A Quote by Bharati Mukherjee

There was no audience for my books. The Indians didn't regard me as an Indian and North Americans couldn't conceive of me of a North American writer, not being white and brought up on wheat germ. My fiction got lost.
In North America, what happens often is that they put race before nationhood. Everyone here is Hispanic-American, Chinese-American, African-American. But really, we're just North Americans of all these different descents. The only time I notice North Americans becoming national is when a war happens or a crisis happens.
Had the white settlers in North America called the natives 'Americans' instead of 'Indians', the early Americans could not have said that the 'only good Indian is a dead Indian' and could not have deprived them so easily of their lands and lands and lives. Robbing people of their proper names is often the first step in robbing them of their property, liberty, and life.
The white men despise the Indians, and drive them from their homes. But the Indians are not deceitful. The white men speak bad of the Indian, and look at him spitefully. But the Indian does not tell lies; Indians do not steal. An Indian, who is as bad as the white men, could not live in our nation; he would be put to death, and eat up by the wolves.
We need to give out portrayal of ourselves. Every non-Indian writer writes about 1860 to 1890 pretty much, and there is no non-Indian writer that can write movies about contemporary Indians. Only Indians can. Indians are usually romanticized. Non-Indians are totally irrepsonsible with the appropriation of Indians, because any time tou have an Indian in a movie, it's political. They're not used as people, they're used as points.
Before my grandpa built his own church, we went to the neighboring town, and it was a white community. You know, up north, mostly middle European people and Indians, Chippewa Indians. We were welcome to that church, but once we got in, they didn't know what to do with us.
North America is not altogether to blame with regard to her Indians. If the Indian had been more susceptible to higher culture, violence and arms would not have been used against him, as is now the case.
So when people used to call me 'chinki' I thought that okay maybe my mother is Chinese so they are calling me that. It was only in my 20s, when I travelled to the north-east that I realised that it was racist and that the north-easterners were called this and they were not considered Indians just because of the way they look.
I have been working in north Indian villages, so I know the truth. Compared to the south Indian states, north India is less developed, and there's little awareness on menstrual hygiene.
Essentially, the BJP is nothing more than a north Indian party. Its mentality is also north Indian. They are quite capable of backtracking on the issues relating to Tamil Nadu if it suits them. But I will not allow that.
I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.
I am very happy here [on Cuba], but I feel I have work to do in the United States. It's where I can identify with the total world struggle for socialism. But I think as a North American, as a Black North American, I have certain understandings - certain contributions - to make that are unique to the North Amerian experience.
Growing up north of San Francisco, I immersed myself in the local landscape and in books about Native Americans, cowboys, and pioneers that seemed to ground me in it, but to pursue culture in those days meant being spun around until dizzy and then pushed east.
Let me assure my countrymen of the Southern States that it is my earnest desire to regard and promote their truest interest - the interests of the white and of the colored people both and equally and to put forth my best efforts in behalf of a civil policy which will forever wipe out in our political affairs the color line and the distinction between North and South, to the end that we may have not merely a united North or a united South, but a united country.
The north! the north! from out the north What founts of light are breaking forth, And streaming up these evening skies, A glorious wonder to our eyes!
Every February, we celebrate the heritage and contributions of African Americans in North Carolina and around the country. North Carolina holds an important place in African American history going back generations.
I think it's just a coincidence that the North American teams are out. Most of us here have been playing in North America for a long time. Our knowledge of the big ice has been world championships here and there, same for the Canadians and the Americans. I don't see it as an advantage.
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