thank you for your time from toronto. >> thank you so much, peter. thank you for having me. after moving from china to oakland at the age of ten. she expected to live a better life in california but instead found oakland to be broken city. this is about one hour and ten minutes. >> good evening. imagine being a fourth grader that left a rather isolated existence and was told about a faraway place called disneyland. she had heard exciting things about it. but she couldn't really comprehend the magnitude of such a place.

figuratively speaking, when ying ma and her family integrated to the u.s. from china, she thought she was headed to disneyland. but confronted her was a far cry from the magic kingdom. it wasn't the foreign language and culture that proved the most difficult. rather it was the shocking racism, isolation and the disdain that she encountered in her own backyard of oakland. ying ma's story is a perfect example of what made america great. the courage to confront hardship and the abuse, determination to move past and gratitude to a country that made it possible for anyone to succeed and discover one's self worth. i highly recommended that you read the personal account of her journey in her book "chinese girl in the ghetto" which she will be signing and selling tonight. ying ma has indeed come a long way from the inner city of oakland. she received her undergraduate

degree from cornell and a law degree from harvard. she has served as a -- [inaudible] >> thank you. excuse me. she has served as a visiting fellow at the hoover institution of war, revolution and peace, practiced law, managed corporate communications at the first mainland china based internet company to list on the nasdaq and served on the first professional staff of the congressional u.s.-china economic and security review commission. she has also written articles for "the wall street journal," the international herald tribune, "the los angeles times," the weekly standard and others. currently, she is the senior vice president of sd b partners and as an adviser at the heartland institute, a free-market think tank in it is my pleasure to introduce ying

ma. [applause] thank you so much. rita, thank you for that kind introduction. i want to say thanks to all the volunteers who made this event happened. a special thanks to read -- rita for her hard work and coordination and how word for having me here. it is an honor for me to tell you a bit about my book and my story. but whenever i talk about my book, i have a tendency to think of another author and that this president barack obama. the liberal media raved about his writing a devotees in the 2008 election. back then, senator obama's

resume was quite short, and his supporters often would say with a straight face that he was just marvelous because he wrote to marvelous books about himself. at first i thought this was some kind of a joke. but when senator obama actually became president obama i realize the was no joke at all. and i decided that i seriously needed to get with the program and start to be leaving in the dreaming barack obama world of yes we can. i thought we needed to do is write two books about myself and maybe i too can be president of the united states. [applause] so i sat down and wrote a book about myself called chinese girl in the ghetto." when people ask me what the book

is about i usually politely tell them that it's about my family's journey from communist china to the inner-city oakland california and it's about my journey of getting to know freedom. but what is usually really on my mind is i need to hurry up and write another book about myself and when i do maybe i can go to all those places are dhaka, has been able to go. yes, we can. i'm joking of course. i wasn't born in this country so i can't become president. [applause] but donald trump kept my hopes up for a very long time. he kept telling me and everybody else that barack obama wasn't born in this country either.

so when barack obama finally released his birth certificate in the 2012 elections i was pretty devastated. all of my hopes for the white house were gone. it's a feeling i'm sure senator marco rubio will become familiar with in 2016. in any case, when it became clear that writing another book wasn't going to do anything for my political ambitions i decided to focus on telling people about the book that i have written, and i think it is a book there was worth fighting for its own sake and let me tell you a little bit about it. my story is an immigrant story, a legal immigrant story. [applause] i was born in china at a time when the country had been devastated by decades of totalitarian communist rule. my family lived in an apartment

that had no running water, no modern toilet facilities, no washer and dryer, and none of the other amenities that we take for granted here in the west. and in fact we lived in a place the was considered to be quite modern and quite enviable for folks in china because we lived in the city and we didn't have to do that backbreaking farm labor. back then, anyone who could leave china for america wanted to leave and everyone who couldn't wanted to leave, too. so when my family had the opportunity to come to america, we immediately took it to the we moved to oakland california knowing almost nothing about him. we showed up because we had relatives and we wanted to be close to our family members. yet instead of finding an america where the streets were

paved with gold, we found crumbling schools and racist people. that is because we had a riot in the inner city america, the heart of the welfare state. one by one of the horrors of the ghetto showed themselves to us. poverty and urban decay plagued our new city. storefronts had shattered windows. they had potholes, bridges and the tunnels were splashed with graffiti. the streets downtown even near city hall were often streets that smelled of urine. they panhandled and that's when they were being nice to you and costed the tourists and residents alike. crime played the new city as well.

