Quotes About Diversity

Il mediterraneo non è solo geografia. Non è solo storia. Ma è più di una semplice appartenenza.

I was a woman in a man's world. I was a Democrat in a Republican administration. I was an intellectual in a world of bureaucrats. I talked differently. This may have made me a bit like an ink blot.

So here I was in San Francisco with a degree, and I thought it would make a difference. The first job I applied for was at American Insurance Company. I expected maybe a clerical job, but there were none there—those jobs weren't open for Oriental people at that time. Then I tried a ladies' apparel shop as a stock girl. That wasn't even open to me. Oh, they don't tell you right out to your face—but you have that feeling.

My professor, he reminded us of Kant: to think by oneself, to think in accordance with oneself. Today they say that's logocentric, not politically correct. Streams must flow in the right direction so that they may converge. Why all this cultural bustling? Just to assure oneself that everyone is speaking of the same thing. Of what? Of Otherness.

If you meet a woman in a burqa, she can't reply to your smile. It's a denial of identity.

As Rebeca reveals what scraps of story she does have to Luca, he starts to understand that this is the one thing all migrants have in common, this is the solidarity that exists among them, though they all come from different places and different circumstances, some urban, some rural, some middle-class, some poor, some well educated, some illiterate, Salvadoran, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Indian, each of them carries some story of suffering on top of that train and into el norte beyond.

Lydia's English is a help, but there are many different languages in el norte. There are codes Lydia hasn't yet learned to decipher, subtle differences between words that mean almost, but not quite the same thing: migrant, immigrant, illegal alien. She learns that there are flags that people use here, and those flags may be a warning or a welcome. She is learning.

From the Author's Note: In my conversations with Mexican people, I seldom heard the word American used to describe a citizen of this country – instead they use a word we don't even have in English estadounidense, United States-ian.

At worst, we perceive them as an invading mob of resource-draining criminals, and, at best, a sort of helpless, impoverished, faceless brown mass, clamoring for help at our doorstep. We seldom think of them as our fellow human beings.

She learns that there are flags people use here, and those flags may be a warning or a welcome.

On the trains, a uniform seldom represents what it purports to represent.

At worst, we perceive them as an invading mob of resource-draining criminals, and, at best, a sort of helpless, impoverished, faceless brown mass, clamoring for help at our doorstep. We seldom think of them as our fellow human beings. People with the agency to make their own decisions, people who can contribute to their own bright futures, and to ours, as so many generations of oft-reviled immigrants have done before them.

you. Because people are complex

this is the one thing all migrants have in common, this is the solidarity that exists among them, though they all come from different places and different circumstances, some urban, some rural, some middle-class, some poor, some well educated, some illiterate, Salvadoran, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Indian, each of them carries some story of suffering on top of that train and into el norte beyond.

San Pedro Sula: second-largest city in Honduras, a million and a half people, murder capital of the world. Out loud, he says, "Ah, you are Honduran." "No," Rebeca corrects him. "Ch'orti'." Luca makes his face into a question. "Indian," she explains. "My people are Ch'orti'." Luca nods, even though he doesn't really understand the difference.

Les spécialistes reconnaissent de six à onze espèces d'Hominines antérieures à l'homme.

Les estimations du nombre d'individus ancestraux nécessaires pour rendre compte de toute la variabilité génétique actuelle tournent autour de 15 000 individus en tout et pour tout... qui seraient à l'origine des six milliards et demi d'hommes actuels.

We are all Americans

A chic type, a rough type, an odd type - but never a stereotype

It's for my God, the god of dogs, and snakes and dust mites and albino bears and Siamese twins, the god of stars and starships and other dimensions, the god who loves everyone and makes everything marvelous.

Betty's accent was everything Cent's wasn't-deep and New England. Her ending R sounds were more like an H, and her word choices…they'd all but needed dictionaries to understand each other when they'd met the year before.

I do not worship their devil. Nor do I worship their other gods--Jesus, Jehovah, the Holy Spirit--but I respect them, for all gods are One. I worship the Great Mother, the one many call Diana, whose secret name the inquisitors shall never know. If this makes me a witch by their definition--very well then, I am a witch, just as surely as they are Christians and murderers.

People are like animals. Some are happiest penned in, some need to roam free. You go to recognize what's in her nature and accept it.

I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together.