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I know from the stories of my grandparents and great-grandparents the real struggles and discrimination that Italian Americans faced when they first immigrated to America.

Remember that our Spanish conquerors, for their own benefit, deliberately created an oppressed underclass whose collective psyche became rooted in passivity and underachievement.

I was immediately smitten with an attraction to this culture, not in the sense of high culture but of the basic way people behaved towards one another.

Who said that being Latino is to be a stereotype? Characters are stereotypes when making plans or without shades. I do not believe in the picture or model established in the movies.

In the John Wayne movies, the Indians were savages that were trying to scalp you. That culture has really suffered because of the stereotype you see in those westerns.

The Irish fought the Italians until they started marrying them. And then they both fought the Jews until they started marrying them.

Latinos come from different countries, and they tend to segregate with only their country instead of embracing all the other countries, because in reality, all the Latinos are going through the same experiences of discrimination and racism.

The power which the Hellenes and even the Italians possessed, of civilizing and assimilating to themselves the nations susceptible of culture with whom they came into contact, was wholly wanting in the Phoenicians.

I know Italians and I like them. A lot of my father's best friends were Italians.

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.