drug-dealing seemed much more prevalent at times a ban employment. mugging took place in plain sight and the gunshots ring that might regularly interrupting my tv watching. racism also ruled my town and it didn't matter if we were chinese, vietnamese, korean, filipino or japanese we often have one name and that was china men. there was the case at school, on the streets, on the bus and seemingly anywhere and everywhere. on the sidewalks they had a habit of entertaining themselves by creeping up behind immigrants and the frightening them by screaming at the top of their lungs the worst imitation of the chinese language. more often than not, racial slurs were backed by violence and sometimes followed by the violence itself.

and because the racism of the perpetrators simply didn't fit neatly into the politically correct narrative that our culture so often prizes, mainstream america paid no attention. or they simply looked away. in the ghetto there was a general breakdown of order and overwhelming absence of personal responsibility and a widespread sense of entitlement. the welfare state was prevalent and was supposed to help. it only made the place more dysfunctional. it provided food stamps, but it could not stem hunger. it offered welfare checks, but it could not promote economic growth or create jobs. it excused laziness, turned a blind eye and condoned a breakdown of the family unit. worst of all it instill a sense of entitlement and its subjects

and it took away their pride, stickney and about their dignity and their initiative. thankfully for my family we didn't participate in the welfare state. this was in part because we spoke no most knowing what shall we showed up in america and we had no idea how or where to apply for welfare benefits. [laughter] we didn't even know that they existed for people like us and back then they existed because this was the day before the welfare reform of 96 and illegal immigrants to this country did not have to have been here for five years before they became eligible for the government money. maybe we didn't take advantage of the programs simply because we just were not that bright. we never bothered to even inquire about the benefits because it didn't occur to us

and it hadn't occurred to us that it meant we should just hold out our hands and ask our federal or state government for money. but perhaps our ignorance was a blessing in disguise because that meant that we had to fight our way out of poverty the old fashioned way. we worked. we had limited financial resources so my parents worked at jobs for long hours in the beginning for less than minimum wage. we wore clothing from good will or handed down from our relatives. we used second, third or four handed furniture and the first my brother and i slept on half of the bed, he slept on the box spring and i slept on the mattress. i think that he insisted back then i got the better end of the bargain. there was hardship and shared

sacrifice. the mother who was once a well respected school teacher adored by her kids became a seamstress at. the father who was a senior mechanic trailed by a group of apprentices became kitchen help for a chinese restaurant where the owners regularly abused and employees. the children studied the day and night instead of hanging out on the streets, using drugs or other lawyers police beating. our family saved for home ownership instead of splurging on long vacations, fancy clothing or even better, snacks. because like parents couldn't speak english and i learned more quickly than they did, we took them to the hospital when they were sick, we fill out job applications for them when they were looking for work. we accompanied them to the

unemployment office when they were laid off and we haggled with the utilities company is coming usually with adults many more years older than us when the overcharged us. through it all, we didn't demand that the government level playing field by giving us handouts or freebies. we accepted that life was on a fair and that not everybody -- not everyone could be born rich or even born in this country. we certainly didn't occupied public buildings or parks. we didn't urine on the streets, we didn't violate ordinances or destroy property or steal private property even when things didn't go our way. and we thought was wrong to feel entitlement to the government largess or other people's money. we also didn't demand that

america somehow give us preferences and quotas. in fact the nation in california meant we didn't receive any of those quotas and preferences. but the racial quotas and preferences were doled out quite lavishly to the sons and daughters of dentists, doctors and other middle class professionals who belonged in the racial categories that were far more in fashion in our society. regardless, in the end we prevailed. we prevailed over the welfare state. we got out. certainly we didn't do it alone. the kindness of the american people has always and pressed me and something that impresses all immigrants to this country and we remain grateful to those that offered a helping hand and a warm smile. recently when i was reading an op-ed in the "wall street journal" written by the governor jeb bush, i fall of my family's

journey out of the ghetto. he said today the sad reality is that if you are born poor, if your parents didn't go to college, if you don't know your father and english isn't spoken at home the odds are stacked against you. you are more likely to stay where today than any other time since role or to. one of the modified to meet. fortunately i do know my father. but i was born poor. my parents do not go to college and english was not and still is not spoken. the odds were stacked against the. folks like president barack obama has been eager to hard on those odds for political purposes. in the narrative that he has been haggling for the past four to five years the little people

what the bottom of our society simply do not get a fair shake. according to him, millionaires and billionaires or the richest 1% have edged out everyone else from opportunities for success. they've become a club of the privileged few and unless the government intervened heavily in the economy, the poor and the middle class will never survive. in this paradigm, mr. obama's paradigm i have no business getting out. this is because mr. obama doesn't just peddle the benefits of the welfare state. he really peddles the welfare state mentality. this mentality is even worse than the welfare state itself. resolve's of individuals of personal responsibilities.

