in january of 1992, but at the republican party convention in houston which i also attended because i was then white house correspondent. he had whipped up the crowd into shouting usa, usa, usa when he claimed that they had won the cold war which prompted bill clinton to say that's like a rooster claiming credit for the dawn because there were other factors involved than the cold war coming to an end. >> thank you, connor o clearly, it's been a real pleasure to talk with you today, and congratulations on your book. it's an extraordinary, almost historical thriller. although we know the outcome, it keeps you turning the pages. >> guest: thank you. thank you very much, tom. ..

big dreams and brave journeys. we will have brook reading from her book and we will be in conversation with friends and have a short q and a afterwards. brooke hauser has written for the new york times and other publications.

she is originally from miami, florida. francisco heardy has worked in -- said deputy editor and written for harper's atlantic commonwealth and progressive and is teaching at the university. please turn off yourself phones and as you have seen, c-span booktv is filming the event tonight. for the q&a we will be passing around the microphone so please wait for the microphone to reach you. thank you so much. please welcome broke hauser. [applause]

>> we are here to discuss brooke's new book. it is about just to give a capsule summary, a high school in brooklyn called international high school which specializes in the education of immigrants. brooke spent much time at the school chronicleing the life of teens. she will do a reading of a portion later but i wanted to ask some introductory questions. the first of which is you are an experienced journalist. you have written a lot about hollywood. this is a subject matter far afield from that. how did you come to the stop it? >> the person who led me to the international school is in the audience. his name is ronny. we went to college together and he was working at the international committee which is

an agency that helps settle refugees across the country. at the time his girlfriend loren was interested in doing volunteer work with some of the students at bronx international high school. i heard about the school and became interested in this idea of a high school which has come from 70 countries and speaks 7 languages. i don't want to say we're trying to become american because not all the kids are but they are adapting to the country struggling for high school. so that i found out there is an international bicycle in my backyard which is the high school of prospect heights and that is how ended up in school. >> for this reader the standout feature of this book is its factual richness, to me an example of really good emerge and reporting like barbara era

right or adrian nicole leblanc. you can tell the deaths -- from the depths of detail how much time was spent interviewing and recording and thinking. so i naturally wondered how much time did you spend, how many times did you spend in the school and how did you interview and decide what was enough? >> i don't know -- it was basically caving in with all my notes. i spent a lot of time at this school. an article that i wrote for an editor at the city section of the new york times and wrote an article about the prom at the international high school. that was the first time i spend their and i went back to the book and spend a year reporting but then the following year,

still in touch with the kids and reporting -- basically it went to the printer. a lot of time and a lot of notes and my life is on hold. >> at the international high school, something like 28 languages are spoken at least in the year you reported on. that must have been a reporting challenge for you. how did you deal with it? >> i took the lead -- lot of aspirin because teachers can relate. it is really loud at the school. it is allowed at any high school but when you hear 28 languages in the hall it is amazing. several who are wrote about were already very proficient in english and their native language and some spoke several

native languages. so any time i ran into a translation problem i didn't have to hire -- just ask a kid. >> how many students? >> around 400. the school had been in existence four years. so the class -- the student body kept growing. i think it is the biggest class ever that was accepted this year. something around 400 students now i think. >> how among those students did you choose the ones you would talk to and interview and write about in your book? >> i have a question asked the teachers at the beginning of the year. something we can't stop thinking about. that teachers lead me to sign

these students and one girl from china had written a college essay about coming to america. the first week she was supposed to move in with her father who she hadn't seen in years. when she got there on her first day, their new stepmother didn't want her band kicked her out and when i met her living on her own in a room from chinatown from one english teacher that was a student she couldn't stop thinking about when she went home at night at the found that way except a burmese girl i found because the island did to observe a student and i really just ran into her the first day of school and found it interesting that she was the only person in the old school who spoke her language. no one else did. >> i know many of these students like a chinese girl you

mentioned had very dramatic attitudes from their native country to america. isn't that the subject of your meeting? >> so many kids have amazing stories. the one i wanted to read is about a tibetan boy who left to bet as a little boy, escaped by hiding in a suitcase to travel to the border of nepal. teamwork hard to get all the facts. of day. okay. he mentioned at a small suitcase on the ground. was the fall of 2003. two years before he would arrive at international and they risk and not a quiet side street.

