Quotes About Belonging

In our efforts to belong in America, we act grateful, as if we've been given a second chance at life. But our shared root is not the opportunity this nation has given us but how the capitalist accumulation of white supremacy has enriched itself off the blood of our countries. We cannot forget this.

Like the stutterer who pronounces their words flawlessly through song, the immigrant writes their English beautifully through poetry.

the curse of anyone nonwhite is that you are so busy arguing what you're not that you never arrive at what you are.

Who is us? What is us? Is there even such a concept as an Asian American consciousness?

identity politics

Cathy Park Hong

In the popular imagination, Asian Americans inhabit a vague purgatorial status: not white enough nor black enough; distrusted by African Americans, ignored by whites, unless we're being used by whites to keep the black man down.

The writer Jeff Chang writes that "I want to love us" but he says that he can't bring himself to do that because he doesn't know who "us" is. I share that uncertainty. Who is us? What is us? Is there even such a concept as an Asian American consciousness?

not (the curse of anyone nonwhite is that you are so busy arguing what you're not that you never arrive at what you are).

I thought of Asians throughout history being dragged against their will, driven or chased out of their native homes, out of her adopted homes, out of their native country, out of their adopted country: ejected, evicted, exiled.

You know, I don't think she ever lost her shit around her white friends." "Yeah, well," Erin said ruefully, "we were family.

I thought of Asians throughout history being dragged against their will, driven or chased out of their native homes, out of their adopted homes, out of their native country, out of their adopted country: ejected, evicted, exiled.

I've learned that home isn't a place, it's a feeling.

We built that Wendy House our own selves, for Wendy! And you can't keep a Wendy out of her own Wendy House!

To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life.

Remember the first time you went to a show and saw your favorite band. You wore their shirt, and sang every word. You didn't know anything about scene politics, haircuts, or what was cool. All you knew was that this music made you feel different from anyone you shared a locker with. Someone finally understood you. This is what music is about.

Sometimes you gotta create what you want to be a part of.

The point of an organi family is to release the children from the disadvantages of being extensions of their parents so that they can belong primarily to themselves. They may accept the services that adults perform for them naturally without establishing dependencies.

I'm crazy in love with you, Ryan. It's fireworks and Fourth of July. I want...I want to stay. I want to stay here.

When we were lying helpless on the floor, he saw us. When we were crying from breathing the toxic air of this world, he took pity on us. When we were helplessly wallowing about in the blood and water of our birth, crying out for food, for care, he saw us, nodded and reached toward us. When we could have been left to die, when we could have been sold as slaves, the Father said, "Mine!" He took us in his arms and claimed us.

America is my country, and Paris is my home town.

Con la Sicilia i miei rapporti sono di qualità schizofrenica. E tuttavia, più mi sforzo di sbucciarmi di dosso la pelle indigena e di promuovermi "totus europeus", più tendo a raccogliermi e ricucirmi dentro la mia terra e la mia civiltà. Intervista di Leonardo Sciascia 1981

La patria moderna dev'essere abbastanza grande, ma non tanto che la comunione d'interessi non vi si possa trovare, come chi ci volesse dare per patria l'Europa. La propria nazione con i suoi confini segnati dalla natura, è la società che ci conviene. E conchiudo che senza amor nazionale non si dà virtù grande.

These days it's cool to be ethnic and to be different, but when I was a kid, it was not cool - at all. My friends would come over and my mom would make crepes with eggs, stuffed with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and spinach. And they'd be like, 'What is this?'