Hyphenated Quotes & Sayings

I am the first prime minister of this country of neither English nor French origin. So I determined to bring about a Canadian citizenship that knew no hyphenated consideration ... I'm very happy to be able to say that in the House of Commons today in my party we have members of Italian, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, Chinese and Ukrainian origin and they are all Canadians. — John Diefenbaker

These neighborhood was our first home as a community but, once Italians began to gain status as "full" Americans, they moved out of the communities that they co-habited with other immigrants and people of color. The rootedness in this community shifted into a dissention of difference and of privilege. In order for Italian-Americans to mark their new social location under assumed "Whiteness," they had to make a physical move away from the marginal communities of color. The discussion ended in my favor but would mark the beginning of a long struggle of unpacking the internalized oppression and discrimination that marked my family's identity of "White"-working class-Italian-Americans learning to assimilate while keeping their hyphenated identity. Learning to build bridges between my different borders and my passions has been a continual process for me. — Lachrista Greco

I push back against a deeply-entrenched tendency in American culture to label quickly and no longer even examine the labels that were initially stamped on a person. I don't have a problem with any of my "hyphenated" biography - I don't have any problem with that at all. The world would be a better place if our thread of hyphenation were truly embraced beyond mere naming and category. — Fady Joudah

All flowers are flirtatious - particularly if they carry hyphenated names. The more hyphens in the name, the flirtier the flower. The one-hyphen flowers - black-eyed Susan; lady-smock; musk-rose - may give you only a shy glance and then drop their eyes; the two-hyphen flowers - forget-me-not; flower-de-luce - keep glancing. Flowers with three or more hyphens flirt all over the garden and continue even when they are cut and arranged in vases. John-go-to-bed-at-noon does not go there simply to sleep. — Willard R. Espy

Luna was remote and ladylike. The only time anyone had ever seen Luna angry was when someone referred to her as 'African-American'.
"I'm an American," she had snapped, whirling on the offender. "I've never even been to Africa. I was born in California, my father was a major in the Marine Corps, and I'm not a hyphenated anything. I have a black heritage, but I also have a white one." She had held out one slim arm and studied the color of it. "Looks to me like I'm brown. We're all just different shades of brown,so don't try to set me apart. — Linda Howard

In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans. — Theodore Roosevelt

The 'Weston' is actually my middle name. I hyphenated it because I really wasn't willing to go out in the acting world as 'Tom Jones,' 'cause I'm Welsh as well, so the connotation is just ridiculous. — Tom Weston-Jones

I am a hyphenated person, but I am not falling apart; I am putting together. — Guillermo Verdecchia

The cucina casalinga and cucina povera are the new haute cuisines. — Loretta Gatto-White

there's nothing scarier than silent Italians; it's unnatural — Joe Novella

You don't have freedom because you are a hyphenated American; you have freedom because you are an individual, and that should be protected. — Ron Paul

The one being abhorrent to the powers above the earth and under them is the hyphenated American — Theodore Roosevelt

Everyone reads Harper Lee personally. For me, 'Mockingbird' was about admitting my own hyphenated identity - about loving and hating my world, about both belonging and not belonging to the community I came from. — Margaret Stohl

The reality is that when you visit Italy, you'll be hijacked by relatives of all sorts; the entire family tree is waiting to meet you. [A hyphenated Italian's risk] — Ivanka Di Felice

[Charles] Reznikoff was in between faiths, in between worlds ... a double, hyphenated American. I think it probably goes deeper than that. — Paul Auster

I'm tired of hyphenated Americans. — Bobby Jindal

Italians and Greeks have uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents as far as the eye can see. — Joe Novella

A writer leads a hyphenated-life with words — Munia Khan

When you study our greatest artists, you will find that they give us a key to understand how to deal with each other, and that our bloodlines are intertwined. It's not hyphenated America. That there is an America, and it is expressed in those arts. It gives us a key to figure out how to negotiate with each other, and it tells us actually who we are. — Wynton Marsalis

Harriet Jones: When they fart, if you'll pardon the word, it doesn't smell like a fart, pardon the word, it's like something else. What is it? It's more like um ...
Rose: Bad breath!
Harriet Jones: That's it!
The Doctor: Calcium decay! Now that narrows it down! Calcium phosphate. Organic calcium - living calcium - creatures made out of living calcium, what else? What else? Hyphenated surname! YES! That narrows it down to one planet: Raxacoricofallapatorius!
Mickey Smith: [dryly] Oh yeah, great. We can write 'em a letter! — Russell T. Davies

I just consider myself a Republican, none of this hyphenated stuff. I was a mainstream conservative Republican, and most people are in that category. — Bob Dole

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities. — Theodore Roosevelt

We have been stuffed full of praise for mediocrity and had our foibles diagnosed away with hyphenated jargon and pop psychology. — Kevin DeYoung

Our nation is built upon a history of immigration, dating back to our first pioneers, the Pilgrims. For more than three centuries, we have welcomed generations of immigrants to our melting pot of hyphenated America: British-Americans; Italian-Americans; Irish-Americans; Jewish-Americans; Mexican-Americans; Chinese-Americans; Indian-Americans. — Ami Bera

I am tired with hyphenated Americans! We are not Indian-Americans, or African-Americans. — Bobby Jindal

I lost a whole continent.
a whole continent from my memory.
unlike all other hyphenated americans
my hyphen is made of blood.
when africa says hello
my mouth is a heartbreak
because i have nothing in my tongue
to answer her.
i don't know how to say hello to my mother. — Nayyirah Waheed

You see the one thing I've always maintained is that I'm an American Indian. I'm not a Native American. I'm not politically correct. Everyone who's born in the Western Hemisphere is a Native American. We are all Native Americans. And if you notice, I put American before my ethnicity. I'm not a hyphenated African-American or Irish-American or Jewish-American or Mexican-American. — Russell Means

I think we don't need to be talking about hyphenated Americans, because we are all Americans, and we all want the same thing. — Rafael Cruz

Today there are a lot places where people say they're just hopeless. If I can come from a hopeless country, get an education, become a hyphenated American and become president of the World Bank, it's my moral duty to make sure that every single person on the planet has that opportunity. — Jim Yong Kim

The hyphenated American is ridiculous. But that's what we have to put up with. I think that any person that's in the United States is better off here than they would be where they came from. — John Wayne

Louis Brandeis started off by embracing the Theodore Roosevelt notion that hyphenated Americanism was unpatriotic. You couldn't have dual loyalties. But then he thinks and he reads and he becomes the head of the American Zionist movement after having previously been a secular Jew in this amazing intellectual evolution. — Jeffrey Rosen