[inaudible conversations] >> good morning. welcome to the third annual tucson festival of books. i'm the moderator for the panel, becoming america, immigration stories across the decades. . .

so the student union. they will be available to sign books and the books are available at the signing venue. if you haven't already, can i ask you please to turn off your cell phones and pagers and i would like to introduce the authors. it is my great honor to introduce you to these four authors who enrich our knowing. raul castro's book "adversity is my angel: the life and career of raul h. castro" was co-written with jack audits junior. castro was born in mexico in 1916 the son of a copper miner

and a midwife. is worked himself through school by plucking chickens, panning gold and waiting tables. in 1974 he made history when he was elected arizona's very first and to date only mexican-american governor. he will also answer to judge and ambassador. paula fass is a professor of history at the university of california berkeley. a distinguished scholar and resident at rutgers university, shea specializes in the history of children and childhood. in her seventh book, "inheriting the holocaust: a second generation memoir," she reconstructs the complex story of her family's history that helps us understand the influence of european jewish life in the nineteenth and

twentyth century. in "a long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier" ishmael beah tel story of his life in the civil war in serbia and in the 1990s. he served as a powerful spokesperson for child soldiers almost from the moment of his rehabilitation. he worked with unicef on global use and poverty issues. chiquis barron was born in mexico and immigrated to arizona at the age of 5. a graduate of the you of a she has worked in behavioral and mental research since 1998. her novel focuses on the unique geographical political and cultural dynamics of growing up in the crux of two influential

countries. her blonde stands at the top of the top 113 latino blood. now we will hear from governor castro. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. i am honored to be here this morning. i am lucky to make it. i live in arizona. 75 yards from the mexican border. i was afraid they might turn me upside down asking me for papers, whether i was an american or not. i say that because i am concerned that we are in turmoil at this moment. let me give you this story. i had a harsh farm in tucson and one day my wife began complaining of the picket fences were dirty. i want you to paint it.

that was in tucson at that time. here comes my boots and straw hat, my bucket of paint to paned the fence. within 20 minutes border patrol stopped. do you have a card? are answered nothing like that. i do not have a card. they asked me to do you work for? i pointed towards the house and said there is a lady. many of you recognize that to be very -- they took of the carburetor and said wait a minute. signing the fence on the yard, it says castro funny farm. i happen to be kestrel. that was the end of the story. even though i said no to the

finding. whenever i travel, intimidation in san diego, they stop me and look at me and recognize i don't look irish or norwegian. they are ready to throw me upside down. so i am concerned about changing on the immigration spectrum. i hope you will do something to improve it. thank you very much. [applause] >> it is a pleasure to be here today. can you hear me? an honor to be sitting with governor castro and ishmael beah and chiquis barron. i am an american historian. for 35 years i have been researching and writing about u.s. history especially social and cultural history.

recently i have been helping develop the field of children's history of a more global scale. this is a history for which i am professionally known and recognized but my most recent book is as much about poland as it is the united states and while it is very much about my childhood in the united states it is also about the destruction of children and childhood. "inheriting the holocaust: a second generation memoir" is about how life became a particular kind of american historian. when i was a little girl not yet 3 years old, my mother began to tell me about her past. that is the origin of "inheriting the holocaust: a second generation memoir" which i wrote many years after she died because i had to keep her story alive. why would an american historian write a memoir like this? for me writing this memoir became an act of what i call

recovery. reconnecting with a different past, a personal past that i turn into history. i tell people i was not ready to write it until i had sufficiently mastered my craft, it was the most difficult form of history writing. to me as a child, the past is deeply part of everyday life among people we care most about. my parents were a victim of the greatest crime of the 20th century and that single historical event. they were individual remnants of a complex jewish community and multi dimensional culture. it was suddenly and irretrievably. they brought with them to my childhood and into my growing up, memories of both the rich and varied cultures and its languages and the beastliness

