is an intern at The Root and senior journalism major at Howard University.
Zoe Saldana
Movie magic morphed her into Neytiri, the ultimate alien warrior babe in Avatar. However, Zoe Yadira Saldana was born a Jersey girl in 1978, to a Puerto Rican mother and a Dominican father. (She spent part of her childhood in the Domincan Republic, where she studied ballet.) She starred opposite Ashton Kutcher in the interracial rom-com Guess Who, but her breakout role was as Lt. Nyota Uhura in the 2009 film Star Trek.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: High, if she shows up as a blue-skinned Na'vi.
John McCain
Arizona's senior senator (and 2008 presidential candidate) was actually born in Panama, in the Coco Solo Naval Air Station, where his father was serving as a naval officer. He's long been an advocate for immigration reform, but with an upcoming election, he's singing the praises of SB1070. ''The people of southern Arizona have had their human rights violated,'' he said recently on the Senate floor.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Not on your life.
Kim Cattrall
She's best known as frisky New Yorker Samantha in Sex in The City, but Cattrall was born in 1956 in Liverpool, England and grew up both there and in Canada. However, despite her U.K. roots, she couldn't pull off a convincing British accent in the 2010 Roman Polanski thriller, The Ghost Writer.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Unlikely; and if they do stop her she can flirt her way out of it.
Eva Longoria Parker
The Desperate Housewives star was born in 1975 to a Mexican-American family and grew up on a ranch near Corpus Christi, Texas. As revealed in the PBS series Faces of America, her family's Texan roots go back to the 17th century. They were Texans before Texans were Americans. She's married to San Antonio Spurs basketball player Tony Parker, an immigrant from France.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Without makeup and wardrobe, she's at risk.
Tony Parker
Basketball player Tony Parker was born in Brussels, Belgium, and grew up in France. His father is African-American, and his mother is of Dutch descent.
Immigration status: Immigrant (French citizen)
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cop: Likely. The San Antonio Spurs baller may be a neighboring team to Arizona's Phoenix Suns, but that doesn't mean the cops will go any easier on him.
Sandra Oh
Sandra Oh earned her fame as an ambitious Asian surgeon in a relationship with an African-American physician (Isaiah Washington) in Grey's Anatomy. But many will remember her even better role as the outrageous and neurotic assistant to Arliss, the scheming sports agent in the short-lived HBO series Arli$$. Oh was born in Canada to Korean immigrant parents.
Immigration Status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Only if she reverts to the language she used in her early career as a comic.
Sara Ramirez
She stars as Dr. Callie Torres on Grey's Anatomy, but she is also a trained singer who attended the Juilliard School in New York. Ramirez was born in Mazatlan, Sinaloa in Mexico but came to San Diego at age 8. While television has given her fame, she has also had a rich Broadway career, winning both a Tony and an Outer Critics Circle Award. She recently signed a record deal, so she could be expanding her personal borders.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: If they're profiling, high, very high. But of course, they'd never do that.
Martin Sheen
Born Ramon Gerardo Antonio Estévez in Dayton, Ohio, in 1940, the star of The West Wing had a Spanish father and an Irish mother. He adopted the acting name Martin Sheen to avoid the discrimination he faced using his birth name, although his legal name remains Estévez. Famous sons Emilio Estévez and Charlie Sheen split the difference. A passionate activist, Martin Sheen attended a recent L.A. rally for immigrant rights.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Pretty much zero.
Emilio Estévez
Estévez is a native New Yorker, born in the outer borough of Staten Island. The actor (The Mighty Ducks) was raised in Manhattan and Santa Monica, and unlike his brother Charlie, he chose not to take the stage name of his father, Martin Sheen.
Immigration Status: U.S. citizen
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: None, unless they're checking names.
Idris Elba
He's known for playing American gangsters, in The Wire and American Gangster, but Elba was born in the United Kingdom to a Ghanaian mother and a father who hailed from Sierra Leone. Elba, who flits between accents—English and American—with ease, was last seen shooting 'em up in The Losers.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Unlikely. Even cops are scared of Stringer Bell.
Dirk Nowitzki
Nowitzki, the 7-foot-tall Dallas Mavericks baller, is a native of Wurtzberg, Germany. Both his parents were athletes, and his talent earned him a spot on the German national basketball team, where he got NBA attention by helping his countrymen whup the U.S. national team.
Immigration Status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Only if Dallas makes the NBA finals against Phoenix next year.
Johan Santana
Johan Santana is really from the boondocks, a remote town in Venezuela called Merida. However, the Santana family seemed to have a monopoly on Merida's baseball genes. Johan's father, Jesus, played semi-pro baseball and his brother Franklin showed a lot of promise on the diamond as well. But it's Johan who made it all the way to the Big Show to become a pitcher for the New York Mets.
Immigrant status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Latino guy with a Spanish surname?
Claro que sí!
