Identity Issues Quotes

My mom is Jamaican and Chinese, and my dad is Polish and African American, so I'm pretty mixed. My nickname in high school was United Nations. I was fine with it, even though I identify as a black woman. People don't realize it hurts my feelings when someone looks at my hair or my eyes, and says, "But you're not actually black. You're black, but you're not black black, because your eyes are green." I'm like, "What? No, no, I'm definitely black." Even some of my closest friends have said that. It's been a bit touchy for me.

She hated being a nobody and like all children, adopted or not, I have had to live out some of her unlived life. We do that for our parents - we don't really have any choice.

When I was a teenager, I was the only black girl at a small, private Episcopal school, where my tuition was paid by the family my mother worked for. It was hard being the only one, and I faced a fair amount of racist and classist bullying there.

Mexican immigration poses challenges to our policies and to our identity in a way nothing else has in the past.

It's no wonder the Tory Party opposed identity cards, since so many of them struggle to find an identity at all.

I'm not especially interested in actors or their life, double, triple identities and all that.

Not only was I not white, to many people I wasn’t Asian either

This is one of the factors that also made me very much want to make this film, apart from the fact that I loved it. If the boy hadn't been Jewish and the man hadn't been Muslim, it wouldn't have made any difference to the film. I don't think it's relevant, really.

I was always typecast as a Latina.

I don't necessarily feel like I'm American. I wouldn't know what that feels like.

When you're a teenager, you don't want to look different. So being very tall can set you apart, not being able to see very well can set you apart... and you just want to fit in. We all do.

When I was a kid, I was always mistaken for a girl.

When a man is tired of life on his 21st birthday it indicates that he is rather tired of something in himself.

It's hard to tell these days what gender people are. You don't know if they're gay, if they're straight, or Bruce Jenner.

I was too Jewish for 'Flashdance.'

When we were kids, I remember we'd use lemon in our hair and go into the sun, hoping it would make us blond. Obviously, I have very dark hair and olive skin, and when I was a kid, I wanted to be blond, of course. It never worked.

I never fit in. Everyone knew my dad was Indian. I was half-Indian.

On the one hand, there is no reason that a black person needs to live a portion of his or her life being concerned about the people of color around him. On the other hand, if you don't you're crazy.

In every interview I've got to explain something about being white but still being into hip hop. It's gone way beyond the musical aspect of the business. And I'm as critical about music as everybody else is.

History is prone to mistakes in identity, and facts are not always solid things.

Identity issues are hardwired into the way I think about character - it's almost as if I can't get away from them even if I want to.

I've never been keen on open adoption. It doesn't seem to solve the main problem with adoption, which is that somebody feels she was abandoned by someone else.

Honestly, from a very young age, before I had the language, really - anywhere that I encountered binary, whether it was in clothing or in toys or in media, it always made me uncomfortable.

Australia has a thing where apparently it's fine for me to dress up as an Asian woman. No one has questioned that.

It's hard being a white rapper sometimes! When that happens you just need to battle through.