Quotes from Tamlyn Tomita

Barbara Feldon on 'Get Smart,' I wanted to be her.

I knew I looked kind of ridiculous, in my personal opinion - Tamlyn Tomita's opinion - a Vulcan in sunglasses and ears is a little too much, but I knew I just had to play it seriously.

I'm interested in Native American and African American stories, and LGBTQ stories and stories of persons of mixed heritage. These are the stories I want to see onscreen and on the pages.

Most Japanese-Americans have that legacy. The camp experience is something of a calling card between them. They say, 'So, where were you interned?'

I think you can assume because our pool of Asian-Americans actresses or actors - men and women - is pretty small, that whatever project is out there I probably have been asked to audition or I probably chose to not go in it for various aspects.

The wonderful John Avildsen was a hero and father figure who was really present in my life even though we didn't have day-to-day or year-to-year.

JACL has always been at the very forefront of making sure citizens' civil rights remain intact. They fight wholeheartedly against discrimination, prejudice and racial bias and they always provide a calm voice during turbulent times.

I remember reading one of those big history texts in elementary school, and in that whole book there was one paragraph that mentioned that Japanese-Americans were interned. I went home and asked my father, 'You weren't, were you?' He said, 'Yes, I was.' I was shocked.

If I am more fortunate than others I need to build a longer table not a taller fence.

The scope of the history of women is so underplayed and not told as often as it should be.

We are a part of this unique, complex, and complicated fabric of what it means to be an American. Americans come in all colors, creeds, and colors of the rainbow, and we can celebrate this together.

The Asian woman in Hollywood movies has usually been one of two extremes - totally submissive or totally ruthless. In either case her primary function has been decorative.

I've been really lucky and been able to live a gypsy life for a long time.

I'm much too egotistical to move outside the acting realm.

I think that is what all ethnic actors aspire to - to just play a woman who falls in love, or works as a clerk, or whatever - and then, if you want to, to have that luxury to bring in the cultural heritage.

Growing up with my mother who grew up during World War II being half Filipina, half Okinawan, and literally running around the jungles in the Philippines escaping Japanese military chasing after them - I grew up with what they deem now as trauma, generational trauma.

Not everybody's journey is easy, and it wouldn't be worthwhile if you can't see what you gained without realizing what kind of battles you've been through, what kind of scars you have.

I don't think as a society, as a nation we would ever wear swastikas openly again, but aligning ourselves with the kind of rhetoric or the the the kind of language that's being used and ascribed to certain groups of people or certain religions can be repeated.

We can serve as bridges, we who identify as hyphenated Americans, because we are all global citizens, and that's why being cognizant of our histories is important.

Our old stories happen to be your new stories. The stories that you're seeing as immigrant stories are your grandparents' stories, are your great-grandparents' stories. You just happen to be separated from them a little bit.

We are all woven of different colored threads and strengths and colors. We are all a part of something bigger, a very special part of something that continues to evolve. A more perfect union.

There is an attitude that Okinawans have about Japan itself. There is a resentment.

The only reason I even learned Japanese was to figure out what my parents were getting me for Christmas.

Aren't we all 'Star Trek' fans? That's the show that captured our imaginations after cartoons and everything!