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Immigrant Quotes

Browse 67 quotes about Immigrant.

Immigrant Quotes

“I began to look at them in a new light and finally understood that they had always wanted what was best for me, had always wished for my success, but lacked the tools and knowledge to help me. They did what they could, escaping poverty and persecution to bring my brothers and me to what they saw as this promised land. They could not have anticipated all the hardships we would face here. Faith was all they had.”

PovertyImmigrant ExperienceImmigrant
Book:House of Sticks
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“Needless to say, there are people who hate Arabs, Somalis, and other immigrants from predominantly Muslim societies for racist reasons. But if you can’t distinguish that sort of blind bigotry from a hatred and concern for dangerous, divisive, and irrational ideas—like a belief in martyrdom, or a notion of male “honor” that entails the virtual enslavement of women and girls—you are doing real harm to our public conversation. Everything I have ever said about Islam refers to the content and consequences of its doctrine. And, again, I have always emphasized that its primary victims are innocent Muslims—especially women and girls.”

ThinkingIdeasReasonPhilosophyScienceReligionRaceProgressRepublicanRacismLogicDemocratIslamConservativeThoughtBigotryMuslimAdvancementCritical ThinkingRational ThinkingLiberalIslamophobiaImmigrantIslamism
Author:Sam Harris
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“On earth we are immigrants from Africa - out in space we'd be immigrants from Earth - in a different galaxy, we'd be immigrants from Milkyway. To put simply, in exploration of space, both external and internal, terms like immigrant and indigenous are meaningless. It's the heart that makes us indigenous or immigrant, not blood.”

HumanityDiversityHuman RaceImmigrantsInclusionMulticulturalismIndigenousCultural IntegrationImmigrant
Book:Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth
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“. . . Baba filled the void the only way he could think of: a faceoff with the two-burner stove, the two pots, and a heaping bag of sabzi--fresh herbs. The permanent lumps lodged in our throats were temporarily soothed by a steaming pot of khoresh ghormeh sabzi--fresh herb stew. The royalty of all Persian stews.”

FatherFoodDaughterCookingParentingIranPersianImmigrantPersian CuisineIranian Cuisine
Book:Bottom of the Pot: Persian Recipes and Stories
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“March of Human (Trisonnet 2556-2558) When the world feels cold and hollow, and the clouds won't let you breathe, awake, arise, and walk the marrow, you are fire fated to be free. Every heartbeat, an anthem of love, every syllable breaks a chain - you're the thunder you ought to follow, rise untamed, and history's rearranged. Every silence holds a scripture, every wound is a sacred drum - every time you defy despair, you teach midnight how to hum. When the Human speaks, mountains wake, tired hearts of earth unbreak - turn the world from ash to flame, help the broken speak their name. When the Pilgrim speaks, borders fall, the migrant soul becomes the all - in the quake of your cosmic call, empires misplace their mighty gall. Write like time's a fragile toy, like galaxies sit in your palm - roar with justice, rain with joy, awaken chaos into calm! From deserts to the deltas, from river to the sky, be the ink of revolution, that refuses to comply. Grab history by the collar, take hate and make it dust - when you near, tyrants stutter; lift the planet from the jungle gutter. When the Heart speaks, the Earth rewrites, buried stories are restored with rights - paint the future with your bare hands, teach the fire how to stand. When the Human walks, the soil revives, forgotten streets all come to life - with every step, with every beat, Awake, Arise, and Breathe Complete!”

FreedomRevolutionSocial JusticeHuman RightsMulticulturalismPeace ActivistDecolonizationEthnic CleansingImmigrantAnti Fascism
Book:Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot
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“Better a refugee than prisoner (Sonnet 1555) Eon upon eon I seek for a refuge, Land upon land I receive but coldness. Last I stand at your door exhausted, Spare some warmth, for my heart freezes! Stateless, cultless, I walk the planet. Restless, sleepless, I live a dream. Friendless, loveless, I brave the mission. The being is dissolved for the beacon to beam. Wield, I do, my conscience as compass. Wear, I do, my backbone as battery. Bouts of tragedy only amplifies my thunder, Nature's bare mockery makes miracle of me. Borders are for hoarders, my home is the world. Better a refugee to the sea than prisoner of the pond.”