it consigns them to grievance and it encourages and even justifies their sense of entitlement. since the election of last november, republicans have been hyperventilating about how much more effectively mr. obama and his party can relate to the urban poor and minorities. few of them seem willing to point out the odds are always stacked against the poor. it's not supposed easy to get out of poverty. that's why you work harder and pursue opportunities more aggressively and learn to be more nimble and entrepreneurial. this is a reality that conservatives shouldn't be the same or afraid to point out. in a conservative paradigm, free men and women make choices. we take responsibility for our

lives and extract ourselves from less than stellar circumstances. that is how i got out of the ghetto despite the odds. unfortunately, the welfare state doesn't just exist in the ghetto. the ghetto is plagued with big government, racial strife and a breakdown of law and order. but if you were to take away the latter, the high crime rates or the racial strife, big government is all over in this country and you find the welfare state everywhere. the welfare state really isn't just about welfare. it's about government intrusion from the top and an entitlement of mentality from the bottom. we live in a country where collectively we spend more money than we have and we are the takers that like to take more from the makers.

we have a president that uses a free robert kennedy that he can to land base the successful and to tell americans that fairness and progress can only occur when those that have the money give more of it with higher taxes than those that have less, ticking and spending of the people's money is what barack obama likes to call our shared commitment to each other. and americans agree with him. at least enough of us did to re-elect him as president. as unpleasant as it may be, the reality is that it is always difficult to convince people to say no to free money. it's difficult to convince them to opt for the uncertainty of the free market and free enterprise and to walk away from the government subsidies. i may have emerged from the ghetto without having received

welfare benefits but it was purely an accident. if i had known that welfare programs existed and that my parents will fight for those programs i would have brought them myself to the relevant government offices, philadelphia applications, served as their translator at interviews of bureaucrats and at age ten, 11, 12, 13, whatever it was i would have made sure they got some money to which i never had to do any of that in oakland, but some chinley like other people i did have friends who feel themselves of government benefits and if my parents were to qualify for welfare programs today, i would still be the first to help them apply to the truth is most people find it very hard to say no to free money and the most of us simply don't. we all respond to monetary

incentives. of course we know that there is no such thing as free money. our big government is funded by people who work, people who create wealth and pay taxes. and it is funded by money that we borrow by and national debt of approximately $17 trillion. we also know that barack obama's welfare state doesn't just hand out welfare checks or food stamps. it also hands out amnesty for illegal immigrants, free contraceptives for women and racial preferences for minorities. if you are at the receiving end of those, it's very hard to say no. so the key is not to be giving those out in the first place behind sophos to provide an uplifting story tonight. but the truth is we simply cannot defeat the welfare state

on our own. in the grand scheme of things, it makes very little difference that my family and i needed out without receiving welfare benefits. we got lucky and we were able to east cape the welfare state. to truly meet the state, however, we would have to defeat the state mentality and will back policies that incentivize the dependency and foster a sense of entitlement. when we do that we will have a story to tell about defeating the welfare state and that would be a truly great story. so, but until then, i would leave you with a quote from my book it's from the introduction. in china i couldn't avoid the indignity or the encompassing weight of authoritarianism. but in the living increase of my family and the unflinching loyalty of my friends i remained upbeat, cheerful and happy.

i forgot what it was to be joyful but even in the ghetto people have a chance to walk away from some of the worst attributes of the free society and to its finest virtues. it lies at the heart of my journey of getting to know freedom. and it will defeat the welfare state and its entire island mentality. thank you. [applause] >> for those of you that would like to follow my work, my website is yingama.org. and you can find my writings and interviews there as well. for those of you that have been here before you know that what we will do we have people passing out cards like this

gentleman here and take them to the person in the back who will read them for the speaker. so if you have questions raise your hand and we will get a card. thank you. >> [inaudible] >> can we conclude [inaudible] >> not necessarily. i think for people of my generation in china matter how happy they were in china if they were given a chance to come to the united states they would come. having gone through what i went through i don't recall coming to america.