he looked at the man and back at the suitcase. the man was his father's friend. a farmer -- worried in the encroaching on. the suitcase looked very fancy. the plastic handle bar the regional rubber wheels and metallic slippers. in everest touched a suitcase before and inspected it closely. there was some chinese lettering he could not read. the main compartment was only 2 x 3 feet, the size of a child's coffin. he was small for 11 but wasn't that small. he thought the farmer must be joking. the black suitcase was one of many bags in the back seat of a beat up silver toyota that was supposed to deliver him to the border of nepal. the first leg of the journey that would end in india. in the see colored light he could make out a few things. older tibetans who paid to drive out before the capital city

stretched out. he was about to join the others when the farmer motion again towards the suitcase. get in, he said unzipping the top. he stood blankly at the man and the suitcase. before the police take us to jail. how long? one night and one day. that was how long it would take to travel from the capitol to the border assuming they didn't get caught. the actual distance was much shorter but the driver would be circumventing several chinese check points along away. they didn't have much time except for the growing apparition of the palace rising from the valley. soon the sun would rise shining a spotlight on anyone who dared to sleep. he got in and imagined himself back in his grandmother's bed where he slept with an older brother and their little cousin only a few weeks before.

inside the suitcase he crunched his knees to his chest and rocked to the side. for brief moment he saw the farmer's face in shadow like fields under a passing crowd. then there was a sound and everything went black. nine hours into the journey -- the better remnants of a black he and barley breakfast impinging his throats and climbing to the fibers of his pants. 15 hours in he urinated. warm liquid rushing down his leg into his sneakers. in the upside-down dark his tears flowed in an uncharted direction. when the suitcase closed eiffel scared but strong. he still wore the scarf his grandmother placed around his neck as a parting gift. crossing his hands between his knees he whispered a buddhist prayer. those were the last words he spoke. was afraid to make a sound. in the village he had heard

tales about tibetans who were caught mid passage by chinese police. friends talked about prisoners who were beaten and shot at and subjected to strange torture techniques like bamboo sticks and police hammering under their victim's fingernails. even if he wanted to scream no one would hear him. he couldn't hear anyone either. within seconds of the zipper zipping he lost control. she couldn't see but smelled gasoline leaking from the car engine. half of his body went cold. the half from was closest to the icy ground. he tried to moving his arm and leg and hand at this side but found he was trapped. something had fallen on him but he wasn't sure what. sound like a dead body being thrown into a grave but he realized it was the sound of suitcases. in, out. breathing had become an impossible task. hard to believe it has never

been automatic. the more he thought about it the more he panicked. gasping for air and swallowing dust. is re are ached from pushing against the weight of the other suitcases that were piled on top of his own. his left arm was frozen against the floor. he felt every bump on the road. he heard the engine sputtered to a halt. he punched his fist until it started again. until the engine started again. he summoned a world beyond his own eyelids. chinese soldiers would be far behind. sometimes fought adjusted to his grandmother. his own mother had died three days after she was born. she suckled him with a glass bottle filled with milk from a yak. when the village women were not able to arrest. the day they said let's go look,

he cooked a meal of dumplings and asked for battered fees. before he and his brother mounted their horses and headed west. in the blackness of the suitcase nuang could see her in the tall grass. since the dalai lama fled in 1969, tens of thousands of tibetans have followed into india. nuang heard their stories. heard about the men and women who crossed the himalayas bleeders the many dying of starvation or getting trapped in the eyes. for years his father planned his own escape and was the first to flee. he sent for his two sons. nuang cut pieces of the plans of neighbors when they came back. the nearest district with a phone. nuang and their father's friend would ride on horse but they would board a bus to the county of -- and get on a truck heading

for the capital. after getting their bearings they were supposed to join up with a paid guide to make the trek across the mountains to the border and of nepal. if they made it that far, they paul would greet them. he pulled as their grandfathers and would be waiting with a piece of coal. the car was supposed to transport the brothers to a tibetan refugee center. it was to paint their faces a shade darker so they would look more like children. tibetan children are known for their unusual the bloody red tees. the extra blood flow resulting from the high altitude and low oxygen of the plateau. the chinese sometimes called the plateau bay. the part of the journey went as planned but a crucial part of the plan changed. was leaving the farmers told nuang he had gone to see an oracle earlier that day.

