Michael Emerson Quotes

I feel like I come from a smaller off shoot of black people because I am mixed. People say I'm African American but that doesn't include the other half of me.

I'm Jewish, so it's like I'm not totally white. I'm, like, gray.

I think, in the United States, we talk about race as a black and white issue... We're generally talking about it as if it's a binary equation whereas, in fact, there's more than two races and, in fact, those races blend together. There are a lot of different ways that people identify.

My mom is a white Jewish lady, and my dad is black. The cultures never seemed separate - I had a lot of mixed friends. When I was young, I identified with being Jewish, but I embraced my dad's side, too.

If you're of multiple races, you have a different challenge, a unique challenge of embracing all of who you are but still finding a way to identify yourself and I think that's often hard for us to do.

My theory is because I'm Asian and white I sort of look like the future. I'm the melting pot.

When you're biracial, you can feel like you're fully neither, not fully both. But I won't strip away my heritage for anyone's comfort.

I always felt culturally adrift as a child because I'm mixed race. I've had to deal with that since I was little. Who am I? What makeup do I have? What are the black and the white?

I felt like I was the odd one out growing up in the province because I was half-Filipino and half-German, so I wasn't full-blooded Filipina and, of course, I was the tallest in my class and I felt kind of awkward.

My husband is half Japanese and half white European-American, and our son is half Korean, quarter Japanese, and a quarter white European-American.

I am Indian-American, but I often play ethnically ambiguous roles.

I have always, or for the most part, identified myself as a biracial person. Much to the chagrin of a lot of African-American people that I meet, because it's almost like there's a betrayal, an intrinsic betrayal: "Don't do that, brotha, we need you. We need you here, in this fold."

I'm lucky because I have so many clashing cultural, racial things going on: black, Jewish, Irish, Portuguese, Cherokee. I can float and be part of any community I want. The thing is, I do identify with being black, and if people don't identify me that way that's their issue. I’m happy to challenge people's understanding of what it looks like to be biracial, because guess what? In the next 50 years, people will start looking more and more like me.

The Census Bureau is thinking of creating a new category because so many kids don't know how to describe themselves using the existing categories. I call these kids the "Keanu Reeves Generation," after the actor who has a Hawaiian father and a Welsh mother.

Growing up,I came up with this name: I'ma Cablinasian.

Ultimately all hominids came from Africa, and therefore everyone in America should simply check the box next to 'African-American.' My maternal grandmother was German and my maternal grandfather was Greek. The next time I fill out one of those forms I am going to check 'Other' and write in the truth about my racial and cultural heritage: 'African-Greek-German-American.' And proud of it.

I do not believe in race as such. Race is a fraud. All modern people are the conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains.

To this day it is all but impossible for me to actually stop and think of my parents as white and black or to think of myself, therefore, as half and half.

There is this myth, that America is a melting pot, but what happens in assimilation is that we end up deliberately choosing the American things - hot dogs and apple pie - and ignoring the Chinese offerings.

I grew up on the coast of England in the '70s. My dad is white from Cornwall, and my mom is black from Zimbabwe. Even the idea of us as a family was challenging to most people.

Being biracial is so much a part of who I am that it's almost, 'Let it go already.' It's intrinsic to me. I think a lot of my fans relate to me because they felt different.

When you're biracial, people sort of make you gray - you're not black, you're not white, you're sort of gray; you're 'other.' And I'm fortunate to have parents that were strong enough to say, 'You're not 'other.' You're special.'

People are like, 'Was it hard growing up mixed?' 'Did you not fit in?' and I'm like, 'No? What? That's the dumbest question ever.'

There's a misconception that I can't relate to the quote-unquote 'Asian-American experience' because I didn't grow up with an Asian mom and dad. And that's just not true. I am Asian American, and so playing a girl who is half Korean, half white, but her white dad tried really hard to connect with her mom's heritage - that's very familiar to me.

I feel more Asian than anything.