they are people who thinks the person deserves to die. we read in the murder -- god told me. he got what he deserves. that doesn't work. ..

>> he had a lot of goals in life but those were then enhanced when he met and married mary todd. she also was very ambitious. she said she wanted to marry a man of good mind and hopes for a bright future and to marry a man who would be president. there was something about abraham lincoln that she saw the potential and encouraged it. mary helped to basically showcase what her husband had done and how far he had calm and kind of hinted at where they were headed stating to the world that abraham lincoln had made it and he was ready to move on.

>> he next, alvaro vargas llosa discusses his look "global crossings" which looks at some of the reasons people migrate to foreign lands even in situations where they might risk their own lives. hosted by the cato institute in washington d.c., this is an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations] >> welcome everybody to the cato institute. i am the director here at cato. since the beginning of this year

immigration has become a burning public policy issue in washington. for the first time in decades the united states is considering a major reform in the way that it deals with immigrants. the ensuing debate and the possibility of reform is welcome but the fact is politicians are arriving very late to this issue. and that is because in this country there has long been a wide gap between restrictive laws and the reality of immigration. there is a gap that reflects the economic and social fact that there are millions of americans and millions of immigrants from mexico and elsewhere who wish to work together in this country and engage in peaceful voluntary exchange but are not legally allowed to do so. and that inconsistency has produced a lot of the problems associated with illegal immigration. many serious problems and some

imagined. the prospects of reform have also stimulated the debate about economic and cultural issues surrounding immigration and its impact and it's a debate that cuts across party lines and it's one that has generated a lot of of -- how would a possible legalization of millions of unauthorized immigrants and the creation of a guestworker program affect wages and jobs? what does the evidence say about the extent to which immigrants are assimilating into american culture in recent decades? are immigrants and net drain or contributors to the welfare state and did they mainly come here to work or to get state and if it's? for that matter the political impact of immigration is something that has been debated. what should we expect from increased legal immigration in

that regard first is the status quo? these are legitimate questions that go to the heart of one's worldviews on such issues as in equality and fairness the proper role of the state in regulating business and labor, cultural and national identity issues, and fiscal policy just to name a few issues so it's no wonder the sudden interest on the part of republicans and democrats to address this issue has caused heated exchanges exaggerated claims come to and some amount of nastiness. that is why i am pleased today to be able to host a forum for a book that takes a balanced look at a wide range of issues that are being discussed today. the book comcast "global crossings" immigration, civilization and america by alvaro vargas llosa comes at a perfect moment and it puts

immigration in historical context showing how so much of the debate today is not actually new in american politics and that we can be guided by a lot of american experience, long american experience. it's better to let the author talk to us about that. my good friend alvaro vargas llosa is the senior fellow at the center for global prosperity at the independent institute who publishes -- who has published this book. he has been a nationally syndicated columnist for the "washington post" writers group. he has been the author of numerous books including the che guevara risk and the guide to perfect latin american idiot which was a bestseller in the spanish edition in latin america. he is a big what has in his columns that appear throughout latin america every week and has

contributed to leading newspapers in the united states. he has been a board member of the "miami herald" publishing company and an op-ed page editor and columnist for the "miami herald." i could go on and on that i would say one more thing. he has also been one of the great champions of liberty in latin america, very present in all of the most important places on the right side of the issue i believe in with this book i could say in the americas. please help me welcome alvaro vargas llosa. [applause] >> thank you very much ian for that wonderful and generous presentation and thank you to the cato institute for hosting this and alex for being so kind and helping put it together.

we have been asked why did i write this book? why was i interested in this topic? and welcome to there are several reasons. perhaps one of them has to do with diet i guess identity problem. i have been called a spaniard in peru. i have then called a pejorative term for south american. i've been called a pakistani in london where i was based for a while and now i m. called spanish, liberian which means spaniard so i don't really know where i belong and who i am but i guess it's probably a good enough reason to explore this important issue today. so let me tell you a little bit about what i do in this book. what i do is i take on all the different myths that i have seen over the years that are really

driving this discussion and this debate, including the current discussion in the senate and soon in the house as well. about immigration reform. i won't cover all of that but i will share with you a few and give you my perspective on them and i hope that this will help at least clarify some of the misinformation that is out there it's really quite striking. one first myths and all i am going to say i have heard many people say, people with all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of places. i didn't make any of this up. one argument basically says we are getting the wrong kinds of immigrants and we used to get the right kind of immigrants. i'm not anti-immigration. i'm just against this current type of them a grant that getting today. the answer to that is the united

states always got the wrong kind of immigrants. that has always been the case. the variety of immigrants sources and types of immigration that this country has received in the last two centuries, two and half centuries is simply astounding. of course between 1830 in 1880 yes it was mostly northern europeans but between 1880 and 1920 it was all about southern europeans and eastern europeans in central europeans had nothing to do with northern europeans. they look different in the different cultures. they were the mexicans of yesteryear and of course after that you had an and even before that you had people from asia. you have the chinese with with the gold rush and the chinese in the early 20th century and yes you had spent -- hispanics and