which destroyed them. my mother especially had been eager for me to know about her earlier life. it was a vivid story teller. she shares with a poem that came despite my intentions and before i much realized a real part of my life as a child though i have never visited there. these stories became the second and memories. and the basis for my historical reconstruction of her family in poland. i was an immigrant child porn between a lost world never personally experienced and a new world where i was still an outsider to which i very much want to be long. in the effort to understand the culture to which i aspired i chose to study its history. i did not study the world from which my parents came. in this i was not so on like many second-generation immigrants eager to learn in the

words of a recent book on an agreed use a new land. i brought these studies and outsider's desire to penetrate the culture which i sought to conquer and i brought the ability to perceive what others took for granted. in this way, i have been able to make a contribution to american history. it was only after spending a lifetime in this shows in history and long after my parents were dead and once my own children were almost grown that i began to experience action -- the absence of my parents in my children's lives, the absence of the language of my childhood, the absence of a history that had become further from the experience of even the survivors and their children. it was then in response to a sense of deep obligation to make sure that this history remained

alive, that i set down to put down my experience as a child and young adults. the memoir is my attempt to reconstruct my parents's experience every imagine the world that had died with the holocaust. in this end this book is a tribute to my mother's strong desire to pass on to me a past she wants to have remembered. in her strength in telling me about it. the book relies heavily on her memory although the skills and knowledge i have developed as unprofessional historian. i wrote it in order to make my past and unto others who, like me, were the children of holocaust survivors and more generally to all those children who have been immigrants caught between the desire for a future and a deep sense of obligation to their family's past and no matter how difficult. the past my mother intrusted to my care included nightmares that became the stuff of daily life.

her memories were full of the huge losses she had endured as the people she cared about, parents begin turtle brothers, cousins, a treasured piece and 3-year-old son, a whole world were buried and incinerated in the pits of poland during those terrible five years when the nazis put out the lights in europe and extinguished jewish life. my father had many memories of the destruction but he told me far less a bit about his former life be delayed but about the disaster which he called the -- nothing really substantial about his family. my knowledge about these i had to gather in various ways during the course of my life. he had not forgotten that it was too painful to remember. i learned about the four children he left in the unspeakable dust of auschwitz when i was 7 and even then i did

not quite understand. i was told they have almost survived. some details i realize are beyond the covering. drama has a face. i could not remember even second hand what i had never known or been told. this was an inheritance i could not ignore. the past flooded my father's life and became an indelible part of my childhood. what i call in the book a hunting. the details are sketchy. i came to realize it is not entirely a matter of will or desire and while i have not become a historian of the past, recovering this terrible part of their lives is also to remember my own childhood. a childhood deeply shadowed by the never forgotten horse of past lives.

when i was in fourth grade i was asked to write an essay about man's indomitable spirit. i wrote about my parents as survivors who lived with their many losses and the destruction they had witnessed. my teacher read my essay out loud but only to humiliate me. i had misunderstood the assignment. my parents had been only victims. their lives and spirit crushed. i never wrote about them again at school. today as american culture embraces the last few living members of the survivors generation and gives them a chance to speak and be heard i am eager that the lives of my parents become part of that remembering so i am remembering and speaking for them. along your cheerful to be heard. all my life my parents past was sacred. a spirit i have not been contemplated by and i was

reluctant to profit from that because i fear doing so would falsely give the impression that this was somehow my own history and sorrow. not history but memoir i finally realized would allow me to fulfill my obligation to this past which was very much in mind but not mine as a survivor. i could write about myself and my family and that experience itself would legitimately be a form of recovery. , i would not pretend to know what i did not either as a historian or a survivor. 12 years ago after writing a book about lost children and kidnapping, i came to see how much of my life was defined by such lost children and began to struggle with finding how to give these children a history and how to express the drive to recover their life's in my own

past. only a memoir in which i use what i learned as a historian would allow me to penetrate a past that held the graves of my sisters, brothers, grandparents and the culture my parents had tried to rescue and bring with them into a new world. i searched for the grave of my grandparents in poland but did not find them. their graves and monuments i now realize our in my book. i would do the best i could give in the memory and my need to record the lives of this one family which had experienced the holocaust because such reconstructions are necessary to make clear that the holocaust happened not to oceans of nameless people but to real people, ordinary people like my family who are almost never remembered or written about. has a social historian and found the source and object of a long quest.

