Quotes & Sayings About Asian Parents

People lament that there's no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don't want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don't get it both ways. — Aasif Mandvi

To all my critics that never believe in me ... Please tell me again what I can't do in my life? Now outta my way. I'm going to make it happen! — Timothy Pina

The person who floated the axe with a stick is in charge of my affairs, so marvel not. — Bayode Ojo

These same ABCs couldn't speak Chinese and didn't care---but you don't have shit without your native tongue. African slaves were forced by threat of physical punishment to abandon their native languages, but a lot of us just gave ours up with a shrug---these Uncle Chans convinced us to assimilate, shut the fuck up, and play the part. What they didn't understand is that after your have the money and degrees, you can't buy your identity back. I wasn't worried about degrees, but I cared about my roots. Even if I hated what it meant to be an Asian in t he American wilderness, i respected the Chinese home I was raised in. Usually I wasn't so vocal about Asian identity, but without my parents around, I felt a sudden duty to say something myself. It's funny how annoying I thought my mom was, but as soon as she wasn't around, i carried the torch for her. — Eddie Huang

Silence descended on the house. [....] Amma must have sensed that this was the sort of silence that, left unchallenged, could consume the family from within. — Vivek Shanbhag

I steeled myself. I would start from scratch. I would root out like weeds the effects of my parents, the tendency to choose safe options, to get ahead, to feel secure... and when I met other Asian Americans, those bound for consultant and hedge-fund jobs where they would make six figures, my judgment was harsh. Silently, through my narrowed eyes, I told them, I know you, and there's not too much to know. — Michelle Kuo

In many Asian households, to not go on to higher education, that's like a big no-no. I know my parents' discouragement was for my own protection, and I'm really close to them now, but they didn't understand that there is value in this. That's because they didn't know. — Sandra Oh

I've always wanted to be in comedy ... growing up with Asian parents and not seeing yourself represented in media - it was always just a daydream. — Anna Akana

With theatre, we all agree to suspend our disbelief about so many things, but not about race. It's totally OK to have one actor playing five roles - people are willing to believe that. But they won't believe it if there's a black or an Asian kid who has white parents. What does that say about us? — David Henry Hwang

We discussed this dire problem with education and illusions of academic contribution, with Ivy League universities becoming in the eyes of the new Asian and U.S. upper class a status luxury good. Harvard is like a Vuitton bag or a Cartier watch. It is a huge drag on the middle-class parents who have been plowing an increased share of their savings into these institutions, transferring their money to administrators, real estate developers, professors, and other agents. In the United States, we have a buildup of student loans that automatically transfer to these rent extractors. In a way it is no different from racketeering: one needs a decent university "name" to get ahead in life; but we know that collectively society doesn't appear to advance with organized education. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

All Asian parents are into your children having a respectable, decent stable job. Acting was unimaginable to my parents. — Joan Chen

In American culture you leave home at 18. In the Asian culture, your parents don't really want you to leave home. So my parents just thought I was going to be one of those kids. I was like, "I'm never going to make a living at whatever I do." I just liked pretty things. — Jason Wu

So this is how it ends, she thought, when the call was over, and she was soothed by the banality of it. — Emily St. John Mandel

All the nationalists are wasms - except one, the most powerful of this century, indeed, of the entire democratic age, which is nationalism. — John Lukacs

My parents kept the best aspects of the Asian culture, and they Americanized the family. My mother was a great example for me. She was a working mother with a good career. — Andrea Jung

As a child, as a cinemagoer, I think there is nothing better than being in a cinema or watching a film. I think it's just a while magical ... it almost feels like you're at a big party in India, where you're singing, you're dancing, you're laughing, you're crying, you feel like you're at a wedding because our films invariably cover all emotions. — Karan Johar

This is why the terrorists hate us. And it's not the glitter and it's not the pomp and circumstance. We've got black and white, we've got Hispanic and Asian, we got gay, straight, and Guttenberg, all working together for one common goal: to get the mirror ball. And the mirror ball doesn't care what color you are, and it doesn't care how rich your parents are, and it doesn't care what God you pray to. It's an even wooden floor, and may the best man or woman win. And I say God bless Dancing with the Stars, and God bless the USA. — Adam Carolla

My parents loved me, and I think they realized that I was probably not going to have a normal 9-to-5 job. For the longest time, my dad thought that I was just going to be home until I was, like, 35, which, weirdly, is completely normal in Asian families. — Jason Wu

Life means that I can live to see tomorrow. — Ieyasu Tokugawa

Korean-American: Have you ever noticed how most Asian-Americans are slightly brain-damaged from having grown up with Asian parents? It's like being raised by monkeys - these retarded monkeys who can barely speak English and who are too evil to understand anything besides conformity and status. Most of us hate these monkeys from an early age and try to learn how to be human from school or television, but the result is always tainted by this subtle or not so subtle retardation. Asian people from Asia are even more brain-damaged, but in a different way, because they are the original monkey. — Jean Lee

Asian people are very practical and come from a conservative world. The parents want their kids to be doctors and lawyers. There are casting calls for Asian children, but once the parents find out the children might miss school, they're opposed to it. — BD Wong

Westerners often laud their children as 'talented' or 'gifted', while Asian parents highlight the importance of hard work. And in fact, research performed by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has found that the way parents offer approval affects the way children perform, even the way they feel about themselves. — Amy Chua

To be honest, I know that a lot of Asian parents are secretly shocked and horrified by many aspects of Western parenting. — Amy Chua

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable — Martin Amis

What do you know about racing? Ronnie asked, curious. He looked fascinated, like a scientist confronted by a strange new species: dontgivadamnus from the phylum couldntcareless. — Karen Chance

Southall Broadway, in west London, has been a constant part of my life from the day I arrived in England as a baby from Kenya in 1962. My parents rented a room in one of the terraces off the Broadway, and I've seen it change from an ordinary English high street to what is now 'Little India.' with a confident Asian community. — Gurinder Chadha

When I was little, my parents really only wanted me to be a scientist or a doctor; they had never even heard of law school. I think even these days if you were to tell your mother you want to be a fashion designer, or an artist or a writer, a lot of Asian parents would be alarmed because they don't think that's a secure career. — Amy Chua

My dad, of course, like a lot of Asian parents, wanted me to be an engineer or doctor and never could understand why I would want to be a lawyer. And then, when I first said I wanted to run for office, he thought that was absolutely insane. — Gary Locke

It's interesting for myself, growing up as an Asian-American filmmaker. Coming into the industry, my parents always said, "No one's going to give you the opportunity. You just have to do the work. Be better than everyone else, so they can't deny it." — Daniel Radcliffe

People call me all the time and say, "Man, your players aren't signed yet." Well, it doesn't really matter what time dinner is when you're the steak. — Scott Boras

When I met white kids' parents, they always asked me bullshit questions about race, where our family was "from," and used words like Oriental. I was like a toy in their house, but Joey's parents were Asian so it felt like family. I never felt like I had to carry the burden of the whole Chinese diaspora, or that everything I did was a statement about my people and where we're from. (84) — Eddie Huang

Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic. — William Hazlitt