nuang ever met one but knew that they were wise men. he traveled between physical and divine world and could see into the future. the farmer passed on the oracle's message. a paid guide be delayed track that could span thousands of miles in several weeks. nuang was too small. he would not survive the trip. the oracle said it is better to come with me in the car the farmer explained. nuang's father used to talk about how tiny was. he fit into two pumps not much larger than one of the potatoes plucked from the field. the llama had given him a big name. loosely translated it meant voice of power never stuck. several thousand miles west of where nuang was born his english

teacher, and harry, sits at a table in a shade of rebecca yard and reads the paragraph before her. the suitcase closed and i went blind. my body was squeezing under many suitcases and i can barely breathe. after hours squeezing under suitcases' i felt depressed. i wanted to escape but many suitcases were stuck on me. i was sweating. i wanted to scream but i knew it would be worse. they could go after my sweet grandmother and her her because she was sending me to freedom. i knew i would never get to see my single dad. i would never achieve my mom's hope and grandmother's hope so i made my hands fit strongly. it is 7:00 a.m. and the october sun links in the cloud like a cursor on a blank page. the serial is getting soggy and

her coffee is lukewarm. she stepped from her favorite -- purple morning glory creeping up her chain-link fence and back in nuang's college as a. suitcase? pen in hand she tries to imagine an 11-year-old nuang in the darkness, fists clenched. surely he understands she doesn't about life. the end is a brief. never learned what really happened next. he met the nepali man at the border, skies himself and headed staying to katmandu. his brother was in so fortunate on his first attempt to make it to the border. checking through the himalayas, was arrested and jailed by chinese police. the boys later reunited and in 2005 joined their father in the united states where they were

granted political asylum. clearly nuang's story is too complex to squeeze it all into a three page essay but there is no final message. no deeper sense of understanding. a minutes before she heads to school, the mother who died and a grandmother who nuang might never see again. wonders about his daily life in eastern tibet where he worked on his family farm. was he still the same boy when he emerged 24 hours later? he never said. the story with a great hook but an emotionally limited barrier, not begun to unpack the events of the last few years. then she remembers nuang is only 17. it is easy to forget sometimes that by the time they walk into a room on the first day of senior year many students have already survived more trauma and hodge it than she could imagine.

that has not necessarily made some wiser and she doesn't see her kids as victims. she doesn't see the boy in the suitcase but a punky kid wearing a black t-shirt inscribed with a yellow smiley face and the message i hate you. he sees a teenager who started turning into -- would rather read the new york post and comment on how miley cyrus looks bad and pay attention in class. he could fall behind in college if he doesn't make an attitude adjustment quick. she sees the boy who is more than a myth and much less. [applause] [applause] >> details like plateau red and purple morning glories that are the kinds of emerging reporting -- fruits of the emerging

reporting that you can see in that passage. what a story. in a suitcase over the mountains, over national borders waiting for the police, you went to high school here in america in a fairly normal high school compared to that. hall was the big picture of the high school therewith children like him so traumatized by events. how would the high school compare to the standard stereotype high school we think of here? >> that is why i was so drawn to the school. even though the kids -- some of them have amazing stories of perilous journeys and different backgrounds, they are still

teenagers. i could relate to them very easily because we can all relate to going to school in america. even though it is an international vice lead is not that different. there from is a little different but they have to do with as 80s and where to sit in the cafeteria and always on facebook. big picture, not so different at all. their background is different >> were there things like we are accustomed to? jocks and girls? >> i was always looking for the clicks and spend a lot of time in the cafeteria. i was looking for the jocks and all the groups that make for a good guess it in high school stuff. i don't think i ever found mean girls. not like movie mean girls.

there were groups of wouldn't have expected. there were definitely jocks. some of the dominican boys would be considered jocks. but then there was a group i never had that high school which was a group of boys who all wanted to grow up and become professional hair designers. i am still not sure what that is. but they had amazing hair. really. then there was a table that was not all nomadic but several. and farmers. >> did the students sort of gather by ethnicity? was there a lot of mixing of different ethnicity?

obviously the cultural issues are vastly different. >> i would say in the cafeteria if there were klicks they divide according to ethnicity. i think the school wants to see the kids mix and they do makes in classes but to their own devices, it is natural especially if you are learning english all day long it is natural to go towards friends who speak your language so you can relax and feel comfortable speaking in your native language. clicks of kids from africa, west africa, kids from mexico and guatemala speak spanish together that there were a few kids who were more like nomads, wondering

around the cafeteria. >> did you find -- obviously the story of the suitcase and other stories dealing with teenagers changing every day. there were language issues embellishing the truth. as a journalist, is there verification, did you face obstacles and troubles and worries about that? >> definitely a lot of worries. i have a section in the back of the book where i say i did the best of my ability to report things that accurately as possible but all human memory is flawed. in my case i was talking teenagers who were recalling events that happen the long time ago in another country and not telling me these stories in a new country speaking a new language, english.

