Olga Fonda Quotes

When I came here I moved to London and I was meeting so many new people and had to speak only in English, which is not my native language.

Most previous immigrants came to the United States to become Americans, with no intention of returning home. They relinquished their ties with their homeland. English was their key to prosperity, and they worked hard to master it.

It's always overwhelming when you come to another country and you're embraced in such a positive way.

I landed in New Jersey, where I could barely speak English, and I had to figure out what a short brown kid was going to do in this big white world.

What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech.

My dad is an ob-gyn - he's retired now - and he wanted to come to the States to make a better life, for opportunity. My mom said that, on the plane ride here, I did not want to speak a word of English - I spoke Tagalog. And then, after the first day of school, I didn't want to speak anything but English.

When I first came to this country, I didn't know how to speak English.

I didn't speak English until I came to Pittsburgh.

It took me a year to really learn the American lingo. I really feel for people who are coming here and don't speak English at all. It must be hell.

Latinas who come to the U.S. should adapt, learn English and become a part of the community.

I remember when I got my first opportunity to work in America, I didn't speak a lot of English, so I only really knew my lines for the movie I was doing.

I came to Los Angeles for the first time in 1994. I spoke no English. I only knew how to say two sentences: 'How are you?' and 'I want to work with Johnny Depp.'

They say that immigrants don’t speak English. So? Who cares. Even the Irish learned English after a while.

I didn't move to Miami to live in a Spanish-speaking province.

Miami is America’s most diverse city… We have 140 languages we speak..

When I first came to this country I could not speak English. Now I get paid to write it.

When my mom, Mercedes, and her younger sister, Juanita, first came from Puerto Rico, they were the youngest in the family. They had to jump into a new community and really learn English, assimilate, and adapt - and I saw that. I grew up in that community.

I moved to Oklahoma to learn English when I was 16 years old from Colombia for six months; then I moved to New York.

I arrived in the U.S.A. in 1935, to San Francisco. I got the boat from China, and I didn't even speak English. I could read a little, perhaps write a little, but that was all. It was a 17-day journey, and I learnt to speak English from the stewards.

I came to this country when I was 13 years old, I couldn't really speak English, and I had an accent.

Stuart Hall was an utterly unique figure. Although he arrived at the age of 19 from Jamaica and spent the rest of his life here, he never felt at home in Britain. This juxtaposition was a crucial source of his strength and originality. Because of his colour and origin, he saw the country differently - not as a native, but as an outsider.

If the United States is the melting pot of the world, you need entertainment - you need visuals that represent that.

After I arrived in Mountain View, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, I entered sixth grade and quickly grew to love my new home, family and culture. I discovered a passion for language, though it was hard to learn the difference between formal English and American slang.

The first 10 years of my life, I lived as 'Matangi.' When I came to England in '86, my first week of school was terrible because I would put my hand up to answer things, and no one would choose me because they couldn't say my name. My auntie came from Europe to visit us, and she was like, 'Just call yourself something else.'

My foundation now has some 120 football pitches laid out for children, a lot of them immigrants. We live in a multicultural society.