Jose James Quotes

I've largely focused on Japan my whole career, so I was interested to see how my music would be received by people of different backgrounds, religions and cultures.

I've always loved writing, and my heritage has been interesting, growing up in a bi-cultural family. My mother being Vietnamese and my father being French, it's like an East-West meeting in my house.

My dad is from India, my mom is from Russia. Fortunately, we moved a lot. I went to a lot of different schools and completely different cultures, so that's my background.

I am quite international. My background, born in Turkey. My family is a Jewish family from Iran, so I went from Turkey to Iran to Israel, and then grew up in Italy and ended up in U.S. for graduate school. So I tend to look at things from an international perspective, and I think that gives you a little bit of a broader view of what's going on.

My father was Muslim, and my mom is Christian, and we moved from New Orleans to Oakland, so I always had this appreciation for different cultures.

My father was a Gujarati and my mom Turkish.

Whether it was a shoe store or working the front desk of a hotel, I was always interacting with people. I'd get that look because I'm half-white and half-Filipino. They could tell I was something, but they really couldn't tell what I was.

Growing up biracial and speaking four languages - French, Chinese, Portuguese, and English - gave me a different lens. I was always very acutely aware of coming from a different perspective. I think that definitely contributed to what I chose to do with my life.

I'm half-black, half-white, so I basically put it like this: I can fit in anywhere. That's why I write so many stories from so many different perspectives, because I've seen so many.

Value the perspective of different cultures and recognize the cultural mores that underpin groups and appreciate why these are valued and important.

Is it true that we must accept the music of another race as being that which is American? Have not the white Americans sufficient individuality to develop a characteristic style of composition.

People who speak different languages, they are watching the movie from our language. So, I think all of us should be proud as nation and as cinema lovers.

Prior to getting into music, I interacted with, on a daily basis, about 5-10 percent of the people that I've interacted with since then. I've been meeting people from different backgrounds and different cultures. That did allow for a lot of change. I've changed as a product of that, but it's been positive.

Mine is a European imagination, shaped largely by my very promiscuous reading in German, French, English and, with greater difficulty, Italian.

What makes international cinema so interesting is that each territory has its own sensibility. When you look at an Indian or French film, there's a certain flavor. And even though the language is different, if the film is successful, it has something very common and understandable.

My mom is from Venezuela, and my dad is German and Japanese, and we lived in Brazil when I was a kid for a couple of years, and then I grew up on Long Island. I think all the traveling and all the nationalities put that stuff in my head. I was just around it a lot.

Music does communicate across language and racial and religious and philosophical barriers. It is one of the most distilled forms of human emotions.

I don't speak English or French, but that doesn't mean anything.

I've found just the right amount of balance in my life. I'm this pop artist in America, but I'm also Malaysian. And I'm also Muslim.

There's a misconception that I can't relate to the quote-unquote 'Asian-American experience' because I didn't grow up with an Asian mom and dad. And that's just not true. I am Asian American, and so playing a girl who is half Korean, half white, but her white dad tried really hard to connect with her mom's heritage - that's very familiar to me.

My dad was born in Haiti, and my mom was born in Tunisia. She is the daughter of a white French woman and a black, half-Guadeloupian, half-American man. My mom traveled the world a lot. She went through Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. She just got to experience a lot of different cultures, and that came through my childhood.

I've been exposed to so many different cultures.

'Nuyorican Soul' has a lot to do with our lives, growing up in New York, listening to all different styles of music, hanging out with all different kinds of people.

I grew up in a unique environment where I was immersed in both Japanese and American cultures equally.

Acting in different languages doesn't stop you from growing; on the contrary, for an artiste, it helps a lot.