Ethnic Stereotyping Quotes

Looking the way I look, whenever anybody's looking for a light brown funny guy, I get the call... I'm 100 percent Greek, but I look like I could be Indian or Middle Eastern or Hispanic. If it's ethnic, they'll try and put me in it.

I realized there was racism because people thought, 'Oh, if you like roll 'n' roll, that makes you like a white kid.'

A Jap’s a Jap. It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen or not. I don’t want any of them ...

I turned down a lot of work. I didn't want to ever feel defined by my ethnicity.

We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it.

Those damn Presbyterian Indians!

I don't know why, anytime you see a car filled with people, it's either Middle Easterners or Mexicans. It's one of those two. Even for short trips, my dad would be like, 'Okay, everybody in the car.'

Every single person in the Chicago independent scene said, 'You've got to be a bad guy. You're a Muslim. We're gonna make money. We're gonna call you Sheik Abdullah something. You're gonna wear a turban.'

When I was up for the film 'Dreamcatcher,' to play the role of an overweight kid, I was told I'm too fat to play the fat guy. That's like telling a Mexican to get a tan.

If I were to limit myself to the opportunities that were presented playing only Chinese-American parts, I would be virtually without a career.

I mean, there's plenty of artists who are making R&B music, but because of their ethnicity, it's considered something else.

I mean, but obviously, in people's eyes, it still - it can still link Islam to terrorism. I mean, why does it make a difference that they're white?

I would get a lot of roles for the ethnic friend and then I would go in for that and not be ethnic enough. They wanted an Indian accent. They wanted something more very visually, clearly specific.

Black artists are encouraged to explore their identity but are then pigeonholed according to their ethnicity. We may have seen the decline of old racism, but we are witnessing a new kind of racialising.

I guess if they ever do a remake of 'Sophie's Choice,' I could play the Meryl Streep part. I've got to work on my Polish accent. Maybe I'll be the definitive King Lear one day. You know, if they ever feel that King Lear should be more Jewy.

In Texas, if your name is Carlos, you're a Mexican. In Florida, you're a Cuban. In New York, you're a Puerto Rican. And I come here and I find out I'm an Eskimo.

The advantage my looks gave me was that I wasn't limited to just playing Indian roles when I was abroad, and I've been abroad for almost twenty-five years.

I don't know whether John Roberts has a twin, perhaps a sister or, uh, someone with a Hispanic last name.

I don't say, 'Francis Ford Coppola, what a wonderful Italian-American director.' I judge him based on his film, his craft, his art. That's the way I feel I should be dealt with in this industry.

No English director would've cast me as an officer, I promise you. Not one.

I say it in the writers' room all the time: My black is not your black. What's terrifying is that, just the same way we've all accepted that normal is white, everybody seems to buy into the idea that there's only one way to be black or one way to be Hispanic. That's as damaging as anything else.

Zis and zat' when uttered by the French is considered charming, but 'dis and dat' as an Africanism is ridiculed as gross and ugly.

It's interesting: I think, as a Latino actor, the biggest challenge is being called 'Latino' because immediately, the world has a perception of what that means.

In general, the auditions I go up for are very sparse, I guess because of my ethnicity. And the characters are very similar: shy, innocent and naive; the connotations that come from the way that I look.

It's no stretch to picture me standing next to Al Pacino or Robert De Niro. Those are ethnic New York men. I'm an ethnic New York girl. Everybody has their limitations. I mean, I should never be cast as Queen Elizabeth.