you had indians after 1965 because of the changes that evolved that triggered an unintended consequence so there has always been the wrong kind of immigrant in united dates. it's simply not true. another important myth says that the u.s. is getting a disproportionate number of immigrants. just this morning on a radio show i heard we are getting more than any other country in the world. they are all wanting to come here and they don't want to go to other countries. again, but this is very silly. about 3% of the world population is made up of first-generation immigrants and illegal immigrants constitute about one sixth of the immigrants that travel from one place to another every year. so the total number of immigrants every year is about 215 and the total number of illegal immigrants about

lion. the u.s. gets in terms of just illegal immigrants one sixth of 1% of its population so clearly a much smaller proportion than any other country is getting. so again it's not sure that the u.s. is getting a disproportionate number of immigrants. this is a worldwide phenomenon and other countries are relatively getting more immigrants than the united states, undocumented immigrants into the united states. another myth says that the only motive behind immigration is poverty. why should we in the united states solve world poverty? we have enough poor of our own. let us take care of our own and let's not solve world poverty. that is not true. that's not the only motive behind migration and in fact the poorest of the poor almost never migrate from one country to another. they migrate within the borders of their own country.

let's take europe. until the 1980s, early 1980s europe was a source of migration of outmigration i mean, people leaving europe and that was a wealthy and prosperous continent before they got into this mess which is a different story. germany, the richest among the rich and europe was exporting half a million people every year until the 1980s. so clearly the motivation for that was not poverty. south korea has a significant number of immigrants or immigrants to come to the united states. that is a rich country. bangladeshi women who are very poor, the poorest among the poor , by great even in asia which is the continent that has the greatest number of migrants every year. so i could go on and on and on. what are the motives? do they very? yes of course great economic

conditions are part of the story but you have everything including depressed conditions at home politically institutionally and economically. family ties occupational preference adventure, all sorts of different reasons for migrating. historical ties have a lot to do with it as well. the u.s. has historically been entangled around the world in conflicts and all sorts of exchanges, sometimes friendly and sometimes not so friendly and that is created conditions for permanent migration. there has been a significant bit of immigration to the united states as we all know and that has to do with the involvement in the war at the end of the 19th century and also with the encouragement that the united states gave to filipinos to come to the united states to start including a special program set up after the second world war for filipino notices. all those were signals that the u.s. sent saying it's okay to come. we recognize we are bound

together succumb to the united states. mexican migration, the origin of mexican migration it to the united states is not poor mexicans wanting a better life in the united states. it was u.s. business, needing to replace eastern europeans. first japanese japanese workers in an eastern european workers in the early 20th century so they went to mexico and asked for mexican workers and mexican worker started coming to the united states to work particularly in railroad construction. all these historical ties have a lot to do with it as well. another important myth is the fact that there has never been any hostility to immigration in the united states. we have always been a country of immigrants and we have always welcome -- welcomed immigrants. we have always valued people coming from oversees to

contribute to the society and again that is not true. there has always been hostility towards immigration and of course it hasn't always taken place exactly in the same way. it's not been as intense but historically it has always been the case that there was significant hostility to immigrants. if you look at what happened in the gold rush, the chinese were the object of vilification at the time. they were frowned upon by all those who were taken native born americans who are taking part in the gold rush. the japanese at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century would office and and -- often undergo tremendous illegal restrictions. they have had to find all sorts of ways to get around the law. in the middle of the 19th century, the whole nativist movement was born with the

famous know nothing party were very much hostile towards immigration and they had an impact on the government and generally the outlook of society towards immigration. so it has been the case and that is why we have seen throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century and evolving situation from the point of view of how the law address immigration. that has always been i guess an evolution towards more or a change towards more and more restriction. that reflected the mindset, the mindset that was relatively hostile. not everybody of course partook in this. not everybody was reflected in these attitudes. there has always been a force for pro-immigration opinion in the united states but what i'm

trying to get at is this is not something necessarily new or very different. one thing that i think we need to understand and this is also part of the myth is that whenever there is a big disconnect between the law and reality you are going to get -- it happens with goods, it happens with services, it happens with things but it also happens with evil. you constantly hear this argument and of course i can see where they are coming from. we cannot as a country governed by the rule of law except people who violate the law. we are just not that the country. this is not something that is morally or legally accepted and yes on paper of course that's an extremely powerful argument. who can argue with that? however the problem is the law is simply not realistic, when

the law does not take reality into account then you create conditions for a systematic violation of the law on a grand scale. when that happens usually something is wrong with the law. not necessarily with the nature of the people who are violating that law. it's simply the way it works. it works with all sorts of other contacts, social contacts that stem from the criminalization of things that should not be held as being criminal by the law. so the same sort of thing happens with immigrants which is why when people say there is a disproportionate number of criminals who are immigrants of course if you penalize immigrants you have just made the condition of an immigrant a conditional one. if you adjust for age there are no more criminals who are immigrant then who are native-born. it's about the same rate.

