Maya Soetoro-Ng Quotes

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Maya Soetoro-Ng

Profession : Educator

Birth : August 15, 1970

I think you can have varied and seemingly contradictory depictions of a single person because we all have many facets and, in a way, many selves.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

I think we could benefit from world history that is specifically taught in a multi-faceted fashion that allows for an understanding that perspectives on truth can be very different.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

I'm half white, half Asian. I think of myself as hybrid. People usually think I'm Latina when they meet me. That's what made me learn Spanish.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

Philosophically, I would say that I am Buddhist.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

My father saw Islam as a way to connect with the community. He never went to prayer services except for big communal events. I am absolutely certain that my father did not go to services every Friday. He was not religious.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

We need to teach our children empathy and care and love and communication and social responsibility in preparation for adulthood.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

I think a lot about our globalized world, our global interconnectedness, and it really saddens me when I see people 'othering,' when I see people who are willing to live narrowly.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

Barack himself is very much a regular guy, not a silver spoon, incredibly smart, but, you know, he's a scholarship kid, made good use of the resources that were available to him, worked incredibly hard.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

You really need to love something or someone in order to work hard enough to be very successful. You have to believe in something and have a certain optimism. Faith and optimism come from love.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

My mother was a courageous woman, and she had such tremendous love for life. She loved the natural world. She would wake us up in the middle of the night to go look at the moon. When I was a teenager, this was a source of great frustration because I wanted to sleep.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

Each of us has a right to name ourselves as we will.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

We can do much to help our communities loosen their boundaries and begin to welcome a multitude of ways of being to make sure that individuals of mixed race, religion, or ethnicities don't feel the need to choose one or the other but see their layers as a gift, something that adds beauty.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

Being told that I looked like I belonged everywhere and to everyone helped me feel my fledgling pride in my own multiracialism.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

I ended up very American and very Indonesian and a little bit of a lot of things.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

The rich emotional tapestry of being a mother, becoming a mother, connects you to your own mother. I didn't realize how much I'd become her. I pass a mirror, and am surprised by how much I look like her.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

I've always kept a journal and brought storytelling into my teaching.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

I don't think the White House has always reflected the textures and flavors of this country.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

The facts are simply that my brother was born in the United States at the Kapiolani Hospital for Women and Children in 1961. His birth certificate has been authenticated by a number of sources.

Maya Soetoro-Ng

I think it's true we look forward to enormous amounts of information, but I think we would be better off if we thought about the kinds of wisdom and thoughtfulness that we need in order to handle the amount of information ahead.

Maya Soetoro-Ng