i think that one lesson why would draw is that freedom isn't supposed be easy just because you shelepin a free society, a wealthy free society doesn't mean that there are any guarantees and so a success isn't going to be there waiting for you. and i think that for people who live in communist countries like the former soviet union, for instance, they would much rather have the opportunity to fight for that freedom come to fight for their success and to become assigned a lifetime of mediocrity and hopelessness. so, i think it's hard to be in immigrant no matter what. it's hard to leave your friends and family and to leave a society that you are familiar with. for the kids leaving china today that is going to be the case no matter what. but it always beckons all kinds

of people. >> do you have any idea how this life might change to become less of dysfunctional? >> since i left i think that oakland has seen some improvement. it's in the scene said the hitting its still dysfunctional on many levels and we saw that on occupied oakland. i think policies that promote economic growth, policies that are business friendly i think those help a lot and i think that community groups and adults that actually teach children not to think with an entitlement mentality helps as well. i think part of it is the government tends to be antifreeze market and it hasn't been that strong. those are important if you want a stable environment.

but that same time you can't rely on them to do everything. so part of the problem with oakland is the mentality at least when i was growing up, the mentality was awful and until you get at the root of the mentality and teach kids not to think that way anymore, things aren't going to change all that much. >> i would say a few things. number one, don't make any excuses for yourself. when you grow up in a poor environment, when your family doesn't have a whole lot of resources, it's very easy to make excuses. it's easy to say i can't do this, i can't do that and i can't go places because my family simply hasn't provided for me and my people are

oppressed. don't make any excuses for yourself. that is step number one. step number two, don't blame others. there are certainly bad people out there and are always going to be people who don't necessarily wish you well but they will be there to lend a hand if you have the right attitude people will help you and will give you a break but you have to start buy not blaming others. what i saw so often is that people started blaming others and planning history and pretty soon you become quite self-destructive and the key is to get away from that and that of course the other than that isn't anything new is one has to work hard. i grew up in a communist country

before it liberalized its economy and everybody had the same number of opportunities. the key is in the society that provides opportunities you have to take advantage of them and apply yourself. >> how long did it take for your family to get a visa to get out of china? >> it took approximately four to five years. >> it was a legal immigrant story and you can find it on my website. it was hard to jump through hoops to do everything that america asked us to do to come here. these days you constantly hear people say our immigration system is broken. we wanted to come here legally that we couldn't.

or there were just too many obstacles. but the truth is lots of people actually stand in line and wait for a very long time. they do that because they respect the rule of law and they also respect the country they wish to adopt as their home and in my story, the story that i wrote for fox news dhaka, titled an illegal immigrant story i talk about that process and how hard it was and i remember seeing my mom come home from the american consulate and she came home crying i knew that our days for immigrating to america had to wait a little bit longer. so in our debate about the comprehensive immigration reform, we should absolutely not forget those people that are illegal immigrants and we shouldn't let people talk us into forgetting the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. [applause]

>> how did you get from a poor inner-city education to cornell university? >> well i read a lot. when i first came to the country, i didn't speak english. what i did is i spend my summers reading chinese novels and they were very good but most likely my parents if they knew what was in the novels they would have said that they were inappropriate for my age but they were run buy very famous novelists and asia. i spend my summers reading those and one is because i didn't have access to books like that when i was growing of in china under the communist rule. people weren't really allowed to read anything, or exciting. you read a lot of what had to do it communism and why it was great. as i got a little bit older and

once i began to learn english i ended up spending a lot of time reading english books. it was terrible for my eyesight but the great thing is that books teach you to all kinds of places you can't even imagine and once i started digging into the books i realized there was a whole new world outside of the ghetto and i was eager to get out as soon as i could and one way was to study as hard as i could and that is what i did. >> what are your thoughts about the gang of eight amnesty bill currently discussed in congress? >> i didn't seem fond of the idea of marco rubio running for president earlier, so i think that probably gives everybody a hint. i hope it fails.

[applause] >> i hope it fails in its current form. there were all kind of comments by different senators to try to make amendments to the gang of eight proposal and to make it better to strengthen the enforcement mechanisms. but those amendments for all shot down so in its current form it is a disaster. it's now got into about a thousand pages long. i wrote another article about this. it's called immigrating to america is not an entitlement and it addresses many of the false. it addresses many of the miss come misunderstandings of what immigration is about. i have a number of disagreements and i suspect those of even the audience do as well.

i did that my number one disagreement in the bill is that it provides professional legal status to approximately 11 million illegal immigrants in this country before any significant and meaningful measures of enforcement actually take place before the border is secure. in addition to that given that i've gone through the immigration process, i suppose i have a little bit of a problem with people saying that america's immigration system is broken and we just get to come here illegally i'm sure that many of you here believe that our tax system is broken, too and that you'll be leaving you don't want your tax dollars to go to our bloated welfare state but it doesn't mean that all of a sudden you just stop paying your taxes and if they were to come back to you you would say i

believe our tax system is broken and i stopped paying. but that is how the situation we have with our immigration system is broken and everybody acknowledges that. let's fix it again but somehow because the fact it's broken and all these people have a claim to being here because they just want to because they aspire to be americans i have a number of other disagreements i would point you to my article i think the title tells you how i feel about this shia. >> how do you explain the chinese immigrants who come here to skate in any and immediately draw the vote for the democrat? some of foremost progress of politicians are here from china. [laughter]

