A Quote by Tess Gerritsen
I'm Asian-American, and I was the only Chinese girl growing up in a white school in San Diego. So I understood what it was like to be different, to always want to fit in and never feel like you ever could.
Related Quotes
There is San Diego - this retirement village, with its prim petticoat, that doesn't want to get too near the water. San Diego worries about all the turds washing up on the lovely, pristine beaches of La Jolla. San Diego wishes Mexico would have fewer babies. And San Diego, like the rest of America, is growing middle-aged.
As the Chinese girl, you don't fit in with anybody. It wasn't a large Chinese-American population, so I didn't grow up having a community of Asian friends. Even when there were Asian people, we sort of existed on our own.
I always feel like people misunderstand the difference between an Asian story and an Asian-American story. That's completely different, too. I have friends who grew up in Asia, and our experiences are so different. Even though we might look the same, I feel like being Asian and then being Asian-American is completely different.
Growing up as an Asian American in this society, there were a lot of times where you feel isolated or out of place as an Asian. And growing up in White America, that's absolutely my experience. And I think that's why I got into acting because I wanted to be anybody else but Asian.
The people-pleasing and performing is 100% ingrained in me, partly because I was a little brown girl growing up in a very white, homogeneous community in San Diego - where, in second grade, I was called a terrorist.
Burns, has spent years exploring the many avenues for adventure and fun in San Diego. The fact that you can experience the desert, snow, mountains and ocean in the course of a day has always been amazing to me. If you are really motivated, you can snow ski, surf, take a mountain hike, and race dune buggies all in one weekend, .. I grew up here and want to showcase San Diego to the world. I love San Diego.
I grew up an only child, and I always felt as if I didn't fit in. In middle school, in grammar school, and even high school, I just didn't feel like I fit in.
I was always growing, so it made no sense for my mom and dad to load me up with a bunch of clothes. But I hated coming to school and feeling like a girl could be like, 'Iman's probably gon' wear this today.' So I would always have to mix and match and find a way to look different. I took a lot of pride in that.
Of course, San Diego chooses not to regard the two cities as one. Talk about alter ego: Tijuana was created by the lust of San Diego. Everything that was illegal in San Diego was permitted in Tijuana. When boxing was illegal in San Diego, there were boxing matches in Tijuana; when gambling was illegal, there was always Tijuana.
Because growing up as an Asian-American and growing up as someone who is not white, oftentimes in this country you can feel as though you're a foreigner, or you're reminded of being a foreigner, even though you're not. Even though inside, internally, you feel completely American.
There's a misconception that I can't relate to the quote-unquote 'Asian-American experience' because I didn't grow up with an Asian mom and dad. And that's just not true. I am Asian American, and so playing a girl who is half Korean, half white, but her white dad tried really hard to connect with her mom's heritage - that's very familiar to me.
Throughout most of my life, I've tried to downplay my Chinese heritage because I wanted so much to be an American. I was the only Asian kid in my elementary school, and I longed to be like everyone else. I insisted on American food; I was embarrassed by my mother's poor English.
When I was growing up, I always felt a bit like I didn't quite fit in, a feeling that perhaps still lingers in the background to this very day. I was the small brown girl in the big white suburb.
Growing up as an Asian American, we're lucky to have two sentences in a history book about the Chinese-American experience.
San Diego was fantastic. I think there's something about San Diego that is quite different than Los Angeles.
I always felt like an outsider growing up. In school, I felt like I never fit in. But it didn't help when my mother, instead of buying me glue for school projects, would tell me to just use rice.
Related Authors
Charles Bukowski Quotes
American
Novelist
Charles Dickens Quotes
English
Novelist
Chuck Palahniuk Quotes
American
Novelist
Ernest Hemingway Quotes
American
Novelist
George Eliot Quotes
British
Novelist
George Orwell Quotes
British
Novelist
George R. R. Martin Quotes
American
Novelist
Jane Austen Quotes
British
Novelist
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
German
Novelist
Margaret Atwood Quotes
Canadian
Novelist
Nicholas Sparks Quotes
American
Novelist
Paulo Coelho Quotes
Brazilian
Novelist
Sarah Dessen Quotes
American
Novelist
Stephenie Meyer Quotes
American
Novelist
Veronica Roth Quotes
American
Novelist
Victor Hugo Quotes
French
Novelist