Shiva Ayyadurai Quotes

I knew I had to write about Canada. I just could not find in literature any examples of the immigrant experience that I've had.

I am the child of Indian immigrants, both of whom have Ph.D.s and are college professors, and I'm an actor in Hollywood.

I went to MIT. I do rocket science. Being a mom is much harder.

This is Massachusetts, we're supposed to be one of the tech centers of the world. We have MIT within walking distance of the state house.

Asian American success is often presented as something of a horror - robotic, unfeeling machines psychotically hellbent on excelling, products of abusive tiger parenting who care only about test scores and perfection, driven to succeed without even knowing why.

Growing up in the U.S. as an Indian wasn't easy.

And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds "joy luck" is not a word, it does not exist. They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.

Culturally, I found myself in a very weird situation: you were the person that had made that journey to the West, and then you were going back to comment on something, and then suddenly you were questioned and told, "You can't touch that now because you're a pop star."

Because I cannot write my native language and have no native home anymore, and am amazed by that horrible homelessness of all French-Canadian s abroad in America.

In the culture of America, in a free culture, you get what you celebrate. And in this culture, we have two obsessions, become a group that becomes a group that celebrates sports heroes and entertainment heroes. There's no room left for kids to see even a little bit of the opportunities to really, really get excited about becoming an inventor, an engineer, or a scientist, a problem solver.

I realized that I might be a lonely Indian boy, but I was not alone in the loneliness. There were millions of other Americans who had left their birthplaces in search of a dream. (217)

My American walking shoes are new, and my Oriental eyes are old.

Ed Koch once said that New York City is where immigrants come to audition for America. That's what happened to my parents; that's what happened to me.

Like many others, I have deep misgivings about the state of education in the United States. Too many of our students fail to graduate from high school with the basic skills they will need to succeed in the 21st Century economy, much less prepared for the rigors of college and career. Although our top universities continue to rank among the best in the world, too few American students are pursuing degrees in science and technology. Compounding this problem is our failure to provide sufficient training for those already in the workforce.

Often when you're an immigrant writing in English, people think it's primarily a commercial choice. But for many of us, it's a choice that rises out of the circumstances of our lives. These are the tools I have at my disposal, based on my experiences. It's a constant debate, not just in my community but in other communities as well. Where do you belong? You're kind of one of us, but you now write in a different language.

We were German-Americans in a British colony, so we were outsiders.

I’m a black woman who is from Central Falls, Rhode Island. I’m dark skinned. I’m quirky. I’m shy. I’m strong. I’m guarded. I’m weak at times. I’m sensual. I’m not overtly sexual. I am so many things in so many ways and I will never see myself on screen. And the reason I will never see myself up on screen is because that does not translate with being black.

As soon as I came to L.A., I was told that I was exotic. I'd think, But I'm from Miami! I'm as American as a cheeseburger!

Every immigrant family, it seems, has someone who does not belong in the new country they have come to. It feels like permanent exile to that one brother or wife who cannot stand a silent fate in Boston or London or Melbourne. I’ve met many who remain haunted by the persistent ghost of an earlier place.

My parents left Iran in 1979 and moved to France and then moved to the U.S. My brother was born in France and I was born in New York. I think my parents left France because they felt their kids would never be accepted by French culture. Here they thought we could feel American - that we could feel safe in that way - which was important to them, given what their experiences were in Iran. They used to joke about how I could be president because I was the only one born in America.

Be not merely a man of letters! Let literature be an honorable augmentations to your arms, not constitute the coat or fill the escutcheon!

You come to the United States not knowing what to expect. Then all your worst prejudices are confirmed.

I've gone into auditions and I think they have an assumption about me when they see my photo and then I open my mouth and they say, 'Where exactly are you from? And you were born in Ethiopia? But you're Irish, but you also kind of sound English. That's really strange.' They want to put you in a box in LA, that's how they tend to do it there, so if you don't fit in that box, it makes it more difficult.

The Vietnam War was taking place, which was raising all sorts of questions in the United States, and it was forcing Asian-Americans to stop thinking of themselves as model minorities and to identify themselves more with world revolution, which was very important in my development.

Saw myself naked in front of a mirror a couple days ago - that's not the joke, that's what we called the setup. I saw myself naked, and I said, 'Holy cow, I'm 'The White Man.' I've heard a lot of bad things about you, cracka.