Heritage Connection Quotes

As little boys, my brother and I used to spend hours with my grandmother, asking her about the details of how she came to America. She could only give us a smattering of details, but they all found their way into our collective imagination, eventually becoming a part of our own cultural identity and connection to the past.

Although I didn't spend much time in New Zealand at all, I feel really privileged to have that Maori blood and link to my past. I got my tattoo out of respect to that.

I think a lot of people, even if you're not Asian, you go to your place of origin where your family comes from, and you get this sense of, 'Wow - people look like me and talk like me and treat me like their son in the stores and like a cousin in the restaurants.'

We speak Turkish at home, and I can speak the language. I have a lot of family there - I try to fly to Turkey once a year when I have holidays.

I'm very much Israeli and American; I never was tempted to change my name. Some people suggested I should have a different name, and I said absolutely not. That's the name I inherited, and it's meaningful: Israel is on every cake that I present.

My great grandparents are Scottish, and I have this very tenuous connection which I try and bump up whenever I can, because I'd much rather be Scottish than English.

Jews who long have drifted from the faith of their fathers... are stirred in their inmost parts when the old, familiar Passover sounds chance to fall upon their ears.

The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

I have Asian friends - second generation - and I am the worst in terms of being in touch with my heritage.

I'm really into reading books right now about India. You reach a certain age where you start missing your home history.

My skin - very Mexican, very Oaxaquenan, and very human, from the color of my land and the diversity of its colors.

We clasp the hands of those who go before us.

I brought a Border Collie back home to Vancouver from Wales - where some of my ancestors are from - and needed to challenge him in other ways than just being my pet. So I investigated sheep herding and took a few lessons, and decided I was probably learning more than my dog!

People in Finland have also adopted me because of my dad, and that's great, but it's the one language I can't speak.