Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to applaud this quotation she heard from John Palmer Gavit. She went on to talk about how many of us teach prejudice with pride in things we have no control over at all - like the place of our birth or our parents.
She came upon it in 1938 and I think it is pretty good too.
“Once, many years ago, to an old Scotch born carpenter, I boasted with scant tact of at least ten identifiable ancestors that arrived on the Mayflower and that every drop of my blood had been on American soil for more than two centuries.
He replied, chuckling, “Tell me this—how many nights sat ye up deciden' ye'd no' be born Chinese?”
TRANSLATION: Since my husband could not figure it out.
"Tell me this - how many nights did you sit up deciding that you would not be born Chinese?"
(ancestor Cyril Call; above right - yep; that's my gene pool; descendant of the Mayflower, so am I!)