finally i wrote this book because the history of those like myself, children of survivors who became successful americans is often overlooked as part of immigrant america. we came when there was a time of very few immigrants and our story was a mixture of normal immigrant try and special pains of households penetrated by dark memory rarely included in the history of immigration. each story of survival is unique but together the generation i represent, the second generation, also has many things that connect them. i thought it important to give not only a history to my family but also historical introduction to this particular immigrant generation. children who were singed by the flames but never truly threatened, children who knew that their own lives with a product of a miracle of historical survival but they too might have disappeared or never

been born. they were a recovered generation. there is too is an american story. thank you. [applause] >> good morning. i am deeply honored to be on this panel with raul castro, paula fass and chiquis barron. when i was asked to be on this, thinking about my own life, particularly coming to the united states i lived in this country over ten years but every time i go somewhere and somebody asks where are you from and i say new york, no, really, where are you from? i realize no matter what i do my acceptance would never be completely granted as an american or someone who lives in this culture so i began to

introduce myself as from west africa. when people ask me i tell them -- with some american tendencies. to introduce myself this way, this introduction gives people some sort of comfort to begin to have a discussion with me. about all these things. i didn't grow up here. i wasn't born here but i moved here in 1998 through some difficult circumstances that happened in my own country. we had a civil war for 11 years and i was a young boy when the war started. but before the war i had encounter with the united states because at you know, the pcs to be strong. as a young boy growing up, one of the first american's i ever encountered was a peace corps

volunteer who live in my village and taught english. so our idea of what the united states of america is was based on no matter what he did, he thought this is what americans are. for example, he would wear a sneaker she never washed, it was dirty all time. so we thought americans wear their shoes. whenever somebody wore a sneaker that was quite dirty, you are wearing a sneaker peace corps style or american-style. my father also worked for an american mining company in a remote area, it was through this that i was introduced to american popular culture. american hip-hop music was on television. we didn't have electricity but went to company headquarters and listened to watch the television and we saw these things. i was introduced to this culture

growing up. when the war came into my life it disrupted the symbol and remarkable life i had. at the age of 12 i started running from the war. between 12, and 13, i needed family that was killed. my older brother and younger brother, was killed in the war. hundred two thousand of other children, eventually driving -- i fought over two years as a child soldier. eventually i was removed from this by united nations by unicef, and was actually selected to come to new york. this was the first time i left to come to new york to speak about what was going on. it was the first time i left my

country or was in a plane and the first time i had a passport and came to new york. some of you coming from to sun going to new york is easy. you can imagine what my case was. not only that, something you can relate to. i came in winter of 1996. i had no idea. i know the words snow and winter through shakespeare that i read growing up but i had no physical relationships with any of these things at all. the person who brought us had no idea where we were going. we had no winter jacket or hats or gloves. just very flimsy close because it is always warm. as it is here. we landed at jfk at 4:00 p.m. and it was already dark. that is not a dark time of day so this is already beginning to

be quite strange for me. we saw snow for the first time. i was not thrilled about it. the only reference point i had was christmas so i thought it was christmas all the time. eventually it was where i began -- i met my mother, the woman who later adopted me and brought me back to live with her and became my mother. it jewish-american woman who adopted. i arrived in the united states. on my way what i want to mention briefly about immigration and things of that purpose when i began to perhaps the first time in my life i began to question whether my own humanity was worthy as other people who live in western europe i had never questioned that before in my life and this came about because of how process of immigration was difficult to the point that

it dehumanized a person seeking immigration. when i went to the american embassy to get a visa i was asked to produce two things. one of them was a bank statement that showed i had income and second was documentation that showed i had ownership of property. the war had been going on for nine years in my country. i tried to explain to this fellow interviewing me from behind this mirror knowing a microphone was coming i could hear his voice, tried to explain and come from a place that had a civil war and i was coming from a remote part of the world where i don't have these things. i grew up in a small community where everyone knew this with your grandfather's land. you didn't need papers to prove that. i tried to explain it and he could not understand what i was saying. his idea was if i didn't provide these things he could not trust

