Jhumpa Lahiri Quotes

It's funny - when I started acting, I didn't know I was going to be talking about Asian-American issues so much. You know what, though? It just comes with the territory, being ethnic.

It's important to tell the story you're telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity - or it might not.

Just because we finally have a Latino family on TV doesn't mean we're up there to lecture people about what it means to be Latino.

I've shied away from playing Asian characters. if you look back, I'm playing characters that have no relevance to my ethnicity.

I always say that when I first started, my videos were very veered towards Indian people.

I grew up watching foreign programs - American, English, Mexican, and very little Kenyan. 'The Color Purple' was the first time I saw people who looked like me.

As an Italian-American, I have a special responsibility to be sensitive to ethnic stereotypes.

People identify with me - everyone does - African American women, Caucasian women, they all identify with me because I'm ethnic.

I am definitely a person of color.

I feel like elements of race and identity and ethnicity are sort of missing in all of literature, not just in women's literature.

I like to consider myself an actor who just happens to be Hispanic.

In some cases, the casting directors have casted blindly and have not looked into my ethnic background.

As far as diversity's concerned, there's me, there's Al Madrigal, there's Aasif Mandvi. But I'm not walking around feeling black all the time. That would stress me out.

I never consider myself a minority. I see people who look like me in Barbados, in Trinidad, in Haiti, in London, and in Brooklyn. So I don't know what the heck anyone means when they call me a 'minority.' There's something about that word to me. It just minimalizes people.

I remember watching 'Sesame Street' as a kid and loving that there were Latino characters on there.

That's what I loved about 'Community' - we had one of the most diverse casts on TV, but we didn't emphasize culture. And yet, we also didn't run away from it.

I remember going to Taiwan for the first time and... I didn't realize that everyone looked like me here and what that'd feel like.

The only thing that said 'Lando Calrissian' was ethnic was his looks.

For me, whenever I would see a lot of 'black films,' I didn't feel represented in it. I didn't feel connected to the characters or the situations or the humor.

We're not monolithic. What is blackness? To me, how do you define that?

We all had to dodge the idea we were spokespeople for our races. Like, 'Hey, it's the Mexican Guy! The Filipino! The Chick!' We've always stood up to it and said, 'Fine, bring it on and we'll show you how we rock.'

I just want to tell black stories.

There were no small brown kids as the centre of the children's fiction I grew up with.

I'm looking forward to it, to be able to represent the black culture... but I'm doing my best at managing it, keeping it behind me, and that's the best thing I can do.

I had a niche. And my niche was that I was brown. So it's like, 'Great, I get to go up for all these 'brown parts.'' I call them 'brown parts' because that's what they are. That's not to be resentful, because I loved playing those parts - I got to meet so many cool actors.