Yancy Butler Quotes

I'm very aware of my own background. I'm Irish, French, and then a little bit of everything else thrown in, ranging from German to Native American. We're talking about tiny drops of blood.

Dad's Jewish and Irish, Mom's German and Scotch. I couldn't say I was anything. My last name isn't even Downey. My dad changed his name when he wanted to get into the Army and was underage. My real name is Robert Elias. I feel like I'm still looking for a home in some way.

My mum's parents were from Ireland, my dad's mum was American-Irish.

My family came from Spain in 1725, and if people want to consider me Hispanic, they can, but I didn't advertise that way, and I'm an American first.

I think everyone wants to know why I look like this. These jokes I make about looking Chinese… My mother's from Hungary and my dad was from Canada. There's a lot of immigration in my past.

People ask where I'm from, and I say 'Los Angeles.' Then they ask again. 'Well, my parents are from Korea.'

My roots go back to West Africa, but my last name is Kirby, which is not an African name.

My mother was from West Bromwich; my grandfather was Pakistani. I had an aunt who started trying to trace the family tree and stopped when she saw what turned up.

No, my family is Russian, Georgian, via Ellis Island.

I'm three quarters Scottish, but I sound English. I don't really see British as a race.

I'm certainly proud to be Cuban American, and it's a fantastic opportunity for anybody - regardless of their ethnicity or nationality. It does carry a measure or pride to know where you're from and to know what your roots are.

I come from an immigrant culture. I'm only a couple of generations away from having been a servant girl myself.

When you ask your white friends what their cultural heritage is, they don't just say white. They give you a math equation. 'Well, I'm a third German and a fourth Irish and one-sixteenth Welsh and one-fortieth Native American for college applications.'

I think of myself as being Jewish and Irish, despite the fact that I'm English.

My mother was actually born in Ohio but raised in West Virginia where her family had a laundry. She has a West Virginian accent. My father was born in China, but he's the son of an American citizen. My paternal grandfather was born in San Francisco in 1867.

I am Dominican American. My father was born and raised in the U.S. and his heritage is German and Eastern European, and my mother hails from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

All of us are so mixed. My great-grandfather was white.

I'm a first-generation Canadian.

I'm black and Cuban, Australian and Irish, and like most people in America, I'm someone whose roots come from somewhere else. I'm a mixed race, first-generation American.

I always identified myself as non-Swedish. I was never discriminated against, because I looked Swedish and speak without an accent. But I had an outsider's perspective.

I have a sense that many Americans, especially those like me with European or foreign parents, feel they have to invent their families just as they have to invent themselves.

The old joke in my family is that the last person who isn't from New York was coming from Russia.

To my astonishment, everything that I had assumed was now questioned by the findings. What started off as a search for identity that appeared to be purely Scottish in origin ended up as a discovery of my migrant roots - indeed an understanding that almost all of our families, at some stage, have been migrants - and my European roots.

The experience of being a mixed person is all over the place - one of my best friends is Chinese and Italian; my other best friend is Lebanese and Trinidadian. The mix of heritage, culture or identity is something that our country is built on.

My mother is Brazilian, and her grandfather was Italian.