a lot lost in transit and translation. i wanted to explain that. this is pretty close. nuang's story for instance, he told it so many times that a lot of details were lost. when i sat down to get the story top to bottom, lot of stuff came out. i wasn't just talking to nuang. i went to his house. he lived with a bunch of bachelors including his girlfriend. not the yak but -- that was intense. over battered feet basically five or six men were helping to flush out -- trying to tell me

their story, they were speaking in tibetan and nuang had to translate six people talking at the same time. that was a little confusing and and people started drawing maps. i realize all the labels they had written, if you look at a map on line those names were written in chinese and it was -- it was difficult. >> as few as possible. >> we went over a million times and that was one time i heard the story about ten more times and met with nuang three more times to go over everything. >> the issue of immigration is a huge perennial issue and teenagers. you tell wonderful stories in

the book. how much did you devote to the bigger social political context and how did you decide what that should be? >> i didn't devote a lot of time to political issues. i devoted a couple -- may be a chapter or two. unlike a newspaper article that comes out that day, e-book comes out and a lot of those issues are not relevant anymore depending on legislation that has been passed. my editor lesley meredith was helpful in reminding me of that. when i did get into a political discussion it grew out of the scene that happened in the book. there's a chapter -- this scene takes place at this school.

one night they hosted a pta meeting unlike any other you ever heard of. it was -- the subject was legalization and citizenship. parents were invited to ask any question they had in that area. the principal at the time, alexander, gave an introduction in english and spanish and other translators who were able to translate the conversation in many different languages. one hand out a package of cartoons, it was called what to do in the event of an immigration raid. and it showed graphic novel drawings with dark shades and

chiseled jaws shackling immigrants in their own homes and carting them away to detention centers. you saw this in every frame and then another we saw what happened and was cartoon tears off their -- it was really intends. definitely something grew out of that chapter. it was natural to talk about it. >> so you were able to -- >> the dream -- talked a little bit about the piece of legislation that wasn't passed -- citizenship for undocumented students before the age of 16. we allow them to get federal financial agents and college. 15% of senior class -- huge

number but they were all applying to college like all the other kids who were just as tired. in the senior year they were basically in a difficult position. college is expensive if you don't get federal financial aid. is not likely you will get to go. >> have you followed the fortunes of those students? >> it touches certain students more than others but i am on facebook with half of the high school getting wind of things and people end all over the place. doing really well in different ways and areas. >> many students seem so endearing and their stories so dramatic that wonder if it was hard to maintain journalistic distance. how did you deal with that?

did you keep struggling? >> was a struggle. i liked the kids and teachers. i wanted to be friends with everybody but i couldn't because i have always been careful not to get too close to the subject. is different when you are writing about kids because it feels a little different. you are more invested in the lives of kids if you are writing about them. i had definite boundaries but someone needed help with a college essay--wouldn't write it for them. have a few notes in the margin. i will allow myself to do stuff like that. i was invited to parties. i wanted them to be friends but

couldn't let them be friends at that point and since then i'd develop friendships with people at the school but had to be done with the book at first. >> some of the students are from cultures was arranged marriages. did any of them ask your advice about those questions? how did you -- >> they didn't ask my advice. know. about range marriage. a few of the girls were interested in when i was going to get married. we talked about marriage. my husband and i have been together nine or ten years. one of the girls who did get married during her senior year, and another girl, girl from china would come over and asked my husband -- my boyfriend when he was going to propose. they were very interested.

they did it to older teachers. wasn't just me. they were asking when they would have babies. they got started earlier than me. not advice but we definitely shared some funny conversation. >> were you accepted by the students? did anyone resent you? was their suspicion? >> there was suspicion. may not have heard about all of it. there were a few schoolboys -- well -- once i left with the students to a pharmacy to run some errands he was buying cigarettes and the clerks at i see at you brought your mom with you. and then -- they did accept me. a couple of the cool voice said don't talk to that lady.

she has a noble and is writing down everything you say. certain people -- most of the kids were pretty eager. >> the hardest thing about writing for me was leaving stuff out because you can't just go on and on. you did so much reporting i am sure this book is a small percentage of what you learned. what was the most painful thing for you to leave out. >> the teacher who was in charge of the newspaper club was here and i really loved spending time with their kids in newspaper clubs. i was in a newspaper club. that was something i could really do. they have a lot of fun with it. they wrote some interesting articles that would only come out of english language learners who were writing a paper for

other english-language learners. they were explaining a lot of things american high school kids wouldn't have to explain. one year a kid did a primer on hip-hop. another kid did a primer on pakistani fashioned, and another girl wrote a whole environmental -- a whole article about global warming. i thought there was great stuff but it was cutting into those stories. too much scenes and not enough story. >> the school is the center of this. you do take some trips outside the school to the town in connecticut where one student lived, to the chinese girl's

apartment. did you make -- how was it different to keep school at the center? >> a boy came here from sierra leone. won a contest, christian family, even though he was muslim. lived in farming and connecticut. it was dropped in this town, on sunday. that was fascinating, that is one of the kids that was charming like it very much. i put so much of it in the book.

