Early Quote by Claire Saffitz

My grandparents, they came through Ellis Island in 1923, and you know, I'd heard all the stories.

— James Gray

My grandparents used to tell me stories about their trip to Ellis Island from Russia and life on the Lower East Side of New…

— James Gray

My dad knows every single accent from being an old Yiddish grandpa to being Indian or Jamaican. It was very cool to grow up…

— Ashley Bell

I heard Yiddish when my father's family came to the house, which was as seldom as my mother could arrange it.

— Anonymous

My dad was raised Orthodox in Atlanta. He speaks Hebrew. He speaks Yiddish. He married a Jewish woman who is not Orthodox, so I…

— Alex Borstein

My father is from Brooklyn, but we spoke Dutch at home.

— Sergino Dest

My mom's father came from a family of 11 children who came over from the island of Ischia, Italy, and settled in Providence, RI.…

— Joanna Going

My grandfather lived to be 96 years old. He was born in a town outside of Salerno in Southern Italy. He came to New…

— Abel Ferrara

My grandfather was from outside of Moscow, and my grandmother, although some of her family were French, was from Odessa. They met as immigrants…

— Alexis Denisof

My grandparents were born in England but spoke German and had a German name.

— Rick Stein

My family came to Newark in the '20s. We've been there a long, long time. My father's name was LeRoi, the French-ified aspect of…

— Amiri Baraka

When the Berlin Wall came down, my dad left to visit the U.S. He met my mom at this summer camp where they were…

— Zazie Beetz