Italian Immigrants Quotes

Desolina and Tony had attended one-room schoolhouses until the third grade. ... According to Tony, there were hardly enough pencils and sober teachers to go around. [Author's grandparents educational background.] ~ James Vescovi

Even if there is no connection between diversity and international influence, some people would argue that immigration brings cultural enrichment. This may seem to be an attractive argument, but the culture of Americans remains almost completely untouched by millions of Hispanic and Asian immigrants. They may have heard of Cinco de Mayo or Chinese New Year, but unless they have lived abroad or have studied foreign affairs, the white inhabitants of Los Angeles are likely to have only the most superficial knowledge of Mexico or China despite the presence of many foreigners.
Nor is it immigrants who introduce us to Cervantes, Puccini, Alexander Dumas, or Octavio Paz. Real high culture crosses borders by itself, not in the back pockets of tomato pickers, refugees, or even the most accomplished immigrants. What has Yo-Yo Ma taught Americans about China? What have we learned from Seiji Ozawa or Ichiro about Japan? Immigration and the transmission of culture are hardly the same thing. Nearly every good-sized American city has an opera company, but that does not require Italian immigrants.
Miami is now nearly 70 percent Hispanic, but what, in the way of authentic culture enrichment, has this brought the city? Are the art galleries, concerts, museums, and literature of Los Angeles improved by diversity? Has the culture of Detroit benefited from a majority-black population? If immigration and diversity bring cultural enrichment, why do whites move out of those very parts of t ~ Jared Taylor

Australians are coffee snobs. An influx of Italian immigrants after World War II ensured that - we probably had the word 'cappuccino' about 20 years before America. Cafe culture is really big for Aussies. We like to work hard, but we take our leisure time seriously. ~ Hugh Jackman

...no matter how frequently we came, when we arrived, they acted as if we had been away one hundred years. [His grandparents' greeting.] ~ James Vescovi

Boots, it's college. We're segregated regardless, whether it be by major or class. This is just the way things are here. It keeps everyone safe. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

My family was blue collar, a middle-class kind of thing. My father was born in Detroit, Italian-American. My mother is English. She acted on the stage with Diana Dors. Her parents were French. ~ Lorraine Bracco

ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the humorist, of transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the devil. ~ Ambrose Bierce

We are a nation of immigrants, a quilt of many colors, and we've managed over more than two centuries to create a way of life that allows for a reasonable degree of upward mobility, that prizes individual liberty, promotes freedom of religion and genuinely values equal rights for all citizens. ~ Jay Parini

Ronald Reagan basically legalized every illegal immigrant in this country. I just like to bring this up because every week I like to make Republican heads explode about how they love Ronald Reagan, but would despise everything he did. ~ Bill Maher

You try to come up with new ideas, but in the end, people just want to eat Italian food. ~ Stephen Starr

I grew up in northwest London on a council estate. My parents are Irish immigrants who came over here when they were very young and worked in menial jobs all their lives, and I'm one of many siblings. ~ Amanda Hale

I speak a little bit of Italian, yeah. I understand more than I speak. I speak more of a dialect; my mum's from Naples and my dad's from Sicily, so it comes out little a bit of a cocktail of the Italian language. ~ Luke Pasqualino

There is a certain pride in work and in your body throbbing beyond any boundaries you imagined you could endure. You identify with those who come home with pieces of pork fat wedged into their boots, with gashes on their arms and legs from their tools and machines, and with black grime etched into the folds of their dark skin.
Too often this country has turned its back on the working class and the working poor, not to mention the undocumented workers who harvest the food for American tables and build our houses. ~ Sergio Troncoso

America is not a country of immigrants, we are a country of pioneers. ~ Mike Klepper

Our mother might've said this: that immigrants are the strongest, that we leave our homes behind and rebuild. Everywhere we go, we rebuild. ~ Mira T. Lee

I tried to think of a singularly American superstition. I'd learned a few from the Uncles - something about not letting one's shoes touch the kitchen table - but those were all imported from the Old World. Perhaps a country of immigrants had never gotten around to commingling the less desirable pieces of their cultures. Either that, or life there wasn't difficult enough to warrant an adult's belief in magic. ~ Sara Novic

But why must everything have a practical application? I'd been such a diligent soldier for years - working, producing, never missing a deadline, taking care of my loved ones, my gums and my credit record, voting, etc. Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty? In this dark period of loss, did I need any justification for learning Italian other than that it was the only thing I could imagine bringing me any pleasure right now? ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Lady and gentleman, when my parents left Korea with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the considerable wealth they had amassed in the shipping business, they had a dream. They had a dream that one day amid the snowy hilltops of western North Carolina, their son would lose his virginity to a cheerleader in the woman's bathroom of a Waffle House just off the interstate. My parents have sacrificed so much for this dream! And that is why we must journey on, despite all trials and tribulations! Not for me and least of all for the poor cheerleader in question, but for my parents and indeed for all immigrants who came to his great nation in what they themselves could never have: CHEERLEADER SEX. ~ John Green