my editor and you, in the boat -- a lot of history in their budget was cut down. >> there are alternative ways to tell this story. this is for one person? the story of this book. >> not many kids the great kid? >> it was -- [talking over each other] >> their own books. the clash of cultures were under the same -- one of the favorite relationships in the book, became good friends with a yemeni girl and shared a diary together and i didn't have to

tell the story because they were shown each other the stories in the diary. another student was very different but not that different. >> the students are the stars. presumably languages even more difficult for many of them. >> it was difficult a little bit talking to jessica's father because he is the one who let his new wife kicked her out of their apartment. her first week in america. he felt very guilty but at the same time i think he had his own story he wanted to share. he was not a bad man. he was a complex character. it was difficult talking to him. and sometimes jessica would be listening to our conversation

and he would say things to me about her that he would never tell her directly. she is my daughter, i love her. and he wouldn't say that to her but she would eavesdrop on our conversation. >> i see. journalism is all about not having preconceptions. try to find evidence. did you have any suspicions or preconceptions before you went in that got exploded as you reported in the story? >> those clinics were something and i struggled with some other things. a few girls from west africa who had gotten married and had babies during high school and you hear about teen moms and it is taboo. we all have ideas what eighteenth mom is that these girls were different. for some of the girls they clearly meant to get married.

you don't get married out of state and the babies came after the marriage and one of the girls was a top student in her grade, very smart and successful in school and it was difficult. i was happy she was doing so well but how did she do that? in her culture maybe this is normal. it wasn't so stigmatized. i don't know. she was very capable. >> do you think that you will continue reporting and writing about this subject? teens or immigrants? >> i am interested in the subject. i love -- always interested in immigration. i worked in college -- trace my own family genealogy. very interested. and i really like kids. it is a natural intersection. we will see.

>> great. so i think some questions from the audience. any audience members who have a question for brooke? about the writing of it or the content of it? >> what do you think of the experience? as a writer what do you think the experience of writing this book has done to you? growing in your crowd? >> that is a hard question. i think that writing a book is really hard. i was always looking for how do other people do this? i realized all along the way when i was right in the eyes of a woody allen movie whatever works and that became my model. what i learned is you just have to keep at it until it works.

so i don't really have -- you find a way and make a lot of mistakes and throw out a lot of scenes and cut things and is difficult and what i realized his writing is difficult. not to be myself about it. i told the kids the same thing because a lot of kids find writing very difficult and i tell them that is good. you should find it difficult because it is. >> others? other questions? >> whatever happened to nuang? >> he is at hurricane university. he got a bunch of loans to go there and he is doing really well. he is studying international relations. he wanted to be an actor during

high school and got accepted into the stella adler academy. the current principal took his head shots which are really handsome and he got some auditions with them. he dreamed of being an actor but now he is very political. he was mr. free to back at the high school and i am sure he is going to still be very active with tibetan positives and he is doing that in syracuse. he is doing all right. jessica is also doing really well. she is in the business and engineering program. and with her high school boyfriend -- no. sorry.

billups. gossip. nevermind. she is doing great. she asked me to write about a reference for her for a job interview. that is the kind of thing i want to do more. i can do little things like that and it is easy and fun for me and she is doing really well. >> hey, brooke. i am paul. my question is about education in general right now because is there a very intriguing political time, education gets a lot of attention in the press. i wanted to ask you what you thought about how your book will leave an impression and what your impression would be about success n.y. city schools can

have? >> a few reviews of the book have said that this is an uplifting book about education in a time when there's a lot of bad news so that makes me happy because of the school does a great job. i love the school. i gave the command of -- commencement speech and told the kids the school is one of my favorite places on earth which is true. i am not an education reporter so i can't really speak generally about my views on education with a lot of expertise but i know now lot about english-language learners and programs for english-language learners and i went to high school in miami where there were lots of english-language learners and they were kind of segregated within the same school which i think is kind of weird sometimes because i think those kids get

left out. it depends on the school. in this school, all of the kids were learning english together, all mixed together and i felt that approach really works because the kids are understanding of each other. one thing you notice is in most middle schools, kids just torment each other. at this school they really held. i couldn't believe sometimes they seemed much -- i don't know. too good to be true. they really do help each other out. older kids will tutor younger kids and they seem invested in each other's success. i thought that the international model seemed to work. >> actually, earlier in the year i donated a couple dresses to the high school. i send e-mail to my office.

