A Quote by Toks Olagundoye
My name is very specific to my family. I'm very proud of being Nigerian. I understand that most people can't pronounce it, but that's OK.
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When I speak about 'we,' it gets very complex very quickly. Having grown up in the United States, but also being very much a member of Nigerian societies and also different parts of Nigerian societies, I understand that we construct particular 'we's.'
I use a pseudonym, because my real name is very difficult to pronounce, to remember, and to spell. And many people who have been talking about me on television have yet to pronounce it correctly.
I'm very proud of my Nigerian heritage. I wasn't fortunate enough to be raised in a heavy Nigerian environment, because my parents were always working. My father was with D.C. Cabs and my mother worked in fast food and was a nurse.
I feel so British, but people would look at me and see a very African woman - the way I cook is very Nigerian, the way I dress I guess is quite Nigerian.
My family is first-generation Nigerian, and we grew up in a very small, suburban town in New England, Massachusetts. So I do understand what it feels like to be an 'only' in that regard.
There are cultures in which it is believed that a name contains all a persons mystical power. That a name should be known only to God and to the person who holds it and to very few privileged others. To pronounce such a name either ones own or someone else's is to invite jeopardy. This it seemed was such a name.
My name is very important to me. I'm representing the Wade name. I've got the name on the back of my jersey when I play. I walk around with that name. That's my family name, the name my son will grow up with. So it's very important to me to keep the level of maturity that I have.
My accent has changed my whole life. When I was younger, it was very Nigerian, then when we went to England, it was very British. I think I have a very strange, hybrid accent, and I've worked very hard to get a solid American accent, which is what I use most of the time.
My detective just told me, 'Seriously, you are in danger and you have to change all your information.' But I said no because my name, Park Yeon-mi, is my legacy from my father, that's the only one he just left me. I'm very proud of my name so that's why if I die I'm ok.
I have successfully avoided being stereotyped into a specific category. I've worked very hard at that, and I'm proud of not being easily lumped into anybody's preconceived notions or expectations.
And I come from a very proud Hispanic family. We're proud to be Latino. We're proud to be Peruvian. And my dad's side is proud to be Puerto Rican.
I think that being an editor, someone who works with words, is very good training for being a translator because it trains you to be attentive to words in a very specific, very concrete, very literal way.
I'm most proud of my kids, for one, and my family and my parents. Outside of that - what am I proud of? I don't know. I don't look back, I just go forward. I'm just proud of the fact that my parents were immigrants and we had nearly nothing, and all of the sudden, with the help of a lot of people and my parents as a model, I amounted to something. And I'm doing some very decent work.
I changed my name at 14 because no one outside of my family could pronounce my first name correctly.
Traveling for club football wasn't very realistic for my family. Maybe people in America or England won't understand this, but gasoline in Brazil, especially back when I was a kid, was very, very expensive.
I understand that flamenco has very specific rules and codes, and there's the weight of tradition, so I can understand when people do not enjoy something that is more heterodox.
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