M.I.A. Quotes

As a child, I grew up the son of German immigrant parents, so I grew up being teased and called 'Fritz' at school. When I married my wife and went to live in Vienna, I was teased for being a Brit.

Hispanics who get on government programs are doing only a little better than they were in the old country.

As a young boy in a new country, you had to make new friends, and that was really difficult.

When I arrived in the U.S., I knew little English and didn't have any friends. The neighborhood and school kids were so welcoming. They made me feel at home very quickly.

It took me a year to really learn the American lingo. I really feel for people who are coming here and don't speak English at all. It must be hell.

I board with a poor Scotchman: his wife can talk scarce any English.

I came here from Romania when I was 12 years old. I had an accent. High school was tough a little bit for a few years. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be good-looking. I wanted to be popular. I spent a lot of time thinking, 'What are these people going to think of me?'

When I came to America in 1978, I was a huge sports fan - the problem was, my sport was cricket. Shockingly enough, no one wanted to talk cricket with me!

I came to Los Angeles for the first time in 1994. I spoke no English. I only knew how to say two sentences: 'How are you?' and 'I want to work with Johnny Depp.'

I want to deal with somebody who comes from another country to the United States and has a family that comes. I don't care if it's a black family from Jamaica or a Hispanic family from Mexico. These issues need to be dealt with, but they need to be dealt with in the entertaining way.

As to other foreigners it is thought better to discourage their settling together in large masses, wherein, as in our German settlements, they preserve for a long time their own languages, habits, and principles of government, and that they should distribute themselves sparsely among the natives for quicker amalgamation.

If you spend your time trying to learn English, you fall behind in your course content… I know because when I came here I could not speak English. So that was the idea of Congress when we passed bi-lingual education. But that was to only go on for a short time—one and one half years. But many of the bi-lingual education programs of today go on for year after year and they are destructive because the primary objective is to learn English.

My whole family has been having trouble with immigrants ever since we came to this country.

When I first came to this country I could not speak English. Now I get paid to write it.

I was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States with my family when I was 4. I spent most of my childhood in Chicago. My elementary school had no program in English as a second language, so I was placed in a class for students with speech impediments.

I started acting when I was really young. I came to the States and didn't know anyone, and I spoke with a weird Irish accent.

As an immigrant, I learned by watching other people.

I - my experience was really no different from any other immigrant that came to this country. It was rough.

When I moved to Bombay, it was very harsh. I was nothing like what I am today. I couldn't speak a word of English. In England, people might be very understanding about that, but in Bombay, they're not very forgiving. 'If you don't speak English, how do you expect to work in Hindi films?'

When I reached America, there was so much space and colour. The possibilities seemed endless. At least that's how I felt at 18. But of course, I didn't have to take the usual immigrant route of battling to find a job and a home in a strange country. I could play tennis. I spoke the language, and I was making money. It was easy, really.

Never far from my thoughts are memories of being a little girl in Queens, N.Y., our family of five crowded in a small one-bedroom apartment, struggling to learn English and survive a new life in a new country, America. We humbly and gratefully still recall the kindnesses shown by strangers and neighbors who became new friends.

Since I was born and raised in Brazil, the steps to becoming an entrepreneur in the United States have not always been easy.

I remember when I first came to America, nobody had a clue what a black Englishman was. I was either South African or Australian to them.

When you go to a new country, you don't have the same facilities as you had in the one before. You adapt very quickly to the circumstances.

When I moved to Europe 12 years ago, my biggest concern was whether I'd ever speak decent French. Practically every American I knew came to visit, many saying they dreamed of living here, too.