you can imagine what our reaction i got. this guy asking for prom dresses. i went to an organization that is a mentor ship program for third generation college -- a lot are international. i have been crazy to a lot of the conversations that they have in terms of the opportunities this country allows. no matter where you go you got a margin and the knack to work hard, you will get it. were you privy to such conversations in your high school between different kids? >> repeat the question. >> the perception of top one opportunities were afforded? >> the international network for public school, oversees these international i schools. the kids took this model so

literally, it was amazing and inspiring. the chinese boy, doctors and lawyers and engineers and the chinese boy. the was unwavering in his dream to be the next dog whisperer. beloved dogs and this is what he wanted to do. the year i was reporting for the book, there was a boy from africa who wanted to be a zoologist and an actor. both at the same time. right don't know what was happening with zoology. going to the university of vermont. he won the seinfeld scholarship. got a full free ride to college and met jerry seinfeld, he told

jerry seinfeld i will be the next jerry seinfeld. they really believe they can do anything. a lot of kids do. it is amazing and they do. they go on to do great things. five kids got the seinfeld scholarships. people got a scholarship. i think people respond to that optimism and hope they see in the students and people like the students. i really like the students. i don't know if i like all people but i definitely like a lot of the ones in the international school. >> hi, brooke. i have two questions. first i wondered -- it seems the students and teachers were very forthcoming more or less. did you face some bureaucracy with administration and so on and so forth and getting back to the writing question that was

first, i wondered if you check refuge or inspiration from other authors and books? >> school was very open with me. riding the prom article helps because it was a positive article and the principle of the school, really let me spend time at the high school depending on what the school also let me spend a lot of time at the high school. they were great. as for -- among schoolchildren by tracy kidder, in fifth grade a teacher who teaches in massachusetts. i read small victories -- he

follows a high school teacher who teaches a lot of immigrants but not special international high school. i read a lot of those but they focused on the teachers and focus on the kids. i mentioned adrian nichol. this is different from random family. >> particularly among kids from different ethnic groups whenever a big problem for their family -- [talking over each other] >> they hide their relationships with their families across cultural relationships. was there ever hostility between tibetan and chinese children? and india and pakistan, was that -- >> i don't know if there were

any indian kids. definitely a lot of kids from pakistan. not across the board. not the president, meetings at the high school, she made a flyer and handed out in the cafeteria, pulte q. how to -- one african kid. the chinese -- a group of chinese boys wrote don't go to a tibetan club. they come to the chinese club because tibet is inside china or something like that. there is definitely this tendency and as for romances,

that said nuang -- on a chinese girl. have a lot of chinese friends. i think certain high school things just trump political things. so really, two issues. and then a lot of interracial, cultural couples. if you look at the prom pictures all you see is contrast. this girl from china stated definitely a few girls from china were dating boys from the dominican republic. there were tons of couples. i don't know if they had to hide it. if they had to hide it they probably weren't dating at all. some of the muslim girls whose parents were very strict, not that they would hide the relationship but they would have the relationship in the school. with boys from high school. but then there were a bunch of

boys from yemen to send very romantic valentine's day cards to girls with names like geraldine and stuff. they would really seduce them. >> i have a question about all of the colleges and universities, having worked with a couple schools do you think there was something about all of these cultures coming together, that there will be more success with respect to how they perceive education? also what it says about the validation about our country and bringing cultures together? worked with a couple schools, all the schools these kids go on seems like a successful model over is there. >> i think so and i think people -- the international network of public schools is a brand and the lot of colleges have more

than 12 schools mostly in new york and a couple in california and people recognize the brand. they know something about the international high school and i think in a fender national high school students have been placed at a lot of colleges. a lot of the kids i know have ended up at the university of vermont. a couple kids from syracuse and there have been repeat schools that now know what it means to get an international high school student. i think that holds. >> thank you so much to brooke and friends transpiring conversation with brooke will be signing copies of her book and you can purchase up front and she will be right of revers siding and we will play a movie. say some things so you know what

it is about. [talking over each other] >> this is a video that diana castro made for the class of 2011 graduation ceremony and it is just kids goofing around but it is really fun so we will play that. >> oh, we will play some music that you have to pretend you are 18 to really get into it. it is an international high school prom mix so you hear some chinese and mandarin and hip-hop, bengali, lady gaga, ten your problem. [applause] >> brooke hauser working from new york city.

visit the author's website, brookehauser.com. >> there is much more to the newly designed c-span.org. more video with 11 video choices making it easier to watch events. more features scheduled on the network layout that you can quickly squirrel for all the programs on the c-span network can receive an e-mail alert when your program is scheduled to air. more access to our most popular series and programs like washington journal, campaign 2012, booktv and american history tv. use our handy channel finder to be aware of where the c-span network are available on cable and satellite systems across the country and for gift-giving ideas click on c-span product. for dvds and books and more at the new c-span.org. >> in short author interview from c-span's campaign 2012 bus as it travels the country.

