[inaudible conversations] if >> good evening. imagine being a force greater who lived in isolated existence in told of a faraway place of does the land. she had heard exciting things about it but could not comprehend the magnitude of such a place.

figuratively speaking, when ying ma and her family immigrated to the u.s. from china as she sat issues headed to disneyland. [laughter] but what confronted her was a far cry from the magic kingdom. not afford the rich and a culture that proved the most difficult but the shocking racism, isolation and the stage she encountered in our own backyard of oakland. ying ma store is a perfect example of what made america great. courage to face hardship interviews and determination to move past and gratitude to a country that made it possible for anyone to succeed or discovered so forth. i highly recommend you read the personal account of her amazing journey in her book "chinese girl in the ghetto" which she will be selling and signing tonight. ying ma has 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. >> stanford. >> thank you. excuse me. and served as the visiting fellow of "war and peace" and practice law and manage corporate communications switches to the first mainland china base to list on the nasdaq insert, the first professional staff of the u.s.-china economic security review commission. she has also written articles for "the wall street journal", and the international herald tribune and the "los angeles times", "the weekly standard" and others. currently ms. ma senior vice president of a strategic advisory firm and a policy advisor of the heartland institute of a free-market think tank it is my pleasure to introduce comity nine.

[applause] fifty-nine. >> thank you so much. [applause] thank you for that kind introduction. i want to say thanks to all the volunteers who made this event happened and all her hard work can coordination in recent months and howard for having me here. it is an honor to tell you about my book and story. but whenever i talk about my book i tend to think of another author that is president barack obamacare cough as you may be called the liberal media raved thing in the 2008 elections and back then senator obama

is resonate was short and his supporters would say with a straight face that he was just marvelous because he wrote to marvelous books about himself. and at first thought it was a joke but then when senator obama became president i realized it was not a joke at all and i decided that i seriously needed to do with the program to believe in the barack obama world of yes we can and. i thought i needed to right into books about myself and maybe i also can be president of the united states. [applause] so i sat down and wrote a book about myself called "chinese girl in the ghetto" would you ask me what the book is about i police we

tell them it is about my family's journey from communist china to oakland city california and my journey to get to go freedom. that what i really thinking is i need to hurry and write another book and if i do that i can go to all those places that barack upon the has gone. yes, we can. [laughter] i am joking of course. i was not born in this country so i cannot become president. [laughter] [applause] >> but donald trump kept at my hopes for a long time he kept telling me and everybody else barack obama was not born in this country either.

so when he finally released his birth certificate in the 2012 election i was pretty devastated. >> all of my hopes were dashed and a feeling marco rubio will become familiar with but i realized it would not do anything for my political ambitions i thought i would tell people about the books i had written an end to it was worth writing 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, dryer, none of the other amenities that we take for granted in the west. in fact, we lived in a place that was considered to be quite modern and enviable for those in china because we lived in the city and did not have to do backbreaking farm labor. back then everyone who could be tried for america, wanted to. so when my a family had the opportunity we believe ticket. we went to oakland california knowing almost nothing in we showed up there because he had relatives in wanted to be close to family members. yet instead of finding an america where the streets

were paved with gold we found crumbling schools schools, unsafe streets and racist people. that was because we have arrived in the inner city of america and the heart of the welfare state. one by one and go horrors of the data showed themselves poverty and urban decay plagued our city, or france had shattered windows windows, streets had potholes', bridges and tunnels had graffiti and the streets downtown beer city hall were often smelled of urine and homeless people been handled and accosted tourists and residents said the cry of plague to the city as well. drug-dealing seemed much

more prevalent than employment and muggings took place in plain sight and gunshots reing at night regularly interrupted we tv watching. racism ruled my town. this did not matter if we were tied peyser vietnamese are filipino or japanese cover we often all they had one name that was tight demand that was the case as school come on the streets costs and on the bus and everywhere. on the sidewalks teenagers had a habit of entertaining themselves by creeping up behind asian immigrant been to frighten them by screaming at the top of their lungs violence if they