there are all sorts of studies but yes you had a significant number of people in jail sometimes on the way to deportation particularly in the last few years who could have been considered criminal simply because it was criminal to be an immigrant. so, it's important to get this myth out-of-the-way if we are going to find a legal way to deal with what is a social problem having almost 12 million people operating in the shadows outside of of the law is a social problem. we just need to make sure that is addressed from the starting point of believing these people are somehow biologically criminal. these people are simply the result of the disconnect between the law and reality. another important myth has to do

with culture. i heard this time and time again and i'm sure many of you have heard this. these people are culturally different. unlike the previous waves of immigrants who are culturally in tune with our values. these people are different and yet if you look at this in so many different ways you find exactly the same pattern. immigrants today are culturally in tune with us-born people, with u.s. society almost any way you look at it. if you look at religion for instance, in the last 20 years but talk about hispanics for a moment and immigrants in that period of time. 70% of them are catholic and about 23% are partisan. of the ones who call themselves catholic one fifth of them call themselves born-again which is by the way something you never

hear in latin america. latin american people never describe themselves as born-again. they are describing themselves as protestants in the united states of this is clearly an effort to tell the united states that we are like you. we believe just like you. we pray just like you. if you look at family values which is something i don't think conservatives who are critical of immigration clearly understand, you will find that there is probably more inclination towards family values today among immigrants than among any other part of society. for instance, half of all households are made up of couples with children and only 13% of households are headed by

a single parent against one third in the case of native-born americans. so again if we stand for values values -- family values and we want a society based on family values then this is surely a source of great comfort among immigrants. they are all about family values. if we can convince them of this which is a tough thing to do that they will say out of there having many -- too many children. i don't i that argument with a problem that the well for state is a problem with immigration. that has not been the case. the birthrate is going down and down just as it's going down and down across latin america. it's still a little bit higher among hispanic women in the united states but only 60%.

just half a child more than native warren women and the trend is going down. in latin america there is this new discussion and until a few years ago of course there was a high birthrate. today it's going down in an incredible way and so those societies are beginning to face some of the issues that developed countries have been facing in terms of the rate of course contributors to the system of transfer to beneficiaries. so they are facing the same issues. no matter how you look at it, for they are culturally compatible. if you look at all those neighborhoods that they have helped regenerate and i mention a few in the book in south florida, in new york. a process called gender

fixation. communities that were in a complete disaster and they have become very nice communities thanks to the efforts of hispanics particularly but that general democrats have put into this. that is a cultural side of perfect compatibility with the host nation. i will grant you this though. it is true that most culturalism has distorted things a bit and i think we would -- it would not be fair if we did not recognize that. in the early part of the 20th century there was something that used to be called americanization. friedrich hayek for instance one of our heroes of course praised americanization very much. he attributed to americanization the virtue of having values and ideas relating to the free society.

and yes i think there is something to be said for americanization. there were some aspects they were that were kind of chauvinistic and i guess there were abuses but by and large it was a healthy thing. it was not so much government policy. it was just a general cultural attitudes across society that somehow created incentives for people who came to become familiar with the values of society and all of these things. it was a positive thing. that began to change in the 1960s of course when this whole new paradigm what we call multiculturalism today emerged. i don't go into a lot of detail because there's a whole chapter in the book and it's a fascinating discussion but i don't want to be sidetracked. just quickly i would say that essentially what happened was europe's decolonization after the second world war we began to look at values in a different

way through relativism. we began to see values as an exchange and all values were equal. all place of looking at society and institutions were pretty much equal. that gave rise of course to a whole new way of analyzing and studying societies from the past and then from that we went on to think of minorities as collectivist entities that were somehow in need of special protection, special rights to correct an imbalance that was historicahistorica l in nature that was the legacy of past abuses. this in turn translated of course into all sorts of i guess social engineering based on ethnicity and we saw things like gerrymandering along ethnic

lines and unequal and employment opportunities and positive discrimination in all sorts of things that gradually i think went beyond what was really compatible with a truly free society governed by the principle of the quality before the law. that was bound to generate a backlash at some point and of course it did but my argument is this. people who are to blame for multiculturalism are not immigrants. they are u.s. academics mostly and it was mostly something that emerged out of academia not just in in the united states but to be fair also in europe. so yeah there has been a distortion there and yes there things i myself was an immigrant here do not feel it all comfortable with but if we are going to fight multiculturalism the way to do it is not defied immigration. it's to fight the ideology behind multiculturalism. so from that and this is one way

to prove that it's not immigrants that are to blame for this. i am constantly told i drove past such community and reading spanish newspapers. it used to be that way of course. it always was that way. german communities in the west what did they do? a printed german papers and they spoke german among themselves. that is what first-generation italians did and that is what nations did and sometimes they do that still. it's human nature. people want to feel they belong to something and they want to protect themselves for a little while but that doesn't stop her and sarah the process of assimilation. it's a three generation process. the first-generation make some progress in the second generation is bilingual but they speak english better than any other language we are talking about and by the third generation they don't even speak the native tongue as we say

