Quotes About Heritage

A lot of people say I'm not Mexican because I don't speak a lot of Spanish or am there a lot, but the United States is where it's at. Mexico's in my blood, in my DNA. It's in my kids' DNA.

My sister loved country music. My mother loved Spanish music. And my dad was into big band music and jazz.

Not every one knows of the connection between the Indian and the Spanish music, but if they do they seem to have a real reverence for that connection. A love point in music.

I've got Spanish grandparents and I've got a connection with Spain. But I consider myself English and I want to play for England.

My parents raised my brother and me with two cultures, American and Spanish, and I feel a true sense of belonging to both.

My father describes himself as a Pole of Lithuanian descent. At Southampton University, he read aeronautical engineering and then the family moved to Hong Kong - this was before I was born - where he designed aeroplanes. Back in the U.K., he worked as a civil engineer, although every spare minute was spent researching his family's history.

To be at the forefront of something that can spark a major change as far as kids going to an HBCU and learning about our history and learning about our culture and learning about our ancestors, where we came from - that's a big thing, that's a really big thing.

My family is from the south of Italy in this little place called Calabria. It's a big part of my family, the Italian culture. I grew up around it. My parents speak Italian, and I speak Italian.

My buildings will be my legacy... they will speak for me long after I'm gone.

I come from a middle-class South Indian family, and we speak Tulu at home. I never led a lavish life, and I have my feet on the ground.

Most of my family doesn't speak English. It's so important for the baby. He's going to know all his American roots, but he also needs to know about his Brazilian side.

My grandfather died before I was born, so I never had the chance to speak with him about his father. But I learned about him from books.

I'm a Persian Jew, and we don't speak Hebrew.

I am a south Indian, so I speak Tamil.

I would love to be able to speak my own language and maybe have an interview in Irish, maybe after my fights.

I kick myself that I don't speak Irish. Ah, man, I'd love to. I am going to learn.

I was born in Spain, I know the culture there, and lived most of my life there, but I have Malian origins too. For me it's a beautiful thing that I can have both. I can be in both countries, speak the language, blend in in two cultures.

I was born in Brooklyn and raised in Pittsburgh. I've never been to Iran, I don't speak the language, and, probably most important of all, my Iranian father left home when I was nine months old. That's the extent of my connection to Iran.

I realized how Latina I was, and then also, at the same time, how not Latina enough I was, because I'm born and raised in Los Angeles. I speak Spanish, but I don't speak perfect Spanish, not like a native speaker.

I had grandparents who were native Irish speakers, and also, two of the four grandparents were illiterate.

When my dad went to college to get his master's from Loyola, he was playing Debussy and Chopin and Beethoven. But he played all that New Orleans stuff, too. I would go with my dad to gigs, pick up the piano and the speakers, and I would be like his roadie.

In 2009, I edited, under the aegis of the Library of America, an anthology called 'Becoming Americans: Immigrants Tell Their Stories from Jamestown to Today.' It featured immigrants from different backgrounds, from black slaves like Phillis Wheatley to Yiddish-language speakers like Henry Roth.

Speaking as a mixed-race woman, there aren't many historical stories about people like me.

I come from Brazil, which is a Portuguese speaking part of the continent.