Charlize Theron
Theron was born into an Afrikaans-speaking family in South Africa in 1975. The stunning actress and former model has won an Oscar for her role as the serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003), but perhaps her best performance was perfecting an American accent. To rid herself of her Afrikaner inflections, she watched hours and hours of American television and mimicked what she heard.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Are you kidding?
Amaury Nolasco
Best known for playing prisoner Fernando Sucre in the TV drama Prison Break, Nolasco was born 1970 in Puerto Rico. In one Prison Break plotline, his character actually escapes to Mexico.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: He'd better lay low.
Alex Ovechkin
Ovechkin was born in Moscow and started playing hockey at age 2. (No, not everybody in Russia starts that young.) His mother won Olympic gold in basketball, and his father played professional soccer. Ovechkin is a true hockey superstar, lifting the Washington franchise into a perennial Stanley Cup contender.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Not unless he replies to a question about his occupation: left wing.
Boris Kodjoe
Born Boris Tay-Natey Ofuatey-Kodjoe in 1973, the hunky actor (Madea's Family Reunion) was born in Vienna, Austria, to a German psychologist mother and a Ghanaian physician father. He married Soul Food television co-star Nicole Ari Parker in 2005 and settled in Atlanta. In 2009, they told People about their then-4-year-old daughter Sophie's battle with spina bifida. They also have a young son, Nicolas.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Not likely, unless DWB (Driving While Black).
Vladimir Guerrero
Guerrero is one of the wave of Latin American players who have changed the face of major league baseball. Guerrero, who plays for the Texas Rangers, was born in the hamlet of Don Gregorio, Nizao, in the Dominican Republic. A perennial all-star and former American League MVP, Guerrero moved from California to Texas over the winter.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Maybe not. He's brown, but he carries a big bat.
Yao Ming
He's the first real basketball superstar from China. He'd stand out anyway by simply being the tallest player in the NBA—at 7-foot-6 inches. Ming was born in Shanghai and started playing for the local team as a teenager. He's regularly listed as China's richest celebrity because of his salary and endorsements.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Only until he steps out of the car.
Jimmy Smits
The matinee-idol handsome Mr. Smits is a hometown boy, born in Brooklyn, N.Y. His father was an immigrant from Surinam with Dutch roots; his mother was Puerto Rican. Smits has starred in a bunch of TV shows including L.A. Law, NYPD Blue and The West Wing. He identifies strongly with Puerto Rico, even getting himself arrested for protesting Navy bombing exercises on the island of Vieques.
Immigration status: Native-born U.S. citizen
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Can you paint a bulls-eye?
Bill Richardson
The son of an American father and a Mexican mother, New Mexico's governor was born in Pasadena, Calif., in 1947, but spent most of his childhood in Mexico City. On April 30, Richardson ordered his state's Human Rights Division to assist any constituents traveling through Arizona.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: If they don't recognize the 2008 presidential candidate, high. Very high.
Laz Alonso
The Howard University graduate was born in Washington, D.C., to Cuban parents who'd immigrated to the States. After graduation, the bilingual Alonso worked in investment banking before setting his sights on an acting career. He's worked steadily ever since, from Miracle at St. Anna to Avatar to Just Wright.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Probable. (Driving While Black + Spanish last name = trouble on top of trouble.)
CCH Pounder
Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder was born and raised on a sugar cane plantation in Guyana. When she was a young girl, her parents moved to the States, shipping her and her sister off to a convent boarding school in the United Kingdom. Pounder, who attended Ithaca College, got her start in Bob Fosse's 1979 film, All That Jazz.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Slim.
Thandie Newton
Born in London to a Zimbabwean mother and a British father, Newton grew up in both Zambia and Cornwall, England. Like many black British actors, Newton's found more work in the U.S. than back home. Newton got her start acting alongside Nicole Kidman in Flirting. These days, she's got the whole American accent thing down pat, from Southern (Beloved) to Los Angeles B.A.P. (Traffic.)
Immigration status: Immigrant. (But she mostly lives in London with her family.)
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: If they saw her go off on cops in Traffic, they'll know to leave her alone.
Russell Crowe
He's Australian born, but when he's not playing Robin Hood, he can usually be found sporting an American accent. (American Gangster, State of Play, the list goes on…)
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: No way. He can play good ol' boy with the best of them.
Bobby Jindal
This aw-shucks governor of Louisiana is actually named Piyush Jindal, but that might have been a tough handle with which to make a political career. A first-generation American, Jindal's parents are immigrants from India.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Pulled over by the wrong cop and looked at in the wrong light, we'd say the probability is high that he'll be asked, ''Papers, please!''
Delroy Lindo
Another black Brit who's found work playing Americans in Hollywood, Lindo was born in London to Jamaican parents. The Tony Award-nominated actor is a veteran of several Spike Lee joints, having played West Indian Archie in Malcolm X and the dad in Crooklyn.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Slim.
