Quotes About Representation

I will play the characters with last names like Sanchez and Gonzalez until the day I die, but I also want to play the 'Michelle Smiths.'

Well, when I came to Hollywood, there were three names really of Latin actors, three or four names, maybe five. There was Raul Julia, Edward James Olmos, Andy Garcia, Antonio Banderas, Jimmy Smits. Now there's a lot.

Let's stop reflexively comparing Chinese writers to Chinese writers, Indian writers to Indian writers, black writers to black writers. Let's focus on the writing itself: the characters, the language, the narrative style.

I think the biggest thing is voice. Whose voice is it? Who gets to control the narrative?

We don't have a lot of narrative on TV or film, mainstream film, of brown queers. Latina queers, I can't think of that many.

For so long, the narrative - I'm speaking for Latinx - we've been invisible, the ones cleaning and taking care of your kids and doing your lawns.

The narrative needs to change. Asian-American actresses don't want to be the damsels in distress anymore. We don't want to be saved, especially by a white man.

Separation in culture and arts does nobody any favors except for the people in power. That's just it... So I feel like I'm in the business of challenging that narrative.

Women often get ignored from main narrative, especially in films.

When we get to a point when trans folks are included in the creative process, the narrative will be much more authentic. Trans actors playing trans roles is a key part of that. But some of the trans talent is not even making it into the audition room, let's be honest.

For a long time, images of black men with big lips and a round head were used to make us feel inferior, but it doesn't need to be like that, we don't need to self'loathe. We can change the narrative.

I think what 'Four More Shots' wanted to do from the word go is to create a narrative where women have the agency. None of the characters are perfect. They have their flaws.

African narratives in the West, they proliferate. I really don't care anymore. I'm more interested in the stories we tell about ourselves - how, as a writer, I find that African writers have always been the curators of our humanity on this continent.

Even though I read voraciously as a child, I never saw myself in books. Without narratives to expand my ideas of who I could be, I accepted the stories others told me about myself, stories which diminished and belittled me and people like me. I want to write against that.

There are very very few narratives in mainstream that are actually about the woman.

We are used to women's narratives being defined through the male perspective. I challenge that as a concept.

Everybody has told the story of black people in struggle except black people. The black people in the struggle haven't had the means to tell the story historically. There were a million slaves, but you see very few slave narratives. And that is intentional.

We need new narratives in culture, and to do a better job of showing more diversity.

Our constituents deserve better than narrow-minded political games.

It's definitely a great honor to be the first Asian-American to win a NASCAR Cup Series Championship. It's not something that I set out to accomplish in that way, but now that I have, I know that I hold a much bigger role in the Asian community.

As the only African American NASCAR driver in over 40 years, we have been honored to support Bubba Wallace.

I think our sport is much better off with a successful female driver in NASCAR.

When you cast someone like Natalie Portman, the character can't just be the love interest.

The concept of government of, by, and for the people isn't just a platitude. It's the moral construction of our nation. It's in our bones.