did not fit into the politically correct narrative that reprise of mainstream they paid no attention or looked away. in the ghetto there was a general breakdown as of law and order and overwhelming absence of personal responsibility and a widespread sense of entitlement. the welfare state was prevalent and was supposed to help settle me made it more dysfunctional. provided food stamps but did not end honegger and offered welfare checks but it could not promote economic growth or create jobs it excused laziness and turned a blind eye to gang banging and condone the breakdown of the family unit and worst of all

is still the sense of entitlement to and it took away their pride and their dignity intact with their initiative. thankfully for my family we did not participate in the welfare state. in part because we spoke almost no english when he showed up period we had no idea how or where to apply for welfare benefits. [laughter] we did not even know they existed for people like us said back then they definitely existed because this was the day's before welfare reform of 1996 in the illegal immigrants did not have to be here five years before they became eligible for government money. maybe we didn't take a vintage of these because we were not that bright. be never even bothered to inquire about benefits because it did not occur to

us by coming to the united states have been we should hold out our hand to ask our government for many. but perhaps our ignorance was a blessing in disguise because that meant we had to fight to our way out of poverty the old-fashioned way, we worked. we have limited financial resources coming so my parents worked at menial jobs for long hours in the beginning for less than minimum wage. fists lee wore clothing from goodwill or handed down from zero relatives. we used force hand furniture and the first my brother and i each slept on behalf of the bet he slept on the box springs and i slept on the mattress with there is hardship and sacrifice for the mother who was once a

well-respected schoolteacher adored by her kids became a seamstress at a sweatshop. the father who was once a senior mechanic trailed by a group of apprentices became kitchen help worthy owners regularly abuse their employees. the children studied day and night instead of hanging on the streets. we saved. motorship instead of fancy clothing or vacations because my parents could not speak english we learned it much more quickly we took them to the hospital when they were sick and filled out job applications for them and we accompanied them to the unemployment office

when they were laid off and we handled with the utilities companies with adults many years older when they overcharged us. through it all we did not demand that the government level the playing field to give us handouts. we accepted life is unfair and not everyone can be bored richer even in this country. its we certainly didn't occupy public buildings, parks cover we did not urinates on the streets are violate city ordinance says or destroy public property or steal private property when things did not go our way. and we thought it was wrong to feel entitled to other people's money. we also did not demand that

american give us preferences of quotas it even in mint we did not receive those preferences but they were told out quite lavishly to sons and daughters of dentists, doctors and other middle-class professionals that belong to two racial categories that were more in fashion and regardless of the end we prevail over the welfare state and we got out. certain the we did not do it alone the kindness of the american people has always impressed me and it always impresses all migrant sid be remain grateful for those who offered a helping hand in the warm smile. and i thought of my fear of

moisture knee at of the ghetto and jeb bush op-ed said today the sad reality is if you are born poor and your parents did go to college to double your father and if english is not spoken at home said the odds are stacked against you you are more likely to stay pork today that if any of their time since world war ii. what struck me about that op-ed is that all of his prerequisites applied unfortunately i do know of a father but i was born pour in repairs to the go to college did the english was not spoken at home. the odds were stacked against me so like president barack obama it is eager to harp for political purposes in the narrative he had been peddling four or five years

the little people at the bottom of our society simply don't get a fair sheik in according to him and millet -- millionaires or billionaires' of the richest 1 percent have edged out everyone else for opportunities for success. america's economy has become a club for the privileged few and of us have brought the obama as government intervened heavily in the economy the pork in the middle-class will never prosper in in this paradigm i had no business getting out of the ghetto and the lease without receiving welfare check and this is because he does not just peddle the benefits of the welfare state he peddles the welfare state mentality that is even worse than the welfare state itself and absolves individuals of personal responsibility and consigns them to grievance

and encourages our justifies their sense of entitlement. with the election of last november republicans have been hyperventilating how much more effectively obama in his party play to the urban for a and minorities. but 2.0 that the odds are always stacked against up for it is not supposed to be easy to get out of poverty that is why you work harder cover you pursue your opportunities more aggressively and learn to be more nimble and entrepreneurial. this is a reality that conservatives should not be ashamed or afraid 2.0. in the conservative paradigm free men and women make choices we take responsibility for our lives