me i intended to return to my country at all and that if he didn't give me this visa i could be killed. he was not interested in hearing these things at all. i tried to joke with him to explain let's say for instance i had a bank account which i don't have, when you hear gunshots and your town was attacked you are not thinking i must really take my bank statement and my ownership of property so i can give it to this guy at the american embassy. you are not thinking these things at all. you are thinking can i survive the next minute? will live to see the next minute? when i was having this discussion, the idea to write about where i was coming from our was born at this point and because of frustration that i wanted to give context to my own life legalize humanity to explain to people my life and

also that sometimes the standards we put in place to trust people, make people trust worthy and their own humanity may not be the same standard people have here but that doesn't mean they're not human beings either. this is the stuff i began to encounter. when i arrived in the united states there was another problem which was education. i arrived and was asked when my mother took me around to apply for schools, where is the report card? without it schools to not accept me without a report card. i tried to explain i was in a war again. i wasn't thinking about report cards. there are a lot of exclusions when you are an immigrant coming. as a young boy growing up i remember being fascinated with the united states through the peace corps and american companies i read the history of this nation as a place that was

a place full of diversity, people who had come from different parts of the world because of similar persecutions that some of us are running from but yet when you arrive at jfk or wherever you are put on this -- under this questioning where you are asked as if you are almost a criminal, your criminalize before you leave and speak to immigration to the point you don't want to tell them anything about yourself any locker. i live there for a number of years and i will wrap it up and when -- every time my trouble -- travel i am still -- i pay my taxes and particularly around tax time i get very upset when i am questions in a very inhumane way. when i am traveling if i use my new york driver's license i am ok but when i -- all of a sudden it is a big problem.

i am the same guy. the same people in the same area. almost like there's no human interaction at all. even if you're trying to get information from people for security reasons if you are nice to then you actually get more -- so i run this experiment. it is quite fascinating to see what the reaction is. every time -- i just came back from geneva. every time i come back i am asked questions but i cannot laugh even though i find the questions incredibly funny. one of them was i just arrived and the guy asked me so where were you? i said geneva and he said how long? i said three days. why were you in geneva for such a short time? because i only had a few days there to do my work. why? i don't know. that is just how it was. why are you traveling with a small pack? i was gone for two or three

days. why travel to so many places? because of my work. i lived there for ten years. really? where do you live? the questioning goes on and on. when a guest to the point of what i make, why is that relevant? these questions are asked, why am i being criminalize before people even get a chance to know me? lastly what i say is this. what makes this nation a great nation is the diversity that it has. because of the incredible opportunities that people come to. anyone who is immigrating from a place try to see some sort of economic development. not trying to disturb the peace of this country. if anything, we have been here so much because i am possible here in the united states. we come for these opportunities.

no one is coming to disrupt this nation. we have become part of this. we have an element to this nation that makes it beautiful, stronger and different from any other nation you can think of in the world. if you try to prevent those people from becoming part of this nation we are going to lose the remarkable spirit of this country that had since the beginning. thank you. [applause] >> first of all i did what to take a moment to thank you, everyone involved with the tucson festival of books allowing me this wonderful opportunity to participate and

share a bed of my writing life and my experiences, someone who firmly believes in the power of the written word as a source of activism and a means to find meaning in life. it is a real honor to be in the company of such conspiring co panelists. i have had the opportunity to familiarize myself with your work and look forward to engaging in much more detail but it is a pleasure to be here with all of you. what i would start off with was a brief description of how i came to writing. i have worked and continue to work at the university of arizona in mental and behavioral health research. it had a huge impact and greatly fueled my riding especially in

terms of understanding to mental and emotional struggles that all of us as people experience at some point in our lives regardless of different disguises or appearances for each of us. my late teens and early 20s, when my search for self identity and such universal things as friendship, love and spirituality and beauty and self purpose was at its thickest, i found myself wanting to stay connected to my culture and heritage yet at the same time to reach out and experience the novelty of american life and social trends i realized, very little twitter reworks that spoke to me and the issues that

high as a young woman was facing in real time. as i struggle to make sense of this world, racism and sexism and poverty and religion and ignorance and corruption were very real. it was like a breath of fresh air when i came across a piece by an author who is considered one of the founders of contemporary literature. that said it is important for each generation to read the growing up stories of the previous generations. that is a touchstone to chart a course for the future. i read that and the need to begin writing, first turtle in trees, structuring personal essays was almost instantaneous.