>> you work in different communities with several professors to talk about democracy. tellus' how you decided to do your research and why. >> we were trying to understand the relationship between globalization and democracy. ..

>> and durham county, north carolina, that we characterize this landscapes of consumption. those are the kinds of communities that the economy is dominated by the consumption of something, whether it's medical services or educational services or the environment itself where tourism economy is vital. it can also be communities that are dominated by fire -- fire, what we, it's therein acronym -- there's an acronym, fire, with refers to finance, insurance and real estate. those are all consumption. and we're also two communities that were characterized by production, and those are economies that are dominated by manufacturing, agriculture, resource-based economies, things like that. and those were halifax county in eastern north carolina and chatham county, north carolina. and then the third economic landscape that we looked at was the landscape of the state.

and these are communities, maybe state capitals or communities that a military base. and the fortunes of those communities are really determined by much broader economic, broader political decisions made either in the state capital or in washington, d.c. or something like that. so by looking at these five different communities with these three very different kinds of economic bases, we get to see how people's lives are impacted differently by the broad, global economic changes of the late 20th century. >> and you talked with people about political participation, and a lot of people sometimes think of that just as voting. what were you looking for? what is democratic, political participation consist of? >> right. so we're anthropologists. we're sociocultural anthropologists, and we're interested in talking to people

about what they do. rather than giving too much emphasis on something like voting and saying, well, you know, voting participation is -- voting is up or down, rather than thinking about what people are or are not doing, um, as many other pundits and scholars have done, we went out to talk with people to sit in their living rooms, to participate in civic organizations to follow along with nonprofit organizations or community groups or neighborhood watch groups. we sat in all these different environments, reading the newspaper, following people around just trying to figure out, well, what are people doing? if they're not participating in bowling leagues anymore, well, what are they doing? if they're not voting so much anymore, there are other creative ways that people are working to make their communities better and, indeed, we found that in spite of some pretty, pretty dramatic obstacles of social inequality, obstacles of intense burdens on

time that families are working more and more, many families have multiple jobs, they're struggling with things like child care and, um, and in a political system that's becoming more and more confusing to navigate. in spite of all that, we found enormous creativity and people doing really interesting things. >> and how did you conduct your research? did you spend a significant amount of time there? how did you decide what you were going to do? the. >> well, we had in each of our five communities we had at site -- [inaudible] who were there full time for more than 12 months, and with preresearch prior to the 12 months and follow-up research for the next six months, and we followed up over the years since then. but the primary research period was an intense 12 months working more than 40-hour workweeks. you know, when public meetings are taking place, whenever a

particular controversy happens, um, we interviewed people in-depth interviews. i remember there were numerous times when a lot of people you want to interview, they're busy, right? so you follow them along. you say, okay, so you don't have time for an interview with me, but do you mind if i take this road trip with you? and you sort of talk to them along the way to understand their lives, their work and the things that are important to them. we meticulously documented public meetings and followed public debates about different things. so we got, um, a really sort of on-the-ground look at the ways that people participate in local governance. >> and what'd you learn about the ways that media effects how people think about democracy? you guys wrote a little bit about how they can group us into categories, some people are apathetic, some people are angry. does that have an effect on people's participation? >> it does. it does have an effect on people's participation.

i think when we interviewed people about that, we did a number of lifetime participation in local politics interviews. and we found certain themes that people feel guilty about not participating more than they do. they're sometimes afraid of participating. and that adds to the additional feeling of, you know, that there are obstacles to participation. but more importantly, i think that we fundamentally, we've taken our eye off the ball of, and we're striking out when it comes to understanding american politics and where key decisions are made, how they're made and how people are participating. by focusing on as many, as many pundits do or as many scholars do or, um, in the media in general, i think that we just, the whole conversation is just off. it just doesn't match up with people's lives. that we're, um, you know,

