I like Q&A's better than articles sometimes because I feel like I'd rather hear somebody actually talk or wrestle with.

America is White and Black and Latino and Asian. America is mixed. America is immigrants.

Citizenship to me is more than a piece of paper. Citizenship is also about character. I am an American. We're just waiting for our country to recognize it.

For Filipino Americans, it's a battle for recognition, for identity in a culture where, for the mainstream, Asians tend to fade into a monochromatic racialized 'other.'

I am not the 'illegal' you think I am, and immigration is not what you think it is.

When people call me illegal, calling me illegal says more about you than it does about me.

To be in America illegally is actually a civil offense and not a criminal one.

You have to stand for something bigger than yourself.

I have no control over what people call me. The only thing I have control over is my work, and that's really all I can be judged on.

To me, it's just that social media is allowing people to be in charge of their own narratives.

I always felt like I had the word "illegal" tattooed on my forehead.

Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Learning and reading will enrich your life with wisdom for living.

The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.

Divorce is, of course, difficult for a child. I didn't go through it as my parents stayed together, but I have a lot of friends who did.

I don't know how one would define an affirmative-action hire. I ultimately do not know what role race played in my hiring.

When I'm given an opportunity with music and goodness, then I want to do that [play that role]. I want to go all the way to the edge of that and make it as big as I can.

I was a songwriter; that was the torch I carried. This is an honorable profession. This is what I do.

One thing that success has taught me is censorship.

I don't begin a novel with a shopping list - the novel becomes my shopping list as I write it.