A Quote by Rita Ora
People always ask me: 'Do you have black in you? Do you have Spanish in you?'
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Growing up, my mom always knew that I was more on the Black side than the Spanish side, just because I didn't speak Spanish.
My father identified as a black man. No one asked him because he was clearly black. But people always ask me. If we were together, people would look at us in a really strange way. It sucked. As a little girl I had blond hair and they'd look at me, look at him, and be disgusted.
I’ve always been able to tell a lot about people by whether they ask me about my scar. Most people never ask, but if it comes up naturally somehow and I offer up the story, they are quite interested. Some people are just dumb: 'Did a cat scratch you?' God bless. Those sweet dumdums I never mind. Sometimes it is a fun sociology litmus test, like when my friend Ricky asked me, 'Did they ever catch the black guy that did that to you?' Hmmm. It was not a black guy, Ricky, and I never said it was.
When you sing in English and Spanish, it's two completely different forms of expression and... even the people who don't speak Spanish love to hear me sing in Spanish.
Singing in Spanish is much more honest, much closer to my roots. For me, Spanish is essential. I still think in Spanish, dream in Spanish. It's the melodies and arrangements that transmit meaning.
People ask me why my figures have to be so black. There are a lot of reasons. First, the blackness is a rhetorical device. When we talk about ourselves as a people and as a culture, we talk about black history, black culture, black music. That's the rhetorical position we occupy.
I spent ten years in London; I trained there. But because I started in English, it kind of feels the most natural to me, to act in English, which is a strange thing. My language is Spanish; I grew up in Argentina. I speak to my family in Spanish, but if you were to ask me what language I connect with, it'd be English in some weird way.
I took Spanish in high school and I didn't do too well in it. My Spanish teacher told me not to go on with Spanish anymore, so I was discouraged a little bit.
If people ask me, I always tell them: "Quite well, thank you, I'm very glad to say." If people ask me, I always answer, "Quite well, thank you, how are you today?" I always answer, I always tell them, If they ask me Politely... BUT SOMETIMES I wish That they wouldn't
I don't speak Spanish. I've done Spanish 1 and 2 classes. My grandma asked me when I was young if I wanted to learn Spanish, and I guess I was young. I should have, because it would have helped me a lot.
The majority of Latin actresses in Hollywood were always playing either spitfires or maids. Now here is a woman who comes in and does leads opposite white people and black people and other Spanish people, and she's comfortable in her skin? Gasp! How dare she?
I say I have Spanish in me, but I'm not just Spanish. I'm proud of my ethnicities, and I will always be proud of being a Filipino.
Afro-Caribbean influences are in me as a creative being the same way Spanish influences were in Picasso's work. I think the notion of labels - "black dancer, black choreographer" -is a ploy to divide and conquer, and to limit.
I’ve discovered a new affliction; it’s called Orphan Black Eyes. When people ask me what I’m working on and I tell them Orphan Black…they usually clutch a part of my body and their eyes go wide and a little crazy. People are MAD for this show. As am I.
We all need to stomp out balkanization. No Spanish radio stations, no Spanish billboards, no Spanish TV stations, no Spanish newspapers. This is America, speak English.
I think that's something that we as black people in this country have been robbed of. I compare it to my brother's wife, who is Hispanic. She was born in America but her parents are from Honduras. She speaks Spanish. She knows the culture. But most black people, we were robbed of that. We don't know our heritage.
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