anymore. i see that among hispanics and it's really a fascinating process. that was case. that was the way it was for their times in the polls and the germans and it's always been that kind of dynamic. again just as in the past the second generation does better financially than the first-generation and until the assimilation is completed if you look at marriage beyond the community which is one way to look at this, we see the same pattern today as we saw in the past. i compared second-generation italians in the early part of the 20 century with mexican state. the rate of marriage was 17% today it's a little higher, almost 20%. by the third generation of marriage is very strong. so again very similar patterns of assimilating, assimilation. of course since you have a

constant permanent inflow of first-generation hispanics it's only natural that you are going to see some pockets of i guess spanish speaking communities almost on a constant basis but that is not because they are not assimilating. it simply because -- so there is nothing to fear. they are assimilating and i think that is something that we need to embrace. so let's just go into the economy. again it's another important source of myth. i am always hearing this. we would like to have high-skilled immigrants but these low-skilled immigrants, why do we need these low-skilled immigrants? because the modern economy needs low-skilled immigrants. since the second world war we had all these imbalances that needed to be corrected through

basically migration. that is why the germans signed treaties with the turks. they needed turkish workers and the spanish with the moroccans the french with the algerians and the united states with the mexicans. that's the way it works. even in a high-tech economy you certain repetitious mechanical jobs that will be part of it. somebody will have to fill those , take up those jobs and that's something that migration helps to do. do they hurt the economy? they do exactly the opposite. immigrants help enlarge the pie again help make the pie bigger. i went to one of the most prominent academic critics and even he recognizes illegal immigrants contribute $22 billion to the economy every year so we updated that data. it's a very conservative statistics and i think it's more than that but let's accept that for a moment. which we just updated his

calculation and that would translate into about $36 billion today. you make that legal it probably would be increased by 2.5 times, three times almost 100 lean dollars a year and a per decade over a trillion dollars. that's a contribution to the economy by immigrants. how does the process works quite fair producers and they are consumers. when they come in at the low-end of the scale they help others move up the scale. yes they have a very tiny temporary effect on wages at the lower end. our calculaticalculati on 1.45% in others very little bit but it's a very small impact but that is offset by people who are moving up the scale and earning higher wages and also offset by the fact that immigrants help these labor-intensive industries be more productive and they help keep prices down.

so as consumers everybody in society is benefiting from that. the effect is of course a very potent one, positive potent not to speak of high-skilled immigration. again how could that not be a huge contribution to the economy? one third of doctors in engineering technology sciences involve immigrants. immigrants. one fourth of nobel prize winners throughout the 20th century in the u.s. have been immigrants. immigrants made silicon valley. the silicon valley miracle between 95 and 2005 immigrants founded many companies and created half a billion jobs. there is -- it was always absurd that the rules, i hope they're going to change now but were such that the quota for h. one bbs as high-skilled visas with the exhausted on day one. as soon as it was open for

applications they would be taken up because 65,000 until a few years ago because it was of greater demand. that was economic suicide on the part of united states. let's finish but touching very quickly on the issue of cost versus benefit. that's another huge myth the idea that immigrants cost a lot more than they contribute fiscally i mean. that is simply not true. there is one great study a couple of decades ago by the natural research counsel. they calculated not only the fiscal impact of legalizing immigrants now, they calculated what would happen for the next 50 years because of course as you know they are young so we would expect they would be working for the next 50 years and they calculated them at present value of those 50 years in terms of what they will put into the system or take out of the system. that concluded of course --

included children better in public school today that will come out and work for the next 50 years or you have to bring all of that into the equation. their calculation was a net cost a one-off cost present-day value of $5000 which is nothing if you weigh that against the contribution i just talked about to the economy. other studies beyond that even the net contribution without taking into account the contribution to the economy, just the fiscal impact is going to be positive in terms of generating more revenue than they are taken taken out in outlooks has written about this very forcefully. my message is basically this. we are in an age of globalization. we have one case for free trade. we can say this point that we have ideal free trade conditions across the world but we have won the intellectual case for free trade. no one speaks against free trade

on an intellectual level. no one says i'm against free trade. they say i'm for free trade but and then they talk about the level playing field and all that. the intellects really won the case for free trade trade we have made the case for free immigration and it's simply not reasonable to expect that a world moving grassley towards free trade can continue to contemplate immigration and the way it is. trade in goods constitutes the equivalent of 45% of wealth gdp. about 20% of world savings are invested outside of the country where they originate and 3% of the population is first-generation immigrant. this imbalance will have to be corrected. the dynamics are pushing the world in that direction so you can either accept and embrace and channel that energy through legal channels or you can try and put barriers against it and you will be overwhelmed either because the negative effect of actually being able and managing to control this will be huge or

because you will not be able to control it. by the time you accept that you realize you will have spent a lot of money and with all the side effects that come with it and trying to -- immigration is not a danger to the united states to its values to its economy to its standing in the world. it is exactly the opposite. it is i think one of the best ways to keep the united states a free country keep it up rospars country and to keep it as a model for the rest of the world. thank you very much. [applause] see thank you. our next speaker is alex. he worked at the competitive and enterprise institute on immigration issues. he has degrees in economics and economic history from george

