Cristela Alonzo Quotes

Our parents decided not to teach us Chinese. It was an era when they felt we would be better off if we didn't have that complication.

We moved to Gambia from Sweden when I was six years old because my dad was from there. It was definitely a culture shock.

II grew up in Australia, but I'm not from there originally. Like, my dad's South American, so I know what that's like to grow up in a culture that's not your own.

It's interesting: I think, as a Latino actor, the biggest challenge is being called 'Latino' because immediately, the world has a perception of what that means.

When you grow up as a minority in a majority culture, a lot of times, you're just trying to fit in.

I'm not British. I'm not American. I'm not French. Whatever thing they practise, that is their business. I am an African. I am Rwandese.

Other people's traditions look charming and decorative and exotic. They're nice places to visit on holiday, but you wouldn't want to live with one.

I'm American; I was born and raised in America, and I don't want to fake who I am to fit a stereotype.

Americans have a wonderful way of just butchering everyone's names.

Growing up as Chinese-American, as someone who experienced racism, questions of 'otherness' are always at the forefront of my mind.

I think that's something that we as black people in this country have been robbed of. I compare it to my brother's wife, who is Hispanic. She was born in America but her parents are from Honduras. She speaks Spanish. She knows the culture. But most black people, we were robbed of that. We don't know our heritage.

I was bullied because I have this thick Nigerian accent.

In America, they don't need to look outside their country for anything, so they definitely don't need to look elsewhere for rappers with weird accents that they have to get accustomed to, which is like homework to them.

I am a chilled-out person. But if people call me by my name, I hope they pronounce it right. I get called Baron, sometimes Varun, and my surname is often changed to Sobit.

For the multiculturist/diversity crowd, culture, ideas, customs, arts and skills are a matter of racial membership where one has no more control over his culture than his race. That's a racist idea, but it's politically correct racism. It says that one's convictions, character and values are not determined by personal judgment and choices but genetically determined. In other words, as yesteryear's racists held: race determines identity.

Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way ('Ni-klows Wirt'), Americans invariably mangle it into 'Nick-les Worth'. This is to say that Europeans call me by name, but Americans call me by value.

I'd like to go to New Society Village someday and find out exactly how far I can walk before people stop talking like me.

Never mind what my name is,” the man said. “No one can pronounce it anyway. Just call me Sir.

I always felt the Jewish part more. In fact, growing up I felt like a Jew among WASPs. My brother is more decidedly Waspy.

Human beings are many-layered creatures, and do not succumb to the hegemony of others as easily as historians and politicians sometimes imply. Those Welsh, Scottish and Anglo-Irish individuals who became part of the British Establishment in this period did not in the main sell out in the sense of becoming Anglicised look-alikes. Instead, they became British in a new and intensely profitable fashion, while remaining in their own minds and behavior Welsh, or Scottish, or Irish aswell.

I have carried my Jamaican Flag with pride around the world to share my culture and experience with others because I seek Balance which is what I believe life is all about.

At about the age of seven … I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather: how lovely it was that the sun had come out. This despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria; we didn’t have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to.

When people stop some film from being shot or burn a book, it's not just that they are saying, this is against Indian culture. They are also saying, you Westernized, elite, English-speaking people are having too much of a good time. It's a very interesting phenomenon.

I was born in Japan and raised in Japan, but those are the only things that make me Japanese, I've grown up reading books from all over.

I love how New York is so multicultural. I wish I was ethnic, I'm nothing. Because if you're Hispanic and you get angry, people are like, 'He's got a Latin temper!' If you're a white guy and you get angry, people are like, 'That guy's a jerk.'