FreedomDreamerSelflessAltruismRefugeeHumanitarianismPeace ActivistFreedom FighterWorld CitizenImmigrant
Book:World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets
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“An immigrant? An immigrant feels like when you go to the movies and you get there late. You can’t see, and the people are not happy you’re there. The movie has already started, and you missed parts. You have a lot of catching up to do if you’re going to get it, and you need to find your place in the dark without stepping on people. Then, if you find your place, shut up and pay attention; you might get what the movie is all about.”

CultureSocietyFitting InImmigrant ExperienceImmigrant
Book:Cuban American Dancing On The Hyphen
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“Luz cleared her throat. “I’ve always said, ‘Getting a foothold in a country that doesn’t want you is daunting, but determination and good manners can go a long way.’ So, be careful. Gays are outsiders too . . . just like us.” Luz smiled. “But, life in the shadows isn’t so bad.” “You don’t have a Green Card?” Zoe asked. “No. And I’m not attracted to men. But I’ll never be Mexican again. I’m a child of free enterprise, wandering through an international marketplace. I may only work in a nail salon, but at least I’m part of America’s circus of self-invention.”

ImmigrationMexicanGay RightsFree EnterpriseIllegal ImmigrationOutsiderImmigrantBenzehabeUnassimilatedGreen CardSelf Invention
Author:Michael Benzehabe
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“All the way, Zoe kept her chin up and pretended she wasn’t mortified, but his sour expression stayed with her. She wasn’t good at making American friends. She changed her language, conduct, and clothing, but it didn’t seem to matter. Whether she wore modest Middle-Eastern clothing or cute Western fashions, everyone knew she didn’t belong.”

AmericaShameSpyLonerPretendOutsiderZoeImmigrantBenzehabeUnassimilatedWestern FashionMortified
Author:Michael Benzehabe
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“Zoe stopped one last time in front of the mirror, adjusting her new American dress. She didn’t see the dress, however. She saw what the big Russian did to her. She saw what al-Qaeda did to her. She saw a person shunned by her Persian village. She saw ugliness. Every time she looked in the mirror she saw deficiency.”

DepressionShameRussiaInsecurityIranRapeAl QaedaDeficiencyPersianOutsiderImmigrantBenzehabeUnassimilatedShunnedWestern FashionAmerican Fashion
Author:Michael Benzehabe
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“Zoe returned by rail to Claremont Village. After the train pulled away, she stood alone, beneath a security camera affixed to a lamppost. She looked up, and its lifeless eye looked straight back. In some uncontrollable fancy she turned and curtseyed, imagining someone wonderful on the other side of the lens would be captivated by her new American dress.”

ImmigrationRailDressCaptivatedCyber SecurityImmigrantBenzehabeUnassimilatedAmtrakClaremontWestern Fashion
Author:Michael Benzehabe
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“In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for.” But when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind.”

HopeIntentionImmigrant
Book:The Joy Luck Club
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“Knowing her grandchildren would inherit the world she left behind, she did not work for flourishing in her time only. It was through her actions of reciprocity, the give and take with the land, that the original immigrant became Indigenous. For all of us, becoming Indigenous to a place means living as if your children's future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”

FutureIndigenousReciprocityGive And TakeImmigrantInherit
Book:Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
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“I realized that a new phase of exile was beginning, that from now on there would be other periods, all different, each with its own anxieties, all shattering and overwhelming, and that I would be changing too, passing from one crisis to the next until I reached the moment of truth, unique and definitive — the day on which I would either stop being an exile and return home, or unavoidably, with sadness and resignation, become an immigrant.”

ExileHomesicknessHomesickImmigrantExiled
Author:Fernando Alegria
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“Being an immigrant is not a status but a state of mind. It doesn’t stop when you “assimilate” or “integrate” or when you go from being an “outsider” to an “insider.” It is what you think of yourself. You only really stop being an immigrant when you reject other immigrants and try to slam the door in their faces when they try to emulate you.”

