SZA Quotes

There are several different traits that make up a person's identity. For me, being Vietnamese American is the entirety of who I am.

Nobody understood what it was like to be black and Jewish... being different from everyone else just made me a lot stronger.

I really wanted to be born a woman. It all started there. A South American woman. And I'm upset that I was born a white Jewish male. I've been angry since.

I was made fun of in the Midwest - I was the only Asian in my graduating class of 200. Fortunately, I found my niche, and it was fine. But I wanted to be so white, you wouldn't believe it. I was like, 'I want to be white; I don't want to be this anymore.' But now I embrace it.

Throughout most of my life, I've tried to downplay my Chinese heritage because I wanted so much to be an American. I was the only Asian kid in my elementary school, and I longed to be like everyone else. I insisted on American food; I was embarrassed by my mother's poor English.

I'm comfortable being old... being black... being Jewish.

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

I was Catholic. You talk about a minority within a minority within a minority: a black Catholic in Savannah, GA.

Sometimes I have a very fleeting emotional dance with a fleeting phrase, like 'half-Mexican.'

A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact.

For me, whenever I would see a lot of 'black films,' I didn't feel represented in it. I didn't feel connected to the characters or the situations or the humor.

I didn't always see someone that I could relate to, that would tell me that being Black and gay is okay.

Whenever I ask myself what blackness means to me, I am struck by the parallels that exist between my predicament and that of many Western Jews, who struggle with questions of assimilation at a time when marrying outside the faith is common.

When it comes to Eurasians, are we not allowed to embrace either one of our cultures we feel more attached to? Or decide within ourselves that I am Asian and I am proud to be Asian?

I do identify as a Muslim and I do identify as a Bangladeshi girl, I identify as British, as well, and a woman and I'm a woman of colour, and why am I ashamed of that? And I used to not want to talk about it. But that is me.

I am extremely proud to be of Tongan and Samoan descent. We are really proud of our culture and, really, just being a minority.

I was bullied when I was in middle school in D.C., especially for being an Indian, because there weren't many Indian kids in school. And because of that, I tended to hide my Indian culture, but that changed by the end of high school. Now, I am 100% proud of it.

My dad's white, my mom's black, and I've struggled with being mixed race.

My kids are the reason I continue to strive for something better. They know - as kids who are Muslim, Somali, black Americans - that they've always been part of a struggle and that change isn't easy.

I know I'm different. Even when I think about an acting career, there are so many limited roles to begin with. I have the ability to be Spanish, Indian, Italian, black, Persian. What roles do I see that compliment that?

It's depressing to see blacks wanting to dive into the mainstream of American commercial life. They come from a magnificent African culture based on aesthetics, and they all want to become fort builders like the vicious people who originally enslaved them.

I think people couldn't really put me in [one race]. I wasn't Mexican, I wasn't white, I wasn't black, I wasn't Asian... I wasn't anything, and I didn't really fit into anybody's group. My dad is Mexican, and my mom is French and Danish.

Oh, my other goal was that I wanted to talk about this area and this time in history. I wanted to talk about growing up in Oakland, a white kid, from this kind of generation of broken homes and listening to hip-hop.

Your first name's white, your second is Hispanic, and your third belongs to a black. No wonder you don't know who you are.

I have never felt the pain of not being white the way I've felt it since I've been a public figure/part of this entertainment industry.