and our in extract ourselves that is how i a got out of the ghetto. a dent fortunately the welfare state is not just to exist in the ghetto it is played to with big government and racial strife is the breakdown of law and order but you take away the high crime rates or racial strife big government is all over in this country and to fight to the welfare state everywhere. the welfare state really is not just about welfare but government intrusion from the top 50f into adamant mentality from the bottom for gulf they live in the country where collectively we spend more money than we have in the takers what more from the makers and the president uses every

opportunity he can to tell americans since fairness in progress can only occur when those who have the money kids more sir higher taxes to those who have less. taking and spending other people's money is what the barack obama likes to call on our shared commitment to one another and americans agreed to at least the death to reelect him last year. unpleasant as it may be the reality is it is always difficult to convince people to say no to free many it is always difficult for them to opt for the uncertainty of the free markets a and free enterprise there and tear walk away from government subsidies. i may have the verge 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 qualified, i would have thought of myself to the role of big government offices to fill out the application thank is served as their translator with numerous bureaucrats and age 10 or 11 i would have made sure they got the free many. i never had to do any of that in oakland but certainly like other poor people if they did avail themselves and if my parents were to qualify a two day i would still we the first to help them apply but the truth is most people find it very hard to say no to free many and most of us simply don't we all respond to monetary incentivesthe is no

such thing as free many in the big every is funded by people who work, create wealth of the pay taxes, if it is funded by a money that we barrault of the national debt of approximately $17 trillion. we also know that brought kabab as welfare state is not just a handout welfare checks or food stamps but also ranges from of amnesty for illegal immigrants come with free contraceptive for women and racial preferences for minorities. if you're at the receiving and it is very hard to say no. vicki is not to give those out in the first place. i know i am supposed to provide the uplifting story tonight but we cannot defeat the wolf -- welfare state on

our own and it makes very little difference that we've made it out without receiving welfare benefits. we got lucky and real able to escape the tentacles of the welfare state but to lead the feat it we would have to defeat the welfare state syntality in rollback policies that incentivized dependency can foster a sense of entitlement. when we do that we will have a real story to tell about the feeding the welfare state and that would be a true the great story. but until then, i will leave if you with a'' one negative quotation from my book and did try and i cannot always with a writ of this or the costs ambiguity the weight of authoritarianism but in the loving embrace of my family fifth and the loyalty of my friends are remained upbeat and cheerful and

happy in the get or forgot what it meant to be joyful but even in the ghetto people have the chance to walk away from some of the worst attributes of a free society and the finest of virtues and with this belief that lies at the heart of might journey of getty to no freedom. and i hope things in the end freedom will defeat the welfare state and its entitlement mentality. thank you. thank you very much. [applause] >> and for those of you that would like to follow my work my website is ying ma ,org. >> now what we will do is have people pass so kurds

period it will take them to the person who will read them for the speaker. major handed to have a question. >> [inaudible] this bill veeck not necessarily. i think for people of my a generation in china the matter how happy they were if they ever given a chance to come to the united states, they would come. aunt having god there what i brett there i don't regret thank coming to america.

i think one lesson i was a job is that freedom isn't supposed to be easy just because you show up in the wealthy free society that does not mean there are any guarantees. so success will not be there waiting for you in those who live in communist countries countries, like the former soviet union would much rather have the opportunity to fight for the freedom and for their success than be confined to a lifetime of mediocrity and hopelessness. it is hard to be the recurrent the matter what and hard to the difference of family and society or familiar with and i think for those kids leaving china today that will be the case no matter what. but in this country i think the opportunity is second and will back in all kinds of people.