Norah Jones
Geethali Norah Jones Shankar was born in Brooklyn in 1979 to famed Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar and Sue Jones, an American-born dancer. She grew up in Texas, far from her dad's native India. In 2002, her Grammy-winning debut album, Come Away With Me was an instant hit. Her fourth studio album, The Fall, was released last November.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Likely. With her dark hair and olive skin, Jones could definitely be accused of DWB. (Driving While Brown.)
Mariah Carey
Had her paternal grandfather not changed his last name, Mariah Carey might have been Mariah Nunez, making her a surefire target for the Arizona police. Her mother is of Irish American descent, and her father had a multicultural background, being both African-American and Afro-Venezuelan.
Immigration status: American-born, in Long Island, N.Y., no less.
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: If you're brown, you're going down.
Rosario Dawson
Rosario Dawson was born and bred in NYC, but her family lineage goes beyond the Big Apple. Her mother is Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican, while her father is of Native American and Irish descent.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: High! If they can't place you, they're gonna chase you.
Ryan Giggs
Welsh soccer star Ryan Giggs plays for England's Manchester United. And though you may not know just by looking at him, his paternal grandfather hails from Sierra Leone. Giggs even recalls encountering incidences of racism while growing up in the suburbs of Wales.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Quite low.
Vin Diesel
Actor Vin Diesel was born Mark Sinclair Vincent. He's biracial and describes his background as being mixed with Italian and ''a lot of other stuff.'' Diesel was born and raised in the U.S. of A.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Considering Diesel's self-proclaimed ''ambiguous ethnicity,'' this one's a tossup.
Benjamin Bratt
It may be hard to trace actor Benjamin Bratt's lineage based on his name. The California native's mother is a Peruvian immigrant from the Quechuas tribe, and his father was American with German and English roots. Bratt supports the rights of indigenous peoples, and was even involved in the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island that his family participated in during his childhood.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: High! His past record of civil disobedience may bring more weight down on him, too.
Dwayne Johnson
Former wrestler and actor Dwayne Johnson has some surprising familial roots. His father is black, but hails from Nova Scotia, and his mother's family is Samoan.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: High! Unless the Arizona cops who stop him are WWE fans.
Joaquin Phoenix
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, actor-cum-horrible-rapper Joaquin Phoenix didn't come to mainland America until the age of 4. Though ethnically Jewish, for a time, Phoenix was raised in the Children of God cult with his five siblings, including late actor River.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Likely, but only because he'd be shouting bad freestyles at the top of his lungs while stumbling around the middle of the street.
Mila Kunis
As a large part of distinctly American sitcoms like That ‘70s Show and Family Guy, it might surprise you to know that Kunis is Ukrainian. Her family moved to Los Angeles when she was 8.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Nil
Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons, aka Chaim Witz, was born in Israel. He moved to New York with his mother, a Holocaust survivor, at the age of 8, and would later form the band KISS.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Almost none, as long as he keeps that tongue in his mouth.
Michael J. Fox
He might have played all-American young conservative Alex Keaton in the '80s sitcom Family Ties, but he was born Michael Andrew Fox in 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Fox (Back To The Future trilogy) had the typical Canadian dream of playing professional hockey when he grew up. More recently, he has been an ardent advocate of research for Parkinson's disease, which he has had since 1991.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: Bet you a loonie he won't get stopped.
Wentworth Miller
A native of Oxfordshire, England, this Prison Break star is multiracial, the son of a black father and a white mother. Though his family eventually moved to New York, Miller retains dual citizenship.
Immigration status: Immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: As long as there's no anti-pretty boys legislation, Miller should be free to move about Arizona.
Marc Anthony
Born Marco Antonio Muniz in 1968, the singer and actor (Man on Fire, El Cantante) is a native New Yorker with Puerto Rican parents. After dabbling in freestyle and house music, he gained international stardom in the 1990s after switching to salsa and Spanish-language styles sung in a flawless, soaring tenor. He is married to a fellow Nuyorican, The Bronx's own Jennifer Lopez.
Immigration status: Not an immigrant
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: His lean, dark and handsome looks might draw attention.
Mel Gibson
Born in America, actor Mel Gibson migrated to Australia with his family at the age of 12. His lineage is of both Australian and Irish descent.
Immigration status: Dual Irish and American citizenship
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cop: Not a chance. As long as he's sober and keeps his mouth shut.
Joakim Noah
Noah is the son of France's most famous tennis player, Yannick Noah (whose dad was from Cameroon) and a former Miss Sweden, Cecelia Rhode. Joakim, who was born in New York City, avoided comparisons to his dad by playing basketball instead. Dad has become a big-name singer in Europe, but Joakim toils for the Chicago Bulls.
Immigrant status: It's complicated. He was born in the U.S.A., but in 2007, he became a French citizen.
Likelihood of being harassed by Arizona cops: They may be confused by his self-designation as an African Viking.