>> i would say a few things. i'm not convinced the people that is a tyranny from china come again and immediately start voting from liberal democrats. some of them probably do when they become citizens, but i haven't seen enough studies that say that these folks, the anti-communist folks in fact are more likely to vote democrat than they are to vote republican. but i do know is often times when you get to a second or third generation chinese-americans they tend to be less conservative than their parents because the immigration experience is farther away from them, the hardships the parents or grandparents had to go through are not as relevant to them and many of these kids have applied themselves and end up at a very good colleges and at the colleges that happens is they get brainwashed by liberal professors. [applause]

that's part of the problem. what's also part of the problem a spokesman tend to be very politically active in the asian community, and what of the activists tend to be a lot more liberal than the people you meet on the streets than your sort of average asian-american particularly more recent immigrants. the asian-american activists have decided that they adopt the rhetoric of the left wing and the identity politics and of the victim of the g somehow they have failed. but many of the activists don't speak the native languages of the respective communities. they don't necessarily know all that much or all of the details of the people or the difficulties of the people they claim to represent. and in many ways you see the

community lots of black folks would say that jesse jackson were al sharpton probably doesn't represent their point of view. somebody like the former representative has in fact said that quite a bit in the asian community is an issue that isn't as pronounced it isn't as active as a whole. the self-appointed spokespeople disconnect and the citizens simply because i think the latter tends to be a lot more conservative. the third thing i would say is i think immigrant communities tend to be more pragmatic. and because china has undergone

30 years of economic liberalization it's not the same communist country as it used to be to the distillers very repressive in many ways but i think for a lot of younger chinese, they don't necessarily know those of at least intimately the awful days of the cultural revolution were the days of starvation under the chairman. and sometimes they can be very nationalistic so instead of bearing hostility they may feel nationalistic towards china. the community may not be as ideological for instance as the cuban-american community. and when people are less ideological and more practical if you give them more promise than a whole bunch, they are likely to respond that way.

i'm going to reform entitlement programs and to tax reforms that the other side that says he's going to cut your benefits and take away medicare and so on and people respond to that because these are pocketbook issues. they could swing the same way if you have someone who actually is a more charismatic political candidate and as someone who can speak more directly to their concerns. so i've given you a whole bunch of reasons i guess. how can we find [inaudible] >> i think immigrants are -- they are all over the area full

of immigrants. there are lots of community groups. i think community groups that -- whenever a group is close to the love life and that the tend to understand the needs of the people in that community better. there are lots of things you can do. when i was a kid living in oakland one of the things i benefited the most from was the arthur ashe tennis program. this was something found by arthur ashe. he was a tennis star, the first african-american to win wimbledon and he founded the program for inner-city kids to been to play tennis and learn to give them something to do so they wouldn't be out on the streets and to have the coaches teach them sportsmanship and self-respect and that is when i learned to play tennis. the folks who taught in that program didn't get paid all that

much to read if they were to give private tennis lessons ensure they would have paid a lot more and that is something i benefited from quite a bit and they're all kind of programs like that. there are ways -- even if you donate clothing more money, there are lots of groups out there that are there to serve the immigrant communities. and you know, they're needs range from everything from food to clothing or, you know, sometimes to translation to lead to things like maybe sometimes the need legal services and can't afford them. there is a wide range of services that folks need, and i think there is no shortage of groups in the area that try to help them and i think that getting involved with one of those groups would be only to do that, and i think about of times

it still perhaps doesn't even require the participation in some sort of organization. i think just being kind and decent to somebody trading in immigrant like you would treat one of your friends i think that often goes a long way to make an immigrant feel at home in this country. and i think that would be great place to start. ..

