Jennifer Lee Quotes

Sweden was once a very homogenous society, but no more. For decades, people have been coming into Sweden from all over the world, and that's changed the way we cook.

I'm very optimistic because I think that the real strength of a nation like the United States comes from blending cultures. There's no way that you can close the frontiers anywhere. The borders are there to be violated permanently.

Moving to Los Angeles and working in places like Hawaii, you get to experience a true melting pot. It's really nice to be around people who are multiethnic.

The Hispanic culture is finding its way into the American culture. Places like Miami are going to be centers for that influence - places like Los Angeles and, certainly, cities in Texas.

The old men running the industry just have not got a clue. They've got to come to terms with the fact that Britain is no longer a totally white place where people ride horses, wear long frocks and drink tea. The national dish is no longer fish and chips; it's curry.

I think that Mexican-American kids live in a global world. It's not even bi-, it's multi-. You know, for those of us who grew up with different countries on our block, different nationalities, you know, we moved into multiple worlds.

I grew up in such a melting pot. There's more ethnicities in Queens than there is in any place on the planet. So you grow up knowing things about other cultures.

Britain is just a melting pot for every culture. Like a pot for every culture around the world mixed into one. Artists over here understand that more.

As the global expansion of Indian and Chinese restaurants suggests, xenophobia is directed against foreign people, not foreign cultural imports.

Multiculturalism may well be our saviour, wresting us out from the straitjacket of our history, thrusting the old continent into an environment where other ethnicities, less cynical and more positive, will play a big role in its future.

I always used to say hybrids would rule the world - people who have an understanding of many cultures and can relate to them with ease. And then along came Obama.

It is my great good luck the words I use are English words, which means I live in a very old nation of open borders; a rich, deep, multi-layered, promiscuous universe, infused with Latin, German, French, Greek, Arabic and countless other tongues.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

New York is the meeting place of the peoples, the only city where you can hardly find a typical American.

I am constantly swimming on the margin, neither 100% American, French, nor Lebanese. I am none of those. I am the result of those three. Sometimes it's an asset: no one can put you in a category. That I do not make typical Lebanese, European or American films does not bother me.

I've benefited from the best of both societies and both cultures, East and West.

L.A.'s become so cosmopolitan in its casting and also in its world view.

The diversity of America is a strength of the country, and I don't think that we use that. We don't talk about our strengths. I mean, having so many diverse people in this country from all aspects of all over the world, and we don't use that. I think we should talk about who we are - that melting pot that we've become.

Miami is one of the great cultural melting pots in the world. I love working and living here.

You can't stop what comes into a country, you can be influenced, but you can't stop it, you shouldn't, because it makes all the others interesting, we all get muddled up together, and produce something that belongs to everyone.

I love Caribbean food. It's a great melting pot of so many cultures including the Native Americans.

When I see the cultural diversity that exists today, I feel that we must defend it, and we need Europe, because otherwise we are going to live in a society with a single model, the Anglo-American model.

American food is the food of immigrants. You go back a couple of hundred years, and we were all immigrants, unless we're going to talk about Native American cuisine.

When we first moved to Scarborough, there was one Sri Lankan grocery store - now there's a take-out on every corner, each with some specialty or another. You can get what you want the way you want it, and that's very different from the way it used to be.

America has always imported history.