Ethnic Influence Quotes

I have my mother who is an Irish-Italian, and my father who is African, so I have the taste buds of an Italian and the spice of an African.

If Latinos stay at home, we determine the outcome of an election.

I grew up around so many different people in so many different neighborhoods, but the Latino heritage, the neighborhoods, and people have always been a part of my life, ever since I was a kid.

Most of my friends wonder why I get these roles that are so masculine and tough. I think it's my Polish temperament that comes up.

Would America have been America without her Negro people?

Cajuns eat Italian on Sundays.

Australia without the Irish would be unthinkable... unimaginable... unspeakable.

I'm interested in why people talk like they do. Like Boston Irish. It's so laid back. Why is that?

My humour and my work ethic definitely come from my Scottish side, and I have to say the sense of humour doesn't really translate when I'm in America.

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.

I come from the Bronx, so I was exposed to every type of music you can think of.

I bring a lot of passion to my life and my politics - I don't mind saying there is a very strong Latin component to it.

I think that it's important that we understand the importance of the Hispanic vote in America.

In contrast to New Orleans, there was only minimal looting after the horrendous 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan - because, when you get down to it, Japanese aren't blacks.

There is a very definite Russian heart in me; that never dies. I think you're born and you live your life with it and you die with it. I'm very much an American - my books tend to be about American things, but inside there's that sort of tortured, long-suffering, aching, constantly analysing Russian soul underneath the happy American exterior.

The Chinese are 3 percent of the population in Indonesia, a larger population in Malaysia; they're about 10 percent of the population in Thailand. But they are extremely economically dominant throughout Southeast Asia.