Diaspora Experience Quotes

When Pakistan beat England at cricket, my Pakistani cousins remind me how English and British I am. When they say, 'You're one of the Queen's advisers,' for them it's, 'Wow - anything's possible in the U.K.'

I first discovered the Jewish People in America. I have seen any number of Jews, but the Jewish People I never met in Berlin or elsewhere in Germany. This Jewish People that I found in America came from … Eastern Europe generally. These men and women still retain a healthy ethnic feeling. It has not yet been destroyed by the process of atomization and dispersion.

In Toronto and Los Angeles, too, there are a lot of Koreans - Koreatown, Korean markets. I feel like I'm at home and very comfortable.

I grew up going to bakeries in Tel Aviv; that's where we got our birthday cakes, they were always European baking and butter creams. We have such good baking in Israel, and we have the Diaspora of Jews from all over, and we learned early on to adapt and absorb flavors from all over.

I've basically grown up in America. Even if Iran were to change, I wouldn't see myself moving there. That feeling exists for my mother and people of her generation. They say, 'Hopefully, one day.'

When you're from another country, you want to spend time with your family. All your family can't come here. All your friends can't come here. You spend so much time here, you want to go there, too.

It's probably worth noting that although I'm ethnically Greek, my grandfather was actually born in Turkey and came through Greece on his way to the United States.

Everyone said to me growing up, "You're like an American. You have to go to America. That's your spiritual home."

What a lonely and silly thing it is to be an Armenian writer in America.

Food is sort of like the Jewish sense of humor, a defense mechanism. It is one of the things that helped the Jews survive through 2,000 years of an often very harsh Diaspora.

Like many of my friends in the Pakistani diaspora - and many of my friends in Pakistan itself, for that matter - I have sometimes looked at the country of my birth and wondered whether its future will be one of steady and sad decline.

I'm a product of Russian culture, but I never felt it was my country.

While violence is part of what it means to be part of the black diaspora in the United States, that is not all it means to be black.

Historically, people of color and the Diaspora have been at the bottom of the barrel, even as it relates to immigration. If we don't engage in the discussion, then what is it that we're saying to people? That we don't care?

I'm an Asian guy growing up in London so I see myself as British, but India is part of my culture.

I was never very interested in my own experience, I think, in fact, if my films have a common link, maybe it's being a foreigner - it's common for people who are born abroad - they don't know so well where they belong.

Because Jews were kicked out of every country in Europe at one time or another, and plenty of other places as well, there isn't an ability to identify with a national heritage - you'll never hear a Jew say 'I'm German' or 'I'm Polish,' without saying something about being Jewish as well, and for good reason.

When I'd go to Israel, I felt like a tourist. My social and professional ties had started to dissolve, and it confused me. I didn't know whether I should stay here in Paris or go back to Israel, or even cut off all my ties with Israel so I could really plant roots here. Or maybe go somewhere else altogether.

I find Nigeria very frustrating. I am not alone in this. There are many Nigerians abroad. As you know, the brain drain is just incredible. And when we talk to one another and there is a certain sense of frustration and but I struggle not to let the frustration degenerate into dispair.

While I might not have a specific experience that is fully American, there is still a knowledge, something that I logically understand as a black woman and a black woman who is existing in America and a black woman who is in the diaspora that are just known quantities that I think anyone can relate to who is black.

All across this world, especially within the African diaspora, we feel like there is a constant devaluing of our culture and our livelihood.

Tamils all over the world have a sense of belonging to the world itself, but our ancient roots come from India. I would like to explore India. I will keep coming back. This is the closest I can get to home.

L.A. hasn't changed me that much - I've not forgotten where I'm from, you know. And I need to find a haggis, but no-one seems to sell them over here.