Quotes About Heritage

Michael still thought of Havana as home, because he was born there. And he had been Miguel Arroya there. Here, he was Michael.

This is a grave. There is no honor here in broken tools and old bones, only in the deeds of our children.

My Dad was from Liverpool, and he picked it up in the army. He'd often come out with this stuff.

I'm British by heritage, American by God's grace, and Canadian by divine intervention.

The neighborhood-towns were part of larger ethnic states. To the north of the Loop was Germany. To the northwest was Poland. To the west were Italy and Israel. To the southwest were Bohemia and Lithuania. And to the south was ireland... you could always tell, even with your eyes closed, which state you were in by the odors of the food stores and the open kitchen windows, the sound of the foreign or familiar language, and by whether a stranger hit you in the head with a rock.

We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't understand our name at all, we don't know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.

We have memorized America, how it was born and who we have been and where. In ceremonies and silence we say the words, telling the stories, singing the old songs. We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.

It has been said ever since that the Brankoviches of Erdély count in Tzintzar, lie in Walachian, are silent in Greek, sing hymns in Russian, are cleverest in Turkish and speak their mother tongue --Serbian-- only when they intend to kill.

Humor was not important only for me, humor was important for this nation for centuries, to survive, you know.

There was more to being something than just blood.

the stories of Koreans in Japan should be told somehow when so much of their lives had been despised, denied, and erased.

And Mozasu? He is Baek Isak's son? He doesn't look like me." Sunja

Every year, she cleaned the graves of her siblings; her

There was always talk of Koreans going back home, but in a way, all of them had lost the home in their minds for good.

I thought that no matter how many hills and brooks you crossed, the whole world was Korea and everyone in it was Korean.

being Korean was just another horrible encumbrance, much like being poor or having a shameful family you could not cast off

I thought that no matter how many hills and brooks you crossed, the whole world was Korea and everyone in it was Korean. —Park Wan-suh

Anyway, you can be polite about it, but that's fucked up. I'm Japanese but I'm not stupid. I lived in America and Europe for a long time; it's crazy what the Japanese have done to the Koreans and the Chinese who were born here. It's fucking bonkers; you people should have a revolution. You don't protest enough. You and your dad were born here, right?

Japan will never change. It will never ever integrate gaijin...But it's not just you. Japan will never take people like my mother back into society again; it will never take back people like me. And we're Japanese

He had visited South Korea with his father several times, and everyone there always treated them like they were Japanese. It was no homecoming;

In a way, Solomon was Japanese, too, even if the Japanese didn't think so. Phoebe couldn't see this. There was more to being something than just blood.

My dad's whole family is in Madras and I was born in America so we didn't have that big Indian community. I don't really have anything interesting to say about it. When I talk about it people are like, 'meh, let's talk about something else.'

Ara és l'hora de dir, ara és l'hora de recordar que el poble persisteix en tots nosaltres, en cada un de nosaltres, i que tot allò que hem fet i tot allò que hem desitjat és l'essència mateixa del poble indestructible.

We come from long lines of people destined never to meet.