ImmigrantsState Of MindOutsidersIntegrationAssimilationRefugeesInsidersImmigrant ExperienceImmigrantImmigrant State Of Mind
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“There is no such thing as an 'illegal immigrant'. That term is used by people who lack the intelligence to know that to be an immigrant one must be granted 'immigration' status by filing the proper paper work and being allowed to be in the United States of America. The correct term for people who choose to come to this country without going through the legal process is called 'illegal alien'.”

PoliticsCitizenshipAmericanIllegal ImmigrationAlienImmigrantIllegal Alien
Author:James Thomas Kesterson Jr
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“Zoe rubbed her forehead and grimaced. “America is one toll booth after another. In Noshahr I could park anything in front of our compound, but not in free America. I tried to buy a goat to roast. I am not going to tell you the trouble that caused.” “You can’t roast goat in America?” “You can roast,” Zoe said, “but there are certain rules about goats. And it made the neighborhood children cry. The details are too tedious for the telephone.”

IranMiddle EastParkingAlienHomesickZoeImmigrantGoatToll Booth
Author:Michael Benzehabe
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“Still he considered playing Pachinko the best investment of his free time, soaking in the local stench and bad breathe of other lonely Japanese people as an alternative way of blending into the colorful local scenes which he yearned to be a part of.”

InvestmentImmigrationJapanGamblingWasting TimeTravelerIntegrationCity LifeTokyoImmigrantExpat LifeExpatsWasting MoneyForeignerGamblersTravelling To A Foreign CountryPachinkoWhite Man And The Pachinko GirlIntegrating Into A New CountryJapanese GamblingPlaying PachinkoWatching People
Book:The White Man and the Pachinko Girl
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“The kids separated from their parents suffer the same trauma as the victims of human trafficking, therefore the administration that conducts such savagery in the name of immigration law must face the same legal consequence as human traffickers do, and if law fails to hold them accountable, the people must do it.”

Social JusticeImmigrantsSocial WorkAmerican CultureIllegal ImmigrationHuman TraffickingImmigrantChild PsychologyImmigration Law
Book:Boldly Comes Justice: Sentient Not Silent
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“We call ourselves Mexican-American to signify we are neither Mexican nor American, but more the noun 'American' than the adjective 'Mexican'...This voluntary (yet forced) alienation makes for psychological conflict, a kind of dual identity— we don't identify with the Anglo-American cultural values and we don't totally identify with the Mexican cultural values. We are a synergy of two cultures with various degrees of Mexicanness or Angloness. I have so internalized the borderland conflict that sometimes I feel like one cancels out the other and we are zero, nothing, no one. A veces no soy nada ni nadie. Pero hasta cuando no lo soy, lo soy.”

CultureIdentityImmigrantHispanic AmericanLatino American
Book:Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
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“Here, more or less, is the present philosophy: a cop beats up an immigrant in a police station - an incidental news item. But this cop had psychological problems - that is a social fact. How can society delegate the exercise of legitimate violence to individuals who are human, all too human, and whose psychology we have recently discovered - cops? This is a real problem (for journalists). The immigrant is beaten up and forgotten - he is not part of the social. The social begins with social psychology and that is always the psychology of the cop. We see the same conversion in the Greenpeace affair: the fact that French agents went off to blow up and sink a troublesome ship is something to be hushed up. But that there were members of these same secret services willing to betray the operation and give information to the press, that is the real problem, and we shall have to act.”

SocialMediaConspiracyImmigrantGreenpeaceSecret AgentsPsychology Of The Cop
Book:Cool memories
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“It was ironic, really, that the only reason I became eligible to adjust my status was because I married a U.S. citizen. I laugh when I think about the many times my mom told me, 'You have to be independent. You have to make your own money. Don't depend on a man!' I did. I made my own money. But I still needed a man to save me from my illegality.”

MexicanLatinoImmigrantMexican AmericanChicanoUndocumented
Book:You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation
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