i think that's for young people. one of the things that adults or authority figures, who deal with young people a lot -- what they shouldn't do is to inculcate in young people's heads that somehow the only people you can look up to must look like you or sound like you. that's not the case. when i was growing up in oakland, one of the instructors who was the kindest to me, was an african-american instructor. he taught me in fifth grade, and unfortunately he passed away since then. i remember that this was my second year in the united states, and i knew how to do math really well but i didn't speak english all that well, and he noticed i worked really hard to learn and i carried this

pocketbook dictionary with me so that if at any time i encountered a word or phrase i didn't understand, i would like it up and see what the chinese translation was, and he went out of his way to help me -- constantly encouraged me to do better. so didn't matter to me he wasn't chinese or that he was black. he used to tell all the -- and in the class that i had with him, most of the students in that class were black, and he used to tell the black kids all the time they needed not to slack off. they needed to stop making excusesle. they needed to work harder. and it was great they had a role model like him. but just because you don't have a role model that sharers ethnicity or color, doesn't mean you should stop looking there are awful kinds of people, and i seen all kinds of folks who have been willing and able to mentor

people who didn't share their gender, ethnicity or cultural background. i think we -- i think the mentoring goes both ways. people who mentorow have to be willing to do that and you have to be willing to open yourself up to people who want to help, and the first step is to allow those people, who may not look like you or sound like you, to do that. >> you have two or three specific recommendations for the city of oakland to imitself? -- improve itself? [laughter] >> you know, it's interesting. i actually haven't thought about that. i haven't -- i haven't lived there for a while, and i know the city has changed quite a bit. and i remember that under mayor

jerry brown -- i actually do remember a number of improvements were made, and i appreciated those improvements. i sort of feel like perhaps i've been gone for so long that this question probably would be better answered bay resident of oakland who actually has to deal with the city government as well as other aspects of the city. more regularly. i would say that for most -- i mean, for me, for -- when it comes to making changes in inner city areas, i think it's very, very crucial for those areas to become business friendly, to encourage small businesses to encourage entrepreneurship, and i must -- i have to go back to the mentality, and the mentality

amongst the city's residents is fostered not just by people in the government but also your families, churches, communities, and your schools. and so i think it's -- for those cities that have inner city areas that require a lot of help, i think getting to the root of that mentality is very key. >> many residents have dual citizenship and allegiance to at the country from where they came. our country recognizes dual citizenship. do you think that should change? >> i think at the moment, dual citizenship is not allow evidence for -- not for everybody, so dual citizenship is not allowed for people who immigranted to -- immigrated to the u.s. from chinese. i think dual citizenship is only allowed for those countries who are friendly to us, so if you're

a dual swiss and u.s. citizen, people would think you're going to be harmless. and i -- my understanding is that it's your home country is the country that is considered to be hostile to the united states. it's -- for the most part it's very -- the government won't actually allow you to hold dual citizenship. you either stick with the citizenship you originally had or you renounce and it then become an american citizen. which makes perfect sense to me. >> imagine you're put in charge -- [inaudible] >> well, i would go back to what i said earlier. the think strengthening enforcement mechanisms is very deuntil you do that. the rest of the talk is pretty much just talk.

if you're not going tone force our -- to enforce our borders, not going to deport people on a meaningful basis -- for instance, right now, there is a union with the immigration and customs enforcement unit, and those officers complain with what the obama administration won't let them do is two things that are very crucial to their jobs, one is to actually detain folks who are here illegally, and two is to deport them, and the obama administration has kind of adopted the policy that once you're here, unless you committed a serious crime, you're -- the administration is not going to spend that much time figuring -- reporting you or somehow -- spend too many resources on things like that. and so when you have an

immigration policy that really doesn't have a whole lot of teeth, and when people don't think that there is severe punishment or severe consequences to coming here illegally, then obviously we have a broken system. i do believe that we should make this country far more friendly to skilled labor through overseas. there are lots of people who would provide a lot of helped to your economy, would provide they're skills and expertise, and every year folks like that who get what its called an hd visa. there's a small quota for them and all the employers in the country that would like to hire people like that, the run out of visas like that at the virgining of the year, and that was the case this year. they ran out of those -- they sort of hit the limit of those visas in january, i believe.

so i think it actually makes a lot of sense to make it easier for scientists and mathematicians and others with high skills to actually come here and provide their expertise and help our economy grow. i think that we need to get away from the identity politics often been played on immigration policy. unfortunately it's very hard to do because many illegal immigrants currently the largest group of illegal immigrants in this country are hispanics and then the largest group in that is mexicans so it's very hard to separate the two, but the key is we actually need to have people who would be will dog not afraid to say that just because we want to enforce our immigration laws and just because we want to secure our borders, does not

mean we're a bunch of racists. and i think that's actually a tone republicans are constantly talking about how we got the tone wrong in the last election. well, one thing we should do is to set the right tone, and the tone is we should stop actually letting people characterize conservatives as racist just because they want to secure our borders. i think rule of law is something that conservatives have always cared a lot about, and we shouldn't give up on that debate or crede that debate to the other side because we lost an election, and even if we did have the hispanic vote in the last election, romney would not have won. i think that there are lots of folks out there who have thought very intelligently and thoroughly about the immigration issue. but what we do have right now is obviously things that don't -- a