>> day you have any ideas how they get a life could change to become less dysfunctional? >> since i have left i do think oakland has seen improvement is nervous society i directed it is jerry dysfunctional that reside during occupy oakland but policies that promote economic growth, the business friendly, i think those couple lot. community groups and adults and actually teach children not to think with the entitlement mentality helps. part of it is the government tends to be anti-free market and it hasn't always been that strong with law and order and that is very important if you want a stable environment but at

the same time you cannot rely on the government to do everything so part of the problem with the oakland there is a mentality that until you get to the root of the mentality teaching kids not to think that way things will that change that much. >> as a follow-up had to help someone who was trapped in the mentality get out of it if you were a friend of theirs? >> i would say a few things. don't make any excuses for yourself. when you grow up in the pork and unsafe and firemen if your family doesn't have a lot of resources come it is easy to make excuses to say i can't do this or go places because my family has not provided for me.

or my people are oppressed. don't make excuses. number to cover don't blame others. there are certain the bad people out there and there will always be people that don't the sincerely wish you well but there will always be with those there to lead the he and. if you have the right attitude people will give you a break but you have to start by not blaming others. what i saw so often as people started to blame others a and history and pretty soon you become quite self-destructive. the key is to get away from that. of course, the first thing that isn't anything new is to work hard to take the vintages of the opportunities that you have because they do have fewer opportunities and that is how it is. i grew up in a communist

country back then everybody had the same number of opportunities which was not very many for gulf. soaked for one that does provide opportunities to have to take advantage and apply yourself senate chalone did it take for your family to get out of china? >> athletes took approximately four or five years. i wrote to the article called a legal immigrants' story and you can find it on my website and i described how incredibly hard it was to jump to the hoots -- truth that america asked us to do legally and interestingly you constantly hear people say that our immigration system is broken and we wanted to come legally but we couldn't and

there was too many obstacles but the truth is lots of people stand in line and wait for a very odd timing and they do that because they respect to the rule of law and also the country that they wished to adopt as their home. and the story i wrote for fox news.com entitled to legal immigrants story i talk about that process. my mother would come home from the american consulate crying i knew our days had to wait long for. its sole with reform we should not forget those legal immigrants and not forget the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. [applause]

sue beck how did you get from a poor inner-city education to cornell? >> i was very nerdy a address a lot so when i first came to this country i did not speak english so i spent my summers reading chinese novels that were good novels but most likely my parents if they knew what was in those novels would have said they were inappropriate for my age but written by a famous novelist in asia and i spent my summers reading those because i did not have access to books like that in china under communist rule and people were not allowed to read anything colorful or exciting but you read a lot of things that had to do with communism and why it was great. and as i got a little bit

older a and began to learn english i would spend a lot of time reading english books. it was terrible for my eyesight but the great thing is that books take you to all kinds of places that you cannot imagine it and once i started to dig into the books are realized there was a whole new world undecided does get know and i was eager to get out and one way was to study as hard as i could. that is what i did. >> what your thoughts about the game innovate amnesty bill currently discussing congress? >> i did not seem to be to find of the idea of marco rubio running for president so think it gives a hint first of all, i hope it fails.

[applause] family said its current form their efforts for recently to make amendments to use the gang of 8 proposal to make a better to strengthen the enforcement mechanism. but those amendments were shot down so in its current form it is a disaster and is now about 1,000 pages long. i actually wrote another article about this called immigrating to america is not in a tide of it and it addresses many flaws. [applause] and then this conception of what immigration is about. and have a number of different in disagreement

and number one is it provides provisional legal status to approximately 11 million immigrants before any significant or meaningful measures of enforcement actually take place before the border is secure. i think that is a huge problem. in addition, given that i have gone through the immigration process, and to have a problem with people saying in the american immigration system is broken and we can come here illegally. i am sure many of you here believe our tax system is broken and you believe you do not want your tax dollars to go to the bloated welfare state but it doesn't mean you just stop paying taxes and if the irs would come after you you would say i believe our tax system is

broken but that is how the situation with the immigration system. it is broken so let's fix it but some house simply because of the fact now all of a sudden they have a clean -- a claim to be here because they want to? because they aspire to be americans? i have other disagreements but i would point you to my article a of the title tells you how i feel about this issue. >> how to explain the chinese immigrants who come here from tyranny and immediately vote for liberal democrat? [laughter] whenever most progressive politicians are here in china. [laughter] i would say a few things.

i am actually, i am not convinced people who escape tyranny from china and immediately start voting for liberal democrats. some of them probably do when they become citizens but i have not seen enough studies that the anti-communist people are more likely to vote democrat than republican but i do know when you get to a second or third generation they do tend to be less conservative because the experience is further away from them and the hardship that they had to go through is not as relevant and many of these kids apply themselves to end up that good colleges then they get brainwashed by a liberal professors.

