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My values - going back to my childhood - were always based on respect for all people and rejection of bigotry and racism.

The March on Washington affirmed our values as a people: equality and opportunity for all. Forty-one years ago, during a time of segregation, these were an ideal.

My background is that I came from a middle class family, and I think those values stay where ever you go.

Yes, many immigrants cherish the value of choice and opportunity and the value of education more than 7th or 8th generation Americans.

There is certainly greatness in the '60s generation. They changed our attitudes about race in America, which was long overdue. They didn't just stand up and salute when told to go to war. Women finally began to realize a more equal place in our society.

I try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn't mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I'm always trying to make a larger human statement.

On my parents' scale of values, the more Western something was, the more cultured it was considered.

My father grew up in an era when to be an American - a white American, at least - was to be yourself. In some respects, his generation was more ignorant, complacent, self-centered and parochial than mine.

The business of being told to earn a dollar, that no one is going to give you anything - that was kind of my mantra throughout my childhood, and now it's in my adult life. I find that people really tend to relate to the immigrant father, whether he be Italian, Greek, Spanish or whatever.