it was about depicting mexican-american coming of age experience of a new generation. a generation that on top of pre-existing cultural differences struggled with generational differences so it was learning to bridge the gap not only between these powerful ethnic influences that were tugging at me in different directions but also between older and more traditional belief systems that brought a broad minded views in terms of female roles and such things as marriage and sex. it truly became about these struggles and experiences and push forward young emerge and latino voice not only for myself but those behind me and a few

ahead of me who have found their way and are still longing to feel part of something. i have been asked multiple times usually by some literary agent, why i feel my riding is important or needs to find its way into readers' hands. especially when i am not a particularly notable or prominent figure, at least in the traditionally marketable cents and over the years i come to realize i cannot afford not to write or share my experiences, obviously the dramatic demographic transformation that has taken place in the united states after years of latino immigration has changed the shape of what america looks like and it would be a real tragedy if the

literary world fails to echo all of those american voices that are still waiting to be heard. once again going back to my work and the university, and those in turtle mental and emotional struggles that i mentioned, i have been doing that work professionally for 12 years now. personally always been an avid observer of human interactions so in essence i have been doing it the greater part of my life. when i say that i know what it looks like when someone feels disconnected, when they have no sense of belonging and can't find their place in the world is a very vivid image that comes to

mind. unfortunately the heart wrenching consequences that can come of that feeling of disconnected this is also something that i have seen far too many times. my riding, both nonfiction and fiction both of which are based firmly on mike very real experiences as anwriting, both fiction both of which are based firmly on mike very real experiences as an immigrant it is my attempt to help people struggling to stay afloat. thank you for this opportunity to be here and i look forward to engaging in a bigger conversation with all of you. [applause] >> thank you for a wonderful opening statement and for that wonderful segue because now the

conversation is open up to all of you. there are two microphones on either side of land each aisle and i will invite those of you who have questions and can add to our conversation to come on up to the microphone and ask your question. >> the first one is always the hardest. >> thank you for your moving stories and funny moments. given the current climate in arizona, some of you touched on this briefly but i wonder if you could take a few minutes or seconds or whatever you wish to elaborate on how can you help us and this nation break down the barriers that want to lean towards exclusion in the midst

of our fears about change that immigration provokes? what would you say to them about why immigrants come, who are you and what do you bring instead of water you coming to take? >> this panel is a good illustration of what we bring. we bring an enormous variety of talent, perception, passion, and work that we do for the nation with the nation. i think all of us have suggested how much we owe to this country in terms of when it provided us but we bring with us a great deal of what is now. it is diversity, potential, we are a good statement as a whole,

diversity on this panel. >> i will also add that one of ways this can be broken is through allowing people through writing in areas ways to hear about the lives of people who joined this country because sometimes people are so removed from the reality of other people's lives that they think an immigrant just comes to this country and fixes everything. it is difficult to be an immigrant. it is not easy. it is a lot of hard work. just as rich americans are working hard, immigrants are coming to join. this perception that people are just coming and taking freely, they are not. they're coming and working hard and bringing something of a value and also gaining something as well. i imagine myself for example. sedna and of us were in this country at all.

