Quotes About Assimilation

In Italy, my wife and I always said we feel like strangers because there's maybe only a couple other people from other parts of the world. Here in Chicago, there's millions of people from Poland, thousands from Japan, hundreds from Croatia. We like it here.

Upshaw—Apsaroke, 1905. Curtis's friend and interpreter Alexander Upshaw, "perfectly educated and absolutely uncivilized," as Curtis said of him, had trouble shuttling between two worlds. He chose to pose in the clothes of his ancestors.

The narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring kind of conformity.

We are, in fact, a nation of immigrants. It's just a question of whether we're going to celebrate that and invest in it, or whether we're going to ignore it and deny it.

Think about cuisine: Most probably, your great-grandparents never encountered a market offering Chinese dumplings, Bombay lime pickle, lemongrass curry, tiramisu, and gnocci, but these foods are now an integral part of the modern world.

When I was at school, you had to choose; there was a lot of pressure to assimilate. You were an Aussie, or you were one of 'the wogs' - which was everybody else. But I didn't want to be in either group, so I felt like an odd one out.

I'm different. I don't speak perfect American. I do have a lilt of an Indian accent. I thought, 'Maybe the world's not okay with what I bring, being Indian.'

When I came first to Dortmund, Jurgen Klopp said, 'Listen, Mkhitaryan, it's your family name - it's too long. So Henrikh, it's too long. Let's call you Micki. Are you okay?' I said, 'Okay, no problem.' And since that day, they started calling me Micki.

I think any city that does the Olympics takes on the world and has to grow and has to kind of assimilate all sorts of folks.

Once you are an immigrant, you never forget that you are one.

I remember I told my mom that I was scared. I asked her, how will I talk to everyone in English? And my mom gave me a dictionary, where I learned one day at a time.

I once wrote that the first week in Jerusalem was the hardest week of my life. I was different, other; my clothes were different, as was my language. All of the classes were in Hebrew - science, bible, literature. I sat there not understanding one word. When I tried to speak, everyone would laugh at me.

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

I don't believe complete assimilation is possible, at least not for anyone who has an active, open mind. Every step, every entry into the flows of existence can be seen as a beginning, a commencement of a brand new way of seeing oneself in the world. This is the case for everyone.

I love the American openness and use of language; I just don't know how to be that way.

My opinion is that more languages you speak, better it is, but when you come to America, you speak English.

Forget you were born a Hindu, and don't be an American. Take the best of them both

Wisdom is not assimilated with the eyes, but with the atoms

Do not confuse understanding with a larger vocabulary," he remarked. "Sacred writings are beneficial in stimulating desire for inward realization, if one stanza at a time is slowly assimilated. Otherwise, continual intellectual study may result in vanity, false satisfaction, and undigested knowledge.

They succeeded not only in making me normal but also in making me dull .

As far as expressing the creative turmoil within my head was concerned, I took to the English language as a duck takes to water. I was therefore a keen accomplice and student in my own mental colonisation.

A human figure approaching, filling itself in slowly, putting on age and sex and race, like items of clothing

Very little in any organized faith is truly original. Religions are not born from scratch. They grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage … an assimilated historical record of man's quest to understand the divine.

Religions are not born from scratch. They grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage . . . an assimilated historical record of man's quest to understand the divine.