mason university. he has been an exemplary policy analyst at the cato is two and has been quite involved and very influential in the current debate on immigration. please help me welcome alex nowrasteh. [applause] >> thank you ian for that very nice introduction and thank you i'll there'll for coming talking about your fantastic book. i want to save part of the reason why free trade is accepted intellectually by so many people around the world today as opposed to 50 or 60 years ago is because of the hard work of alberto and other classical liberals around the world the united states in central and south america and everywhere around the world. that hard work i think is really paid off. we are able to do so much at the cato institute in part because people like myself are able to stand on the shoulders of

intellects like alvaro and others who have forcefully argued the point for generations of thank you very much. now i want to go into some other details about this fantastic book "global crossings" some details that we weren't able to touch on in a limited amount of time that we have but one of the main issues that a lot of people raise when it comes to in the gration is they think national security. today is a different environment if you have global terrorism and we have al qaeda and issues like these and because of this we can't be as open to immigration as we were in the past because of all these issues. just like the other points made in this book that is no different from what it was 100 years ago. there was an intense terrorist campaign in the united states in the early 20th century carried out mainly by italian anarchists and communists who had different points blew up dozens and up to 100 bombs across united states

targeting people like the attorney general of the united states a mitchell palmer and numerous public officials across the country at the time. people had a reaction at that point. they said we can't have this type of thing. this is a new experience. this was at a time when communists were marching across the world and having success in europe and eastern europe and the chaos in the soviet union. these people were seen as an extension of that and we needed to close their borders to block the sale. that is not different than what we hear today about islamic terrorism and other issues like that. but what is even more astonishing is how a lot of our immigration policy makes it easier for national security threats to exist, makes it easier for these problems to grow in a lot of cases increase the ability of the national security threats in these

opponents of liberty across the world to more exploit their advantages by taking advantage of american immigration law. one modern example of this is in 2010 there were about a dozen some always arrested in mexico. there were rumors that they were aimed members of the al-shabaab militia which is an islamist terrorist militia based in somali. the mexican authorities in their incompetence release them early without any kind of records. there was a big for of a better word freak out in the american media. these guys are deftly coming here and coming to the united states. they're going to wreak havoc and as a result border patrol and these people were eventually apprehended or they faded away and nothing happened but the point is because american immigration enforcement because our immigration laws are so focused on keeping people out for economic reasons or for any other types of reasons a small

amount of what they are pulled to do focus on legitimate threats. instead they are more concerned with asking how will an additional worker affect the wages for american tomato pickers? they're more concerned with how one additional worker will affect the labor market conditions or computer programmers in silicon valley. they are more concerned with where a high-skilled immigrants will take a conference call with her is at his home or whether that home is listed as a place of residence or as a place of work than they are about these legitimate threats that are out there. we are really concerned about this. if we think that we live in an age that is so dangerous internationally that immigration needs to be restricted and regulated okay if you believe that's true than you should argue for a total refocusing immigration away from keeping out willing workers and separating them and focus entirely on the small but real national security threats that exist. throughout history these threats

have also been used to our disadvantage. think about the numerous hoops and hurdles american immigration enforcement but in the 1930s and early 1940s on scientist trying to flee europe and come to the united states to work and eventually were employed to work in a manhattan project to help win the war. there is enormous bureaucratic fear and keeping these people out because of national security. a lot of these people had ties ties to common is our alleged ties to communist. because of the fear of national security -- one of my favorite examples is there was a chinese rocket scientist. he died in 2009. he was involved with rocket research in united states in the 50s. because of the national security law that said that communist could not be employed or emigrates united states he was investigated by the fbi and they said there was enough circumstantial evidence that he had attended a communist rally 20 years before the end he was

kicked out of united states and deported to communist china where he was the founder of international rocket and missile program. the entire rocket program in china is based on the internetting expertise of this immigrant to the united states who wanted to stay here and live and work but was forced back to china as a result of that. i am a libertarian and i don't leave china is an accidental threat to the united states anything like that but if you are worried about this about national security issues coming from other countries the last thing you want to do is to send talented foreigners who have come here to learn these issues back to their home countries. that's pretty much the last thing you want to do. now i think switching gears to culture and how really americans have taken a look at immigrants and treated them to the much the same throughout history. we have always been skeptical of them and compare them negatively

to previous immigrants. it's a quote i thomas sowell and a recent article written on june 4 titled abstract immigrants where he writes the immigrants of today are very different in many ways from those who arrived here 100 years ago. i think he massively exaggerates the differences between immigrants today and back then. we heard a lot about these differences but what is also different or americans today. it's true multiculturalism has impacted american society to an extent and i think that's a bad ideology that we are also in a lot of ways more welcoming. americans today may say nasty things about immigrants today but let's not forget the largest mass lynching in american history's was in the 1890s in new orleans of italian immigrants by a mob of white americans that thought they had committed a crime and had gotten away with it. in in the 30s ahead matzo

