Quotes About Assimilation

Those who praise the illusion of assimilation should be reminded that… "The privilege of assimilation is that you are left alone. But assimilation should not be mistaken for power, because once you have acquired power, you are exposed and your model minority qualifications that helped you in the past, can be used against you, since you are no longer invisible.

Like the stutterer who pronounces their words flawlessly through song, the immigrant writes their English beautifully through poetry.

My uncle said he used to start and end all his sentences with "motherfucker" because he learned his English from his black customers when he was a clothing wholesaler in New York.

The privilege of assimilation is that you are left alone. But assimilation must not be mistaken for power, because once you have acquired power, you are exposed, and your model minority qualifications that helped you in the past can be used against you, since you are no longer invisible

But assimilation must not be mistaken for power, because once you have acquired power, you are exposed, and your model minority qualifications that helped you in the past can be used against you, since you are no longer invisible.

acquired power, you are exposed, and your model minority

For many immigrants, if you move here with trauma, you're going to do what it takes to get by. You cheat. You beat your wife. You gamble. You're a survivor and, like most survivors, you are a god-awful parent

trouble is, these people don't understand their own culture," said

In France one must adapt oneself to the fragrance of a urinal.

These days it's cool to be ethnic and to be different, but when I was a kid, it was not cool - at all. My friends would come over and my mom would make crepes with eggs, stuffed with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and spinach. And they'd be like, 'What is this?'

One of the most odious forms of anti-Semitism was precisely this: to complain that Jews aren't sufficiently like other people, and then, the opposite, once they've become almost totally assimilated with their surroundings, to complain that they're just like everybody else, not even a fraction distinguished from the average.

So, I became a chameleon ... [a]nd after a while I hardly knew what I really felt and thought because I became so good at adapting.

human beings have an almost infinite capacity for adapting to the expectations around

Noa Noah shook his head and grinned. "He no savvee me Tahitian," he explained.  "He savvee me wear pants all the same white man." "You'll have to give him a course in 'Sartor Resartus,'" Sheldon laughed, as he came down and began to make friends with Satan. It chanced just then that Adamu Adam and Matauare, two of Joan's

Le persone che vivevano in massa, pensò Shorn, erano come ciottoli su di una spiaggia: ciascuna levigava il suo vicino, fino a quando tutte erano assolutamente uniformi.

The Europeans, who had been cut off from the mainstream of civilization since the fall of Rome, eagerly drank in the new knowledge, put on the new clothes, listened to the new music, ate the new foods, and enjoyed a rapidly escalating standard of living in almost every regard.

The Mongols made no technological breakthroughs, founded no new religions, wrote few books or dramas, and gave the world no new crops or methods of agriculture. Their own craftsmen could not weave cloth, cast metal, make pottery, or even bake bread. They manufactured neither porcelain nor pottery, painted no pictures, and built no buildings. Yet, as their army conquered culture after culture, they collected and passed all of these skills from one civilization to the next.

There was an acceptance at face value in New York, as if everyone had just been born, with no past heritage to acknowledge or hide.

You will have to live among Americans, and they despise most freedoms, so conform.

The American ideal, after all, is that everyone should be as much alike as possible.

Não entendo por que o mundo é tão novo para os americanos", observou Giovanni. "Afinal, vocês todos são só imigrantes. E não saíram da Europa há tanto tempo assim.

But the Irish became white when they got here and began rising in the world, whereas I became black and began sinking.

They come through Ellis Island, where Giorgio becomes Joe, Pappavasiliu becomes Palmer, Evangelos becomes Evans, Goldsmith becomes Smith or Gold, and Avakian becomes King. So, with a painless change of name, and in the twinkling of an eye, one becomes a white American.

To be African American is to be African without any memory and American without any privilege.