the average classroom setting at the university, will frankly be quite boring. in my opinion. i am serious. it sadly would be. it would not be a fun and educational and intriguing when we come from different backgrounds. i go back to what i mentioned earlier. what generation of american you are, your great grandparents came from some other place but we quickly forget that when we have a discussion about who is coming from where. >> very similar to what ishmael beah is saying, it is a give-and-take. for me personally, something to this day i still struggle with. i grew up in mexico, moved to arizona when i was 5 years old and since then my life has been

in terms of schooling, later coming to the university, has been very focused around american culture. my work has been here. it has always been work involved in community service and research within the community, certainly take pride in helping the hispanic community here as well, my work is cherry open to people of all ethnic backgrounds. that has created a bit of an internal struggle for me just because so much of who i am, not only in terms of my grandparents but how i have come to school to study and financial aspects of

that, has come from mexico. i don't feel i equally give back to my own country as much because i give so much education and preparation in the united states. it really is not only take but a lot of giving and making people aware of how we come into this country and give quite a bit of ourselves. that is something that is worth reminding people and making them aware of all that we contribute as well. >> governor castro? >> i would like to make a comment or two. i had the opportunity as a diplomat, american ambassador, to travel all over the world and whenever you see an american conscript, the line is a mile long. people wanting to come to this country because it is the greatest country in the world.

in mexico, facing adversity. on the other hand, companies the american public responds to civility and we're losing it right now. we respond to severity. i can assure you today and a guarantee you that the united states of america is the land of opportunity. asked me. i had every opportunity in the world. i got knocked down once or twice but as a former boxer you come back and the american public has responded. the united states of america is a country of opportunity. [applause] >> don't be shy.

>> definitely the united states is a land of opportunity. has been and probably will be for some time. the thing that i observed, my grandfather was an immigrant himself. a i am as well. the thing i observe is when i came here, when my grandfather came here we lost our barry in tibet tie to our country. we started thinking united states is our country. very rich culture of this diversified land, diversified population, this is our country.

i am wondering what effect is this going to have when we see the united states states begin to for example speak spanish and english becomes a second language. how do we maintained our culture, how do we maintain the diversity and keep the land of the land of opportunity? >> i will go ahead. i think that as with most things i have experienced in life i think there is room and opportunity for everything. i don't think that one faint needs to be replaced completely by another.

i think that in a civil -- in a country of educated people and of such advanced thinking it is definitely possible to continue being a country of immigrants where the rich languages of spanish and english can be spoken without the need of one to completely take over the other. it really does seem to me there's plenty of room when things are handled in a civil manner that there's room for diversity without the need to shadow or obliterate anything in particular. [applause] >> i sayre really agree with you. i also think tolerance is the word that comes to mind. we have to come to an understanding that if somebody comes to the united states and

still practices their culture in whatever way that doesn't disrupt other people's life doesn't mean it is getting rid of what it means to be an american. doesn't. i think we can have both at the same time. if anything when you see someone practice their culture and give that speech to do it it makes you -- strength in your own belief in your own culture more when you actually allow that or see that or participate in it but ultimately this fear that we did don't allow people to come and bring their culture as well they get rid of hours. it is not that simple and that is not the goal of anybody coming here. in terms of language thing, if it is funny at all, for number of years one of the things people slightly negative that people have about this great nation is they think it is only a nation with a single language. here's an opportunity to change

that perception. seriously. it is not a country of one language. it can be a country of multiple languages, spanish being one of them right now. that is a fantastic thing. as somebody who is a writer, what makes me an interesting writer is i speak several different languages. when i am writing i am always trying to redefine the english-language. we can empower children to think more deeply about english. [applause] >> i think ishmael beah is correct and historically speaking we have always had english as the language. it has never been threatened. is not threatened and now. on the other hand the contribution of multiple languages has been here for centuries. language is a deep and abiding part of our identity and we have

to and do want to maintain the complexity of our -- language is part of what makes us a hole. we don't want to extinguish it. we want to make sure it is available and tolerated and encouraged -- not just tolerated. i also tell my students our problem is not multilingual is an. [applause] >> i wanted to add one more thing. came to me as i heard you speak. a lot of my writing -- a lot of my writing comes to me, i am often asked to you think and dream in spanish or english? i can't figure it out. i do both i think at different times depending on who i have been talking to.

