Cultural Blending Quotes

If Jesus was a Jew, how come he has a Mexican first name?

I love having different cultures around, but when the parent culture kind of dissipates, you're left thinking, 'Well, what's going on?'

The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the language, habits, and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people.

I come from a mixed family, where my mother is art house cinema and my father is B-movie genre cinema. They're estranged, and I've been trying to bring them together for all of my career to one degree or another.

The Irish fought the Italians until they started marrying them. And then they both fought the Jews until they started marrying them.

I'm a bit like a chameleon with my accent.

My culture comes from everywhere. I'm sick of this notion of nationality, that if you're brought up in the same city or same country you're the same. Even three kids brought up in the same family with the same genes, they are not the same. Just consider a human a human.

All sects are mixed as are all nations thereby producing religious indifference even of the first generation.

Me being biracial, me being from Canada but having success in the States, I have all these moments in my life where I'm jumping roof to roof. Black to white. Singing and rapping.

I mean, London has shaped me as a person. My parents are Nigerian so I've had the luxury of blending different cultures together just through my everyday life.

It [being an immigrant] gave me a huge advantage. Being an immigrant is the best of both worlds. You’re programmed two different ways. You’re bringing the best from your culture—and Hispanic culture has so many great things—and mixing it with the greatest country in the world. That gives us an advantage in comparison to somebody who was born in the U.S., went to school here, and the U.S. is all they’ve seen. We’ve seen the other side.

The Melting Pot

High and low culture come together in all Post Modern art, and American poetry is not excluded from this.

Assimilation, not success, is the American end game.

I'm a fan of mixing cultures together.

Even I, when I was a student in London, often wore Western clothes, and yet I'm the most Indian Indian I know.

It is good to live in a country where all are immigrants ... the newcomer is simply the latest arrival.

Assimilation is what has made America great.

Before, there was a culture that said Mumbai is separate, Telugu films should be separate. Now, everyone is working together. It's cool.

I'm more comfortable weaving Indian flavors into American classics.

My heart is half Puerto Rican, half Canadian. That is how I feel.

The melting pot has sprung a leak.

I do not believe in race as such. Race is a fraud. All modern people are the conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains.

There's a plethora of genres that I've been introduced to, but that's only because of the foundation that was laid growing up in New Orleans. I know it's a cliche thing to say, but it's very gumbo-like. You get that here. You can mix well with all different walks of life. That's what New Orleans is. It's like no other place.

I had to marry a Greek; I had to stir up the ethnic pot. Otherwise, my children would have been anemic and sickly. Now they've got some good Mediterranean blood in them.