perhaps we're using outdated terms. perhaps we're reflecting on -- perhaps we're missing the boat because society has changed and our way of understanding, it hasn't kept pace. but i think what our book has done has allowed us to see new forms that not-for-profit organizations have become increasingly important to governance at the local, regional and federal level. and people's participation in nonprofit organizations in a variety of ways needs to be understood as part of american democracy. we need to look at the ways that people are carving out new spaces for themselves rather than looking book at what people did to participate in local politics 50 years ago and say, you know, this is, you know, something participation in this old form is increasing or decreasing. we need to ask the question,

well, what are people doing today, and how does that matter, and what are the opportunities and obstacles that exist that people are finding in the work they're actually doing. >> and have you seen that? have you seen, do you think since you've done your research and your book has come out that we're on the path to getting people more meaningfully involved in political participation? >> yes, but it's mixed. it's mixed because, um, many new opportunities have developed for direct civic engagement, and it's really -- and oftentimes it can be very meaningful engagement. i like to think about although we don't necessarily write about this in the book, i like to think about the way so many other aspects of american democracy, citizens are often responding to the actions of others. so if you have, if you're voting, you're responding to the candidates that you're presented with. if you're writing a letter to a political leader, then you're responding to something that

they have done or something that's happened. or if you take up in protest, then you're responding to something that has you excited. but when you form a nonprofit organization or a community group, it's a uniquely proactive space where you have the capacity to create a mission statement and create a whole organization. and creating something that didn't exist before, and that's a new space in american democracy that wasn't so relevant in the middle of the 20th century, but it's important now. the challenge is that that's really complicated. now, when you take an increasingly complicated political system that we have in the united states and you recognize that it takes enormous business acumen, it takes enormous political literacy, it takes an enormous amount of time to be fully engaged in this, then it starts to raise red flags. and consider also that many scholar, many people have

reported that there is a growing divide between rich and poor in the united states. we have a shrinking middle class, and be this is fairly well documented shift in american demographic environment. but what we've looked at is the way that that social and economic inequality that exists in the united states impacts and sort of contributes to a broad political divide. and that there's a parallel story to be told alongside this growing trend and growing vibe between rich and poor. we also have a growing divide in civic engagement, and that's a real threat to democracy that we need to pay attention to. >> and you work on a college campus, so as a professor do you see more involvement by students who are in college compared to the people that you were working with in north carolina?

is this a good time to get people involved? do they need to get involved earlier? >> i think so. but what i see is with the students that i see is they're finding new ways to get engaged, and they're redefining what it mean to be politically active. social media is a part of that. um, you know, they're sort of the tried and true kinds of forms of activism that we like to see students involved with, but there are a lot of other forms that are emerging, too, and i think we're just starting to understand what all that means. but i work off campus as well. i spend a large chunk of my time working off campus with people in a regional community, economic development doing environmental issues. i work with a lot of nonprofit organizations and community groups and government agencies, and i see an enormous amount of creativity. and also an enormous amount of change. in the ten years or so that,

since i did my primary research in durham, north carolina, um, i've seen some pretty big changes in terms of accountability, in terms of the relationships between the federal government, state governments and nonprofit organizations. we have new forms of oversight, new forms of recordkeeping, documentation and accountability that are starting to emerge whereas at the end of the 1990s when we were studying things for the book it felt like the wild west. there was this new system emerging. nobody really knew what to do or how accountability was going to take place. yet people who are using public resources and defining the public good and working on behalf of the public who were not actually public officials, they were volunteers, they were heads of nonprofit organizations. but yet they were using public

funds, and the public didn't necessarily have any oversight. well, today we have all these measures, indicators and reporting systems that are a bit onerous for a lot of, for a lot of folks. but it does, um, it does provide a little bit more oversight. >> well, thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. >> the c-span campaign 2012 bus visits communities across the country. to follow the bus' travels, visit www.c-span.org/bus. >> it's authors' night at the national press club. several different authors are here selling their books to support charity. and one of those authors is jeremy men ben-ami. booktv has covered his book, "a new voice for israel." mr. ben-ami, first of all, what is j street? >> j street is the pro-israel,

pro-peace lobby. we're a new organization, about three years old, and we press for american engagement to help achieve middle east peace. >> how do you stand compared to aipac? >> we're a part of the jewish community that believes that peace and a go-state -- two-state solution would be in israel's and the united states' best interests and we want to see the president do more, not less, to help achieve peace. >> host: so what is the new voice for israel? >> guest: the new voice is to, essentially, provide a counterweight to some old voices that for too long have purported to speak for the entire jewish community and who have had positions on these issues that are more hawkish than the average jewish-american. and particularly for those who are 40 and under in the jewish community, supporting israel doesn't mean supporting every decision of the israeli government, and it doesn't mean taking the most hawkish possible view on every issue. >> what is the position that you do support that might