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In a funny way, nothing makes you feel more like a native of your own country than to live where nearly everyone is not.

We, as Americans, at least - I mean, I love my country - but we're so self-righteous sometimes, in terms of, like, our nationality, our country. But we're people from somewhere else; the true 'Americans' are the original peoples. It's funny, but we're a very territorial species.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government.

All Americans are either immigrants or descendants of ancestors who came from somewhere else, including Native Americans. We should all respect and admire immigrants.

I really do feel part of America to my very bones; at the same time, I know that I come from somewhere else.

Whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic or the Pacific or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, or what our last names are, or how we worship.

From the newest arrivals to our Native American brothers and sisters, we are one America.

America has never taken me to its heart. I've always been an outsider.

It's hard to think of myself as an American, and yet I am not from India, a place where I was not born and where I have never lived.

I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American.