Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life. John F. Kennedy  

We really are 15 countries, and it's remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The Midwesterner in Kansas, the black American in Durham - both are certain they are the real American.
Maya Angelou

For I was a stranger and you welcomed me. -Matthew 25:35

That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all.  Henry Ward Beecher (U.S. clergyman and writer, 1813-1887)

Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a 'person' .... Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as 'persons' guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Plyler v. Doe (1982)

The United States should be "an asylum for the persecuted lovers of  civil and religious liberty."
 Thomas Paine

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities. John (Lord) Dalberg-Acton (English historian and theologian, 1834-1902)

The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams. Maya Angelou

I regret the trifling narrow contracted education of the females of my own country. Abigail Adams (U.S. first lady and feminist, 1744-1818)

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.  Jane Addams (U.S. social worker, 1860-1935)

He will deal harshly by a stranger who has not been himself often a traveller or stranger.  Sa'Di (Persian poet, 1184-1291)

A man's feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world. George Santayana (Spanish-born American philosopher and poet, 1863-1952)

From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbour's rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own  Carl Schurz (German-born U.S. political writer, 1829-1906)

Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens,
because you were aliens in Egypt.-Exodus 23:9, NIV Bible Translation

Native" always means people who belong someplace else, because they had once belonged somewhere. That shows that the white race does not really think they belong anywhere, because they think of everybody else as native
.Gertrude Stein (U.S. writer, 1874-1946)

Unity in variety is the plan of the universe. Vivekananda (Indian religious leader, 1863-1902)

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from  immigrants and revolutionists. Franklin D. Roosevelt 882-1945, Thirty-second President of the USA 

What, then, is this new man, the American? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race, now called Americans, have arisen. Hector St. Josh de Crevecouer

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Emma Larzarus

Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were America.       Oscar Handlin, Professor Emeritus of American History, Harvard University

Unless the stream of these people can be turned away from their country to other countries, they will soon outnumber us so that we will not be able to save our language or our government.   -- Benjamin Franklin

There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children, unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to "Americanize" him.   --- Charles Horton Cooley

To speak ill of anyone is to speak ill of yourself..  Afghan Proverb

Tolerance and understanding won't 'trickle down' in our society any more than wealth does. Muhammad Ali (U.S. boxer, 1942- ).

 

Indians think it is important to remember, while Americans believe it is important to forget. Paula Gunn Allen (Dacotah writer and scholar, 1939-)

People who are aware of, and ashamed of, their prejudices are well on the road to eliminating them.  Gordon Allport (U.S. psychology professor, 1897-1967)

No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger that its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise. Marian Anderson (U.S. contralto, 1897-1993)

The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, mojado, mexicano, immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian--our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the "real" world unless it first happens in the images in our heads. Gloria Anzaldua (Tejana Chicana poet, 1942- )

The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.  James Baldwin (U.S. writer, 1924-1987)

Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanization of ourselves; the loss of our own identity is the price we pay for our annulment of his. James Baldwin (U.S. writer, 1924-1987)

To be born in a free society and not to be born free is to be born into a lie. To be told by co-citizens and co-Christians that you have no value, no history, have never done anything that is worthy of human respect destroys you because in the beginning you believe it.James Baldwin (U.S. writer, 1924-1987)

The myth of integration as propounded under the banner of the liberal ideology must be cracked because it makes people believe that something is being achieved when in reality the artificially integrated circles are a soporific to the blacks while salving the consciences of the few guilt-stricken whites. Steve Biko (South African political activist, 1946-1977)

Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks. Emily Brontë (English writer and poet, 1818-1848)

What, then, is this new man, the American? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race, now called Americans, have arisen.  J. Hector St. Josh de Crevecouer

White men seem to have difficulty in realizing that people who live differently from themselves still might be travelling the upward and progressive road of life. Luther Standing Bear (Oglala Sioux writer, 1868-1939)

here are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots.  Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish novelist and poet, 1547-1616)

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.  Marie Curie (Polish-born French chemist, 1867-1934)

A nation without borders is not a nation. — Ronald Reagan.

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity. George Bernard Shaw (Irish playwright and social reformer, 1856-1950)

Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations. Walt Whitman

Saying "acrost" for "across" or "ax" for "ask" are today considered to be part of black English...Teachers are not supposed to correct black youngsters who speak "black English" and no one is supposed to be judgmental.... Multiculturalism today celebrates all cultures, but it is the poor who ultimately pay the price of that celebration in stunted development, missed opportunities and blighted lives        Thomas Sowell "Black Identity is Rooted in Britain" Norwich Bulletin, 5/7/05 page A5

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting
values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human
potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric,
one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place.
--Margaret Mead, Anthropologist

 

• Immigration Theme
• Culture and food
• Culture and greetings
• Intercultural Communication
• Intercultural Competence
•  Story: Classroom Behavior
• We and They - Poem by Rudyard Kipling
• Quotations

 

Note:  A handful of these quotations are from the Multicultural Pavilion Education  Site
Visit their site for an inexhaustible collection of quality quotations.