protestant americans going out and burning down churches catholic churches occupy by the irish burning down and destroying confidence raping the nuns inside and horrible things like this. the rhetoric today about immigration of americans who are opposed is nasty and it is gross but we don't have this level of cultural aversion violence to the extent that people are going out and doing this. americans are behaving much better in the face of immigration than they did back in the day. and i think that comes across as well. these worries about immigrants being different or totally exaggerated. the catholic example is a great one. immigrants today are majority catholic just like they weren't 100 years ago. they come from different countries in the world in different parts of the world. what is most remarkable about assimilation especially for mexican-americans and the descendents of mexican-americans is that so many of them came in

illegally. they came to this country illegally and they lived for years oftentimes in the black market. the extent to which they and their children have assimilated truly in a lot of ways outpaces the tying immigrants who came legally 100 years ago who were able to live entirely within the legal market. what is truly remarkable and i think if immigration was allowed to be dashed to the extent that all had come legally they would see a better pace of assimilation. looking at it that way in realizing immigrants to come today are more un-american when they calm and they become americans faster despite having to live in the black market i think is a testament not just to the entrepreneurial and energetic spirit of immigrants today and how they want to become american but also a testament to how much american culture has influenced so many people throughout the world and how we we are still a beacon for millions of people who want to come here and want to become

americans. i think this book really goes into fantastic detail about that process about the cultural process by which people become americans. it differentiated from a lot of other books out there that sociologists write about assimilation. it really describe the process. it creates a model for how it happens and it was the first time i'd read that third generation. your parents are born here and you look longingly back on that ethnic or religious identifier where your parents came from or your grandparegrandpare nts came from and that is a feature of success. that is a market success of becoming an american because because as merrick is we don't have an ethnic or racial identifier. the largest ethnic group in the united states is german. that's going to change in the near future. that is the largest group.

we don't have any blood borders culture conception of being american. it's a value conception, it's a civic notion of being american and that is something that is virtually unique throughout the world and unique throughout history and what this book does is describe that in some of the best detail i have ever read anywhere in the literature and both sociology and economic academics and even in popular books made for a popular audience. for that notion i think it made me -- a steady immigration policy and sometimes i become skeptical of the way my government does things and i've become skeptical of the united states and its immigration policy but this really filled me with more enthusiasm and more hope for the future of this country and the ability to assimilate immigrants and to be a beacon than virtually any book i've read in my years of working on this topic so i highly recommend it to all of you. i couldn't recommend it more. it's a beautiful book and thank you very much for coming today.

[applause] >> thank you alex. we have time for questions and if you have a question please raise your hand and wait for the microphone. identify yourself and your affiliation. so we will take the first question up here in the front, please. wait for the microphone please. >> hi. my name is stephen. i have no affiliation. i was kind of interested in this notion of low unskilled workers versus high-skilled workers as whether we want immigrants are high-skilled or low-skilled. it always seemed to me that human beings are a resource and therefore if lots of low-skilled employees is a resource

because -- it doesn't mean that we don't need the high-skilled but this idea that there is only a set number of jobs for low-skilled -- look at all the people that came to new york city that were low-skilled at the turn-of-the-century area jobs were created. in other words i think there is a misconception that you look at an economy and you say well we only have this amount of need right now for low-skilled but i think the answer is if you bring more resources that is more low-skilled workers, businesses will take advantage of that low-skilled. we will produce goods that will take advantage of these low-skilled workers. even if that production doesn't constitute this it will come to exist because the incentive. what i am saying to you my question is isn't that another big misconception that you guys

seemed to overlook and you always hear so many people say we only want high-skilled labor with immigration. >> thank you very much. i couldn't agree with you more. i look at it in a different way. one way to look at it is just look at it domestic league. much of this discussion would be better understood by people if they thought these issues in the domestic context. since the second world war the u.s. has added about 100 million people to the workforce if you count baby boomers in general and women in particular. if the argument is made against immigrants were true on the economic level that those 100 million people would have destroyed the u.s. economy it would have generated so much unemployment and that would be the number one issue in the

united states on a permanent basis and that is not the case. in the 60 years there has never been long-term unemployment of any kind. there has been unemployment of course in times of recession but that have different causes. look at arizona for instance which is such a sensitive place for this debate. just before the bursting of the bubble i looked at unemployment rates in arizona. among the lowest in the country, 4% and is sometimes less than 4% and get 10% of the workforce was and ice and continues to be immigrant. so clearly it's not generating unemployment. it is generating growth because arizona is a wealthy state and it is helping make as i said the pie larger. that includes both low-skilled and high-skilled immigrants. ..

