Quotes About Inclusion

My parents speak with an accent. A lot of people that I know speak with an accent. I have friends who speak with an accent. Accents in a vacuum aren't a problem; it's how you portray those characters and how well they're served in a script.

When I was growing up as a young lesbian in the '50s, I looked in vain for books about my people. I did find some paperbacks with lurid covers in the local bus station, but they ended with the gay character's committing suicide, dying in a car crash, being sent to a mental hospital, or 'turning' heterosexual.

There are different types of experiences, and all of them are valid, and all of them deserve to be portrayed in a real way.

Having trans people play trans roles show that we are valid in our identities, and we exist.

There was a time when I desperately wanted to be part of a Yash Chopra film, not because he was a great director, but because I was an outsider and I wanted that validation of being accepted in the film industry.

I think any time you allow someone to see themselves reflected in another person on screen, there's validation there. It's hard to feel strong and sure of yourself when you're 15, but if you can turn on your television or computer and see someone who makes you feel like, 'I can be that strong...' there's validation there.

You search for images and stories and movies and music from people that look like you and sound like you and speak like you because you want to feel like, 'Oh, if they can do it, so can I.' There's a little bit of that need for validation, especially when you're younger and trying to look to someone to look up to.

We all need somebody to say, 'I love you. I see you. And I'm not going to give up on you.' Everybody has validity. Everybody has a purpose.

Growing up, I was constantly labeled an 'oreo' by my black peers because of my proper speech and 'valley girl accent.'

Sequoia is a firm that a lot of people across tech and the Valley look to, and I think they're setting an important example in adding new diversity to their team.

In the '80s, society created a caricature of what a hacker or a programmer looked like: a guy wearing a hoodie, drinking energy drinks, sitting in a basement somewhere coding. Today, programmers look like the men we see in the show 'Silicon Valley' on HBO. If you look at the message girls are getting, it's saying, 'This is not for you.'

Two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia.

Minorities often feel like they are on the outside looking in when it comes to the Valley and tech start-ups in general.

The problem is Silicon Valley, which is an amazing ecosystem, also ends up being an amazing bubble, with white guys talking to white guys about white-guy problems. So it's great, but you kind of miss a lot of things around you.

From the outside, there's a perception Silicon Valley is full of really young, geeky guys. The reality is there are lots of different types of people there.

The truth is, Silicon Valley doesn't like people who are older, and they're not that much of a friend of the woman. I certainly was a woman, and I was older.

One goal for Silicon Valley must be to redouble our collective efforts to make sure people of all backgrounds are aware of opportunities in tech.

We are not generally included in that narrative - people of color - definitely, women of color don't normally fit that narrative that has been built around the whole image and the whole story of the Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley is the engine for wealth creation. They've displaced energy, they've displaced financial services, and if we don't start including a broader array of people in that, the same group of people is going to rise to the top.

I was doing a lot of networking in the Valley, and I found that it was not a very diverse environment, and most of the conferences and meetup events I went to, there weren't many women or people of color in those rooms.

I don't think it's any secret that there's a lack of diversity in Silicon Valley. But that, to me, is actually quite beautiful. It allows me to be fully me because there is no one else to look at and say, 'Oh, I should be more like that.'

Minority founders often feel like they are on the outside looking in when it comes to Silicon Valley and tech startups in general.

But I try to play everything very authentically, even if it is an accented immigrant, Jian Yang, that I play on 'Silicon Valley.'

We have a choice in Silicon Valley. We can either continue to exist as an island to ourselves, focused on wealth creation and innovation... or we can understand that we are in the middle of a software revolution and answer the nation's call to provide economic opportunity and technology to places left behind.