Quotes About Assimilation

I'm certainly not a practicing Jew. I would never claim, 'I'm Jewish.' That's not the first and foremost thing in my mind, as far as who I am as a person.

My mother is deeply pragmatic by nature. Perhaps you had to be, as an immigrant. You made do.

I still have an accent. But when I return to Prague, I speak the language yet do not know what they are talking about.

'Sesame Street' early on and then 'Little House on the Prairie' was a big deal in our house. I always identified with 'Little House' because they were wanderers, and there was something about being an immigrant.

'First Gen' is kind of the ode to my parents and to really all immigrant children who come here with kind of a preemptive expectation placed on them, and then they get there, and they realize the American dream is bigger than, sometimes, what our parents dreamt.

I think Indians dress better than anyone, but I don't want to imitate more than a detail or two; I prefer my clothes humdrum and inconspicuous, and a cowboy hat just doesn't work for me.

I've been told by many people that a lot of overseas players come into the Premier League, and they take time to integrate, depending on the circumstances.

When I was in Holland, the idea was, all cultures are equal and all are to be preserved. My idea was, no, all humans are equal, but not all cultures are equal.

I am trying to make my accent so it won't bother anyone, but I am not going to drive myself crazy trying to pretend I am an American girl when I am from Colombia.

We're in a long line of English people pretending to be Americans and not being as good as Americans.

You know, every country needs another country to mock, and Australians seem to be pretty good at impersonating American people. Maybe it's because all the movies and music and TV you see there is from America, so we just have the knack for it.

I basically lived like a guy for, certainly, the first decade of my career, and I just wanted to blend in.

I think it is very possible that my deeper character is not very English.

The downside to defining everything Chinese as different than American is that all things Chinese then become exotic.

My whole life, I've been getting used to adapting. There are small differences, but culturally, the States and the U.K. are very close.

I don't think you lose culture because you act different cultures.

Originally I was opposed to gay assimilation and targeted gay marriage as just another effort on the part of gays to resemble their straight neighbours.

Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.

South America was not really that open - you had to fit in, and I didn't fit in. I was different - my tastes, my point of view - were a bit weird, and I found in Britain a sense of calm, that I could just be.

I'm proud of my Korean heritage, but I want people to know I'm American. It's not important to be the Korean Taylor Swift.

Our parents decided not to teach us Chinese. It was an era when they felt we would be better off if we didn't have that complication.

My mum made a conscious decision not to teach me any Indian languages so I wouldn't talk with an accent.

My mother had been an English teacher in India before she came to the U.K., and she taught me to read early on - not only in English, but in Hindi, too. My teachers didn't like the fact that I was reading more quickly than they were teaching, and as a consequence, I would sometimes get bored in class.

This happens to a lot of kids from different backgrounds - they lose a lot of their parents' and grandparents' teachings, language and culture because they have to deal with another language and culture 24/7. By the time I was 44, I was terrible at Spanish. I was always intimidated whenever I had to speak it.