yet at the same time we had an constant inflow of immigrant. it wouldn't have been possible if immigrants were hurting that productive process. >> if i could -- yeah, if i could add one small thing to do that. i have been doing a series of debates for the last couple of times this week. i have another one on sunday. the issue is always brought up, and the analogy i like to use is if we have 100 high-skilled people in a room. 100 college grads and bring in 50 more. the economy gets bigger

production increases. the rejoinder critics say you lower the average education level in the room by doing that. that really shows, i think, the danger of knowing a little bit of math and knowing not very much economics. an average of the terrible way to describe that. it's a example of the danny devito fallacy. the average height in the room will i did crease. -- decrease. nobody is actually any shorter. that's something that is pervasive. talking about public policy and the impact of immigration on the economy by using broad averages like this, really is probably one of the worst ways to do it and betray a total of lack of understanding how economics works. >> question right there. >> my name is steven. a wonderful, wholly convincing presentation. one aspect i'm wondering about

the effect on the nation that immigrants leave from. are those nations any worse off? for example, it was said that when the 1848 revolution failed failed in germany. a lot of german liberals here and germany became more autocratic. today as much as we complaib in the building about economic regulation. a lot of immigrants see the united as a more fertile place for -- applying entrepreneurial skills. are countries that immigrants leave from worse off, say, in term of entrepreneurial skills? >> that's a great question. well, what -- if we look at -- forget about nation-states and borders for a moment. what are we talking about? we are talking about how people are able to create the most value. in other words, they choose their location according where they can create the most value

and exchange the friewft our labor according to what we need and what we can offer. if you look at that way you'll realize people moving in or out is not going have a long-term effect of a negative kind in any way. europe was exporting people, again, until the 1980. the country were becoming more and more prosperous. they are a mess today for different reason. we had the same in latin america. people my grated to vens with a lay from countries such as peru on a consistent basis for half a century. it's a wealthier country than venezuela. look at it this way as well. chinese immigration in the united states has played a key role in the growing economic prosperity of china, they have not only of course been able to export stuff and import stuff to

them. they invested in china response i think that borders and barriers are really art initial term of the impact on the economy. we all benefit from the constant circulation as people. the same is happening in europe. some of the eastern -- or central european countries have been -- in the last few years. it became legal to do so. and yet they have been becoming more and more prosperous. poland is more prosperous. it export the an incredible amount of people to spain. >> i have some small things to add. he's 100% right. about the german 1848ers. they left behind complained about the liberals leaving. americans who experienced and met them complained about the autocratic germans who are bringing their socialist notion of collectism.

1848 formed a core of what became the republican party in the antislavery wing. that's a little about dote about the feeling of immigrants destroying the core of america no matter where they're from. the issue you talk about, you know, does immigration an e leave the sending country worse off? that usually takes the frame of the brain drain. that's what people call it. they say the best and the brightest and the most energetic leave and what is left behind everybody else suffers. that's assumes a person in a country is a property of everybody else in that country. which is a terrible notion that no person who has any concept of individual freedom or liberal in the classic call sense interpretation could actually deal. what we actually see is when the opportunities to e mate, -- e grate. they go to school more. they acquire more skills in order to do better in the source

-- and in a country where they want to go to. at love them end up staying. we see this in south africa, in nursing scoop. a lot of lot of people go there to try to emigrate to the utah. a lot stay behind. we see it in the philippines. the filipino nursing program. they have some of the highest percentage of nurses of any country in the world because there's a possibility to leave when they have it. as a result the rest of the pill fee knows -- filipinos gain from that. you're right it's a weird argument used by most i are restrictionist to say immigration is bad for people in poor countries when it's not true. >> i guess i would add, i mean, -- so it does the opposite. >> yes. >> george washington university. i'm one of the academics you

speak of. and i, you know, i love the presentation. thank you. i'm a little bit uncomfortable with your romantic vision of assimilation and acceptance. because we know that some groups are more asimilarble than others. perhaps you tell us a little bit about how you define assimilation; right. because, you know, how many times have the third or fourth generation immigrant been asked where are you from? all right. what language do you speak. maybe you can talk about how you think about assimilation. assimilation is not only based on the desire for individual but also on the desire for the larger society to allow that person to assimilate. >> well, about the first part is are they asimilar plaiting -- assimilating, you know, immigrants assimilating today the way they did in the past? and the an is definitely yes. the research is very extensive. i looked in to this in a lot of detail.

there's many ways to measure it. whether it's, you know, the use of english. or mingling with the native born population. marriage, whether it's entrepreneurship. that's another way to measure this. the idea that the lot of entrepreneurship that is home grown but these hispanics are bringing in notions, you know, to entrepreneurship. that's not true. the rate of self-employment among hispanics almost equal the rate for native born americans. almost 12%. and the number of companies that are founding every year is just amazing and astounding. what does happen is this, which is something alex touched upon in his comment in the book, which is fascinating. the first generation of course, is first generation. they are trying to find their way around and try to fit in. at the same time they have attachments back home. incidentally you should look, people ask me mexicans are tied

to their home country. it didn't used to be the case. read some of the letters italian were sending back home in the 120th century. full of italian passion. expressing profound follow stall georgia and sending money back home as well. that's totally natural. the second generation moveses in the opposite destruction. they are 0 conscious of being seen by u.s. society as not really fitting in, as being somehow different they escape from their root. they reject the roots to an extent. i wouldn't -- that's not fair, you know, for everybody, but certainly there's big percentage of that. yet, by the third generation they feel so secure they go back to those roots but the a different way. a purely sentimental way they begin to -- simply because they know they are so secure and accepted by u.s. society that there's no risk in that. that's really how cinco de mayo