system that doesn't work very well, and we also have a proposal-the-gang of eight proposal, that is very imperfect. so, we need to get beyond that. >> have you ever considered running for office? >> well, didn't you hear me earlier? i was thinking about running for president, and that is why i wrote this book about myself. since i'm not a natural-born any turns out -- natural-born citizen i can't do, they jayce should we stop using the term illegal immigrants? no absolutely not. [applause] >> what do you think would -- actually the statistics say that obama got got 70% of asian vote, not just chinese but chinese,

filipino, japanese, korean, whatever. and so what do you think would be the appeal to when this group of people, the conservative republican side? >> yeah. i have been asked that question a number of times since the last election. i don't think anybody has done any extensive polling of any substantive in the asian community why they vote ahead they did so people who are talking about it are taking a guess, and a few educated guests. one of which i mentioned earlier, which is that i think second and third generation asian-americans often are a bit more -- they have a tendency to be a bit more liberal or much more liberal than their parents or grandparents. i think in governor governor romney's case, it's my thought

that it's possible his tough rhetoric on china turned off a lot of folks in the chinese community. there arlet of chinese immigrants who are very nationalistic about china. and there are also lots of americans who disagree with governor romney's proposals on what to do with china. and i don't agree with him 100%. on many issues. but i think if you're somebody who is very nationalistic about china or your heritage, you're one of the political candidates constantly talk about china and getting tough with china, and i have no doubt that governor romney was talking about getting tough with the chinese communist regime, but often times voters don't make that distinction. they might just think that governor romney is being antichina, and then they might think, well, maybe he is

antichinese so that's simply a guess. i think somebody would have to do a study and actually ask folks why they voted the way they did. in addition to that, as i mentioned earlier, governor romney also prom missed he would roll back the government, and i was -- i voted for him, and certainly was counting on him to do that, but the immigrant community is not insensitive to monetary incentives and as i said earlier there are lots of immigrants who do avail themselves of government freebies, and these days, most people are not as ignorant as my parents or family was when we came here. people know where to go to find free money. people know where to go to apply for welfare benefits and know what to do to make themselves appear eligible before government bureaucrats, when

they need to apply for needs-tested benefits. so people know -- i think that many of those people probably do vote, and when they hear that one candidate is going to roll back big government, they think that would affect they're pocketbook so that would mean fewer benefits for them. so, i know that many people feel that the asian community probably is supposed to be more dropped be conservative. a mine that is hard-working and industrious, and it's true in many ways but doesn't mean that people don't want free money or would say no to it, and if you're a hard-working immigrant and you come here poor and the government offers you free money, you're going to take it. you're not going to -- it's very unlikely you would say no, and i think that actually -- that probably has an impact on how people vote as well. >> this may be a questionable optimism versus pessimism.

do you look down the road 30 to 40 years, what is your -- what do you think the state of the welfare state will be? >> i think we need to -- i think conservatives need to start winning some elections. they need to run some candidates who are charismatic, articulate. viable, and conservative. free market thinkers, and we need to take back the white house. take back the senate, because if the government continues to be run -- a federal government continues to be run by people who are big government types, the welfare state will become ever more bloated. we'll be staring down a path greece is currently on, and our society will become a huge entitlement state. so, i would say i am -- i would

like to be fairly optimistic. i would like to think there are viable conservative candidates out there who can articulate a message without compromising on their principles. and i think there are lots of governors out there right now who feel that void that i think the key thing to do is to start winning some elections, and then we can turn things around. [inaudible] >> ah-ha. i've written about that, too. i think what people say is that -- so first, like president obama and liberal columnists like thomas freedman for the "new york times" and other big government types, ever since the financial crisis hit they have

been advocating heavy government spending. want more stimulus spending, more infrastructure spending, more funding for renewable energy projects and all kind of things, and when they got pushback from free market types and folks who believe in limited government, they started using china as their example, and they started using china to goad conservatives into sort of this position of having to adopt their rhetoric. so china, as many of you know, has grown dramatically in the past three decades or so. they began undertaking economic growth in 1978. they opened up their economy to the world. but it's still a communist country. it is still politically oppressive. and a lot of things are still run by the state, and which is why commentators these days like

to refer to china's economy as a state capitalist economy. and folks like president obama, who -- for a long time he kept point though reeds and bridges that china was building and saying, why are we just sitting here watching them build these roads and bridges, airports, and other big infrastructure projects, while our infrastructure here is crumbling? he often says, why are we sitting here not willing to give our renewable energy companies funding while china is just shoving money in these companies' directions and china has got ton the point where it now dominates the solar industry. so, for liberals, china is kind of -- when they look at the chinese government, they see something that they would love to have, which is the ability to spend freely without accountability to voters. and it's very exciting to them.