[inaudible conversations] [applause] so that is part of the problem. also those who'd tend to be politically active in the aged community particularly on the national level tend to be more liberal than those you see on the streets of your average asian american for whatever reason these activists have decided that unless they adopt the rhetoric of identity politics and victim ology that somehow they have failed but many of these activists don't speak the native languages of their respective communities or don't know that much or all the details of the people this for the difficulties of the people they claim to represent and in many ways you can see a parallel

between the asian and black community with many would say jesse jackson or offshore did think probably does not represent their points of view like former representative alan west has said that quite a bit. it is not as pedernales because the community is not as politically active as ahold but there is the disconnect from the national self-appointed spokespeople between them in the average age in american citizens simply because the former does not always understand the latter and i think they are more conservative. and i think emigrate communities tended to be more pragmatic because china has undergone 30 years of

economic liberalization is not the same country is used to be. it is still very repressive but for the young kurd chinese they don't necessarily know the awful awful-- kevin l. least not intimately of the cultural revolution or the days of starvation. so sometimes they can be very nationalistic. instead of bearing hostility to communism it may be toward china and i seeing over all the community cannot be as ideological as the community and win people are more practical come if you give them were promised them goodies they are likely to respond that way if mayor

romney says i will cut the size of government and reforming entitlements programs but the other side says that means you will cut your benefits to take away medicare people respond to to that because these are pocketbook issues and to part of it is they could very well swing the other way to someone who is more charismatic political candidates someone who can speak more directly to their concerns. i have given you a bunch of reasons. >> [inaudible] >> any grants are all over the bay area obviously and

lots of community groups. whenever a particular group gets close to the local level they tended to understand the needs of the people in that community far better. there are lots of things you can do when i was a kid would do the things i benefited the most was the arthur ashe tennis program. this was something down did by a car for ashy was a tennis star the first african-american to win wimbledon and founded this program for inner-city kids to learn to play tennis saying give them something to do so they were not out of the streets and have coaches teach sportsmanship a and self-respect and that is ryan learn to to play tennis and the folks you taught it did not get paid

that much of a gave private lessons there would be paid more in that is something had benefited from an there are all kinds of programs like that and ways to you to there and ways even if you were to you donate clothing or many, there are a lot of groups out there that are there to serve the immigrant communities and their needs range everything from food to clothing or a translation and help or maybe they need legal services it cannot afford them. it is so wide range that folks need indicting there is no shortage thank and to give all this with those groups is one way to do it and a lot of times perhaps

to study require participation is some sort of organization. in to be decent to some ready to begin in madrid to like you would with your friends and for them to feel the home in this country. >> that would be a good place to start a. >> do you have a dat is how to encourage those of the ghetto to seek a role model and those with a background that could help? >> especially to people in the ghetto i would say that there are role models everywhere i began our culture has died so politically correct that if somebody does not share your color or ethnicity but somehow you cannot look up to them so we're constantly

saying we have to provide a role model. thank so i think that one of the themes that adults or authority figures that davis looks like you and that is not the case. where was growing at one of the instructors that was the kindest was said african-american and that taught me in fifth grade and unfortunately he has passed away. but i remember this was my second year in the united states and i knew how to do math really well but i did not speak the english well

anti-notice that i worked hard to learn and i carried the pocket dictionary so if i king countered a word or phrase i would look it up to see the chinese translation in he went out of his way to constantly encourage me to do better. it didn't matter that he was a chinese or that he was black kid he used to tell with a kid since the class most were black kid he would tell them all the time that they needed not to slack off and stop making excuses to work harder. is great to have a role model like him but just because it doesn't share your ethnicity your color that means used to stop looking but i have seen all

kinds of folks who have been really needed able to mend dort -- printer those who didn't share the cultural background. . .