was born. it was never a big deal in mexico. it's a big deal here. because it's a big deal here mexicans back home start thinking it's uncomfortable because mexico immigrants are more patriotic than we are. we have to assume it's a national holiday. now in mexico they are celebrating it. that was the result not of first generation immigrants. certainly not of second generation immigrants. this was third generation immigrant they thought of it about time to celebrate that. who celebrates cinco de mayo it's not just mexicos. it's americans just like irish and italian holiday. as alex said, the country is not based on the nation-state here is not based on flood. it's based open credo. it's not a nation-state it's a nation of nations. a state based on credo. i think the reality speaks to that. >> i think the cinco de mayo example is great.

i can't think a more american holiday than the defeat of the french army. that's what it is. and, you know, to go in to some, you know, more. this is what he writes a chapter here about the phenomena. it's about the immigrants moving toward the main stream society and in the main stream society moves toward them. whey learned in the book everything i like to do on sundays comes from the germans. i mean, i like to go bowling. i like to go to the shooting range nap is something that germans did on sunday that was really un-american in the 1870. people were afraid of that because, you know, the old puritanical version of sunday was you sit at home and, you know, go to church. you sit at home, you read the bible, and basically don't do anything that is fun. and the germans were like, no, we're not going do that. what to do we do on sunday? go out and have picnic and have

a good time. that's app example of american society and changing partly to the immigrant and their culture. it's pretty clear that the immigrants do most of the changing. >> we'll take question in the back. >> hi. i'm emily colins from the atlas networking. my question for you, it seems like there a couple of institutional thing in the government that may need to change in relation to immigrant such as the minimum wage or welfare. at love immigrants work under the minimum wage and illegal immigrants may take welfare or became legal might take more welfare. people argue it would be associate drain on society. i was wondering for you would speak on whether or not that has been discussed in the house or in the senate or your opinion on

that. >> sure. the congressional budget office just came up with a report calculating what the impact in fiscal terms would be legalizing 12 million people for the next decade and beyond. they did two different calculations. you know, a -- i don't want to get too technical something called dynamic scoring. you calculate the effect on the economy will be. and you calculate what the fiscal impact of that will be. the other way of doing that is calculate the fiscal impact assume there no huge change in the economy. chevre way you look at it, the impact is beneficial. what they to is simply calculate what intake is going to be on the deficit and it's going to be a very positive impact in term of reducing the deficit. but as i said, there are many studies that very respectable studies that indicate that

contribution is very positive. just thinking of one of the point. i mention the national research council. there's another one that was very significant at the time. jeffrey did a study of what happened between the 1970 and the 1990s. that's two-decade period. he came up with a figure i think very significant. the net contribution was $25 billion. but again, when you look at it, you always think that the effect of immigration on the economy goes beyond what they themselves produce and consume and they themselves pay and what they themselves take out of the system. the impact the whole of u.s. society. they make all of society more productive. the entire economy more productive. ultimately it's almost impossible calculate what the impact will be. we know it will be positive because if the economy becomes more product iand producing more goods and services. by definition you're going bring

more revenue to the government. ultimately, if that were not the case, though, that's a great argument to get rid of the welfare state. i mean, immigrant were not to blame are not to blame for the fact that government spending has gone up by a factor of 50 in the last seize pry until the second world war they weren't entitled relief programs. we had welfare reform in the 1990s that impacted immigrants as well. now they are able to use that system only in a very limited way. >> there's very few things more dangerous about the welfare state than it changes the perception of being asset and good for society to liabilities. to viewing people entirely of cost and to look at this, you know, one government agency to look at that and say people who take from there are a net cost are terrible. we did research here at the cato institute. we hired a couple of professors, recently at george washington to do a study about how much welfare for poor immigrants use

compared to poor native-born americans. that's the relevant comparison. you want apples to apple. poor people to poor people. what we found is poor americans use medicaid at the same rate as poor immigrant and took the same amount of immigrants the program would be 42% smaller. it would be a huge savings. for some people when they look at the immigrant of taking a dollar of welfare. the damage is magnified beyond all comprehension compared to an american citizens taking the same amount. now, you know, i favor getting rid of the welfare state for everybody. but if we can't do that,let build wall around it, at least, and try to improve the perception and try remove the perception that immigrants are takers. they make far, far more an contribute far more to society than the paltry amount they take in welfare.

>> okay. a question in the front row. >> thank you. my name is -- [inaudible] i'm an economist. thank you very much for the presentation. especially for the -- i couldn't agree more. in spite of the overwheking economic and cultural of the benefit -- everywhere across the world. how is it it the anti-immigration arguments find a for the fertile soil. you look at the experience of other countries, i'm sure you have done in the book, but can we draw any lessons from the way the country say europe or canada the way they have dealt with the myth in order have an immigration policy which makes culture sense. second question there's one myth where i couldn't agree with you. you said that the myth of the immigrants have a lot of