or whatever it might be. i believe because a lot of the averages are heard since i was a child growing up, things like that -- or at the far of what they represent would not come to me in english or in my existence in english america or american culture yet they are very important and have strong meaning. my writing is that much more flavorful because of that ability to blended those two influences of each language. if anything it is richer, that much more rich as a result of the ability to have several languages inspire and

contribute. >> governor castro, do you want to comment on that? >> i have no fear that the english language will be disappearing. to the contrary. i think the more language class we speak or listen to i welcome. i happen to be one of those that believe that the people coming english speakers -- i absolutely have no fear that the english language will ever be substituted with another language. to the contrary. the english language is now increasing. wherever i travel -- english is here with us. we should welcome in this country other languages. get in the elevator and someone speaks french or german or portuguese let's not be

critical. let's accept them because they are not placing the language in jeopardy. i have no fear of that at all. [applause] >> are am also an immigrant of this country many years ago. but the whole discussion we have had so far leads me to ask you a question concerning the notion that -- we have heard it from some of the speakers -- that this country sees itself as the greatest country in the world. this country sees itself as superior to other countries. when you have a sense of such superiority does it not lead to a sense of arrogance in regard

to the culture and the way of life of other countries? does it not lead to the notion that since we are so superior and according to someone got is on our side that we have to impose our values on other countries, be it iraq or afghanistan or other countries? thank you. [applause] >> i will take the question. that is a very important question. the fact that there is indeed a sense of superiority and arrogance about the fact that this country is what it is. this is a great country in the sense of opportunity and all were things people have but i don't think we should think turtle fretted is a superior country to others in the sense of culture or language and identity and all these things.

because here's what i am saying this. i immigrated here and often times i do a lot of work in non-government organizations and various issues. people have an idea that our idea of happiness in the divided states is what everyone else was in the world. that is not true. have things in common we can work with to the. we will translate and speak culturally, they are the same fundamentally. so i think that is the thing but more increasingly particularly my generation because of the internet and everything people are increasingly seen that what you are speaking about is not entirely true. this country is great in a lot of ways but not superior to

every other place at all. we have in terms of technology and other things a lot of things. i was joking with somebody the other day. my grandmother in my village could stand out in the morning, put her hand out and tell you exactly what will happen during the day. it will rain when the shadow reaches this side of your body, what is going to happen. she doesn't need to look at the weather channel to do that. there is knowledge that is intrinsic in other parts of the world because we have moved so rapidly and forgotten about some of those things. we should celebrate but never feel that one is superior to the other. we should open to always learning and accepting things. that is my point. [applause] >> one more question? >> i work with a group of african refugees here in town and i want to mention that

catalina high-school has a wonderful writing program for the refugees students that encourages them to write -- [talking over each other] >> i have seen the change in the students that i work with through that program. my question is the family's i worked with have been here three years now and the students are doing wonderfully. moms and dads are struggling. they only want to speak their language in the home which the kids respect. is great that they are keeping their cultural live in their home with their customers but moms and dads are having difficulty learning english and therefore struggling with getting jobs and supporting the family. there's a real disconnect. as volunteers, i bring them to visit my home and experience thanksgiving and christmas and birthdays and things like that to give them an idea of american

culture and what we do and they shave their customs and i am sensing they are not totally getting how they can succeed with work and financially hand there is some difficulty. what suggestions do you have for us in our relationship building and how we can help them more to get that vision of how to be successful in america? >> about two minutes to answer that. >> i know what that feels like. the generational differences, different generations -- what you are doing is exactly what needs to be done. that would often times happen. we want to see immediate results and unfortunately it takes some time for people to adjust and come to terms with differences

in people's ways of living and customs and language so i think it is continuing to do the same and allowing that transformation to slowly take place. >> the children themselves will eventually teach the parents. it definitely does take time. children have historically served as intermediaries and interpreters as i did. i am confident that as chiquis barron did, this is a country which is much more easy to conquer as a child than it is as an adult and that has been a long-term experience. it does take patience both on our part, those who already speak english and know the culture and on the part of those who need to learn it to a certain degree. they will never entirely be what their children are going to be.