there's no -- there aren't any tea party types. and -- so, when i wrote about this topic, what the research show is that china started growing dramatically largely because it introduced more free market mechanisms into its economy, not because it became more statist. so the chinese economy today is much freer than what it was 32 years ago. when they first started their economic liberalization revolution, and numerous chinese reform-minded folks, whether in government, in academia or just small and medium-size enterprises in china, they all

recognize that the hand of the government is intruding and interfering with the economy and it creates all kinds of inefficiencies these days. it creates or supports monopolies that are -- that benefit lots of large state-owned enterprises, and it suffocates certain industries. so, what a lot of reform-minded chinese officials and economists -- what they advocate is they would like to see further economic reform. in fact, this is something that the new chinese leadership has been talking about. this is something that they would like to see, too. they believe that in order for their economy to grow in the long run to really get to a modern first-world economy, they'll have to implement changes. barack obama has been talking -- he has talked a lot about

becoming more statist, like china, but what a lot of chinese recognize they need to be more free-market oriented. so i would say -- this is something i say all the time. shouldn't listen to barack obama for that matter. [applause] >> do you believe that many first-generation chinese, the most conservative ones do not vote? >> i'm not sure about that. here in california, we make voting very easy for chinese immigrants. there are ballots that are translated into chinese. so even if you don't speak the language, you can go get yourself a chinese ballot and then fill in the circles. obviously that's not the case in other states with smaller immigrant populations. i would just say that here in

california, it's very easy for immigrants to vote. so many things are bilingual, multilingual, whether immigrants actually vote or not is a different issue. i haven't seen the polls or studies so i'm not totally sure about the voting rates within a particular immigrant population, but i -- i mean, i'm sure that like other -- in america, there are lots of people who don't vote so wouldn't surprise me if lots of first-generation immigrants don't vote, either. >> do you think america is still free? >> i think lots of things are relative. when people ask me that question, i usually ask, compared to what? there is an index of economic freedom, and every year hong congress and singapore come out at the very top.

so compared to hong kong and singapore, our economy isn't nearly as free, but when it comes to political freedom or other measures, we certainly are much freer than modern-day china, much freer than russia, for instance. and then i would say that -- you know, i continue to refer to our society as a free society. there are ways for our markets to be freer. i think there's a lot of government intrusion that interferes with that. but in recent areas as a result of the financial crisis and the economic intervention that has taken place, our economic activity certainly has gotten less free and certainly with the passage of obamacare. but i remain hopeful that some of those things can be rolled back. [applause]

>> came from a neighbor to hong kong. how does the united states freedom of economics compare with hong kong. >> i think -- hong kong has an extremely free economy like i said earlier. hong kong constantly is ranked by conservatives with free-market research institutes as either the number one or number two freest economy in the world. so, when you talk about it that way, our economy definitely is less free compared to hong kong's. >> i believe that's everything. thank you. >> thank you so much. it's been an honor. [applause] >> okay, thank you very much. she'll be signing books over here in the corner. [applause]

>> what how readying this summer? >> mar that parker writes: them summer i'm reading evidence based climate science. atit's amazing become considerig today's media. we got an e-mail i'm from robert who says:

>> first ladies have a capacity for personified if they choose and this is a pattern in american women in politics, famous or not. they're two thingsment one is they're women, real people, who actually do things. but then there's also this secondary capacity of being a

personifying figure, charismatic figure. and i think many of first lady has come to become the first lady and realizing this thing is larger than life and that was something dolly figured out. so sew becomes a figurehead for her husband's administration and makes the white house into a symbol and -- a lot of this happened in 1808. she doesn't know this but in 1814 the british are going to burn the capitol city and all this work she put into helping the public identify with the house they called the white house under her term, is going to pay off. because it's going to give the surge of nationalism around the war.

>> this week, lawrence leamer and his book: the price of justice. the true story of greed and corruption." tells the story of the legal battle to hold massey account teen the communities its dominated and supplying half of the nation's coal-generated electric power. the program is about an hour. >> welcome to afterwords. today we're fortunate enough to have lawrence leamer, best selling author who published a very engrossing book called "the price of justice." on its face the book is about supreme court case that was decided at the end of the last decade. but it's much more than that. and i -- could you just b