The U.N. is asking Italy to oversee this effort. And if a government is formed, you're likely to see up to 5,000 Italian troops maybe go in to provide security and also train a Libyan army. ~ Tom Bowman

On sober reflection, I find few reasons for publishing my Italian version of an obscure, neo-Gothic French version of a seventeenth century Latin edition of a work written in Latin by a German Monk toward the end of the fourteenth century ... First of all, what style should I employ? ~ Umberto Eco

I'm a really good cook. I bake a lot. I cook dinner most nights. I cook everything from Italian food to Mexican food. But if I'm going to some place and it's a potluck, I'm always the one to bring dessert! ~ Amanda Schull

If you go on touching me, I'll catch fire before your eyes. ~ Olga Goa

My mother took care of us until my father scrammed, and then she ended up working in the small-factory sector of New Jersey with a lot of other immigrants. ~ Junot Diaz

Most British cheeses are now vegetarian and are labelled accordingly. However, French and Italian manufacturers still tend to use rennet. ~ Yotam Ottolenghi

Casual Italian loafers. One enterprising soul actually wore field-hockey shoes. ~ Barbara Bretton

Women are the majority of immigrants yet the minority of immigrant employment visas; immigrant and native born women who work in the service arena - such as domestic workers - are not valued for their work, making pennies on the dollar compared to male counterparts; and, women are disproportionately affected by family reunification policies. ~ Christine Pelosi

We would certainly encourage the Italian government to put forward an ambitious agenda of reform. ~ Rodrigo Rato

A really interesting and happy time was when I first went to Florence as a student and studied Italian. I was living in a pensione on an allowance of £40 a month, which was princely. I did a lot of work and enjoyed myself immensely. ~ James Fenton

In America most everybody who's Italian is half Italian. Except me. I'm all Italian. I'm mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me. ~ Al Pacino

You can't host an Italian film festival without Marcello Mastroianni. It just doesn't feel right. ~ Gia Coppola

An Italian proverb says: The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses. ~ Ambrose Bierce

The racism in Europe takes the form of anti-immigrant extremism - which is bad enough here - I think it's hard to measure, but my guess is that it's probably worse there. ~ Noam Chomsky

More than 95 percent of both legal and illegal immigration into the United States is non-white. Because of the way immigration law is structured, the highest-skilled nations on earth - those of Europe - are allowed only a tiny percentage of immigrants, while the third world nations such as Mexico are dumping their chaff onto American shores at the highest rate in history. ~ David Duke

Toronto is a very multicultural city, a place of immigrants, like my parents. ~ Melanie Fiona

They [illegal immigrants] broke the law, but it's not a felony, it's an act of love. It's an act of commitment to your family. ~ Jeb Bush

For that you should read the original. In very great poetry the music often comes through even when one doesn't know language. I loved Dante passionately before I knew a word of Italian. ~ Donna Tartt

Unfairly but truthfully, our party has been tagged as being against things. Anti-immigrant, for example. And were not a party of anti-immigrants. Quite the opposite. Were a party that welcomes people. ~ George W. Bush

President Bush said that if illegal immigrants want citizenship, they'd have to do three things: pay taxes, hold meaningful jobs, and learn English. Bush doesn't meet those qualifications. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Village life gently swirled around them, with the perpetual ebb and flow of people, scurrying in every direction. The village was a living, organic entity, with blood flowing through its veins, and with a definite pulse and heartbeat. It had its own distinct personality and its own dark caustic humour, and was constantly processing and regurgitating information through its winding, meandering streets. ~ Leonardo Donofrio

I make a fabulous tofurkey for Thanksgiving. My Mexican-Italian family can't tell the difference. ~ Christian Serratos

It pleased him to see that things, and not only people, suffered the wear and tear of age. [53 yr old Inspector Bordelli's view] ~ Marco Vichi

There's nothing more true in being a child of a diaspora, a child of immigrants. We're completely new to our parents. We're not something they can ever understand. And it's not as if we are ever going to be accepted. We're accepted as long as we conform to what we are expected to be, and I'm sure that's not any different for anyone else. ~ Junot Diaz

America is so rich and fat, because it has eaten the tragedy of millions of immigrants. ~ Michael Gold

After karting in Venezuela, I came to Europe in 1998 to compete in international kart races, which was great for me to get experience racing outside my country. After consistently being at the top, I decided to move to Italian Formula Renault. ~ Pastor Maldonado

Grass Fires"
No ease for the boy at his keyhole,
his telescope,
when the women's white bodies flashed
in the bathroom. Young, my eyes began to fail.
In the grandiloquent lettering on Mother's coffin
Lowell had been misspelled LOVEL
The corpse
was wrapped like panetone in Italian tinfoil
Father's death was abrupt and unprotesting.
His vision was still twenty-twenty.
After a morning of anxious, repetitive smiling,
his last words to Mother were:
"I feel awful."
He smiled his oval Lowell smile ...
It has taken me the time since you died
to discover you are as human as I am ...
If I am. ~ Robert Lowell