Quotes About Ethnic Identity

#1. Fortune cookies are an American invention, and we gave it to them. The Chinese were probably like, "Uh, we don't want it." And we were like, "It's now part of your ethnic identity.

Jim Gaffigan

#2. Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting 'O.K.' has deposed the more affirmative 'Yes,' so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of 'like' are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness.

Christopher Hitchens

#3. A man's ethnic identity has more to do with a personal awareness than with geography.

William, Saroyan

#4. It is important to remember that the Pacific Ocean covers a quarter of the world's surface and that each Pacific country has its own cultural, historical and ethnic identity.

Jenny Shipley

#5. I was confident about America and the idea that in America people can become American without masking their ethnic identity.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

#6. I try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn't mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I'm always trying to make a larger human statement.

Wynton Marsalis

#7. My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.

Arthur Ashe

#8. Most Jews, like most rational persons, know that their personal identity and their ethnic identity are not one and the same.

David Novak

#9. He thought about the future. He thought about where he was now and where he would have to be tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. He thought about coping and moving on

Santino Hassell

#10. In modern societies, some members of ethnic minority groups do not want to feel compelled to heed the voices of their communities when participating as citizens.

Michael Kenny

#11. How a people eats is one of the most powerful ways they have to express, and preserve, their cultural identity...To make food choices more scientific is to empty them of their ethnic content and history; --Harvey Levenstein

Michael Pollan

#12. Mud, raised by hurricanes, wells up in the noblest and purest of hearts.

Honore De Balzac

#13. Captain," the canoeist named Eric began, taking a step forward. "Have we been Bermuda triangulated?

Talia R. Blackwood

#14. Most people don't know how to maximize their pleasure, Harry, they sexualize their pain.

Hanif Kureishi

#15. Don't pursue something with a vengeful heart, or it will destroy you. Hate wraps a cold hand around your heart and hollows you out.
- Justus

Dannika Dark

#16. Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history, but Southern identity now has more to do with food, accents, manners, music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races, a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here.

John Shelton Reed

#17. Identity is a concept of our age that should be used very carefully. All types of identities, ethnic, national, religious, sexual or whatever else, can become your prison after a while. The identity that you stand up for can enslave you and close you to the rest of the world.

Murathan Mungan

#18. If you don't have an ego, you're a wino.

Conrad Dobler

#19. The Ileenium system?

Alan Dean Foster

#20. Southerners are also like ethnic groups in that they have a sense of group identity.

John Shelton Reed

#21. In the United Kingdom, we need to promote an inclusive British identity that involves and empowers people from all ethnic and faith backgrounds.

Maajid Nawaz

#22. My friend Ronald Gottesman says ... that the cause of all our trouble is the belief in an essential, pure identity: religious, ethnic, historical, ideological.

Chris Abani

#23. I am not suggesting that all those missionary organizations working in Haiti should pack up and go home, but I am urging them to understand that Haiti does not need clever Americans with newly contrived schemes for saving their country.

Tony Campolo

#24. Your ethnic or sexual identity, what region of the country you're from, what your class is - those aspects of your identity are not the same as your aesthetic identity.

Stanley Crouch

#25. Without the presence of black people in America, European-Americans would not be "white"
they would be Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and other engaged in class, ethnic, and gender struggles over resources and identity. (p. 107-108)

Cornel West

#26. I look white to a lot of people. And I'm not. I'm African-American. I'm mixed. I like to call myself Mulatto because that definition fits. So, you know, I've dealt with the conflict my whole life between how I look and my actual ethnic and racial identity.

Mat Johnson

#27. You have to know where the funny is, and if you know where the funny is, you know everything.

Sheila Heti

#28. Be less about protecting any type of identity affiliated to a country or even ethnic background. Be more about the fact that we're here for a short time and Heaven is going to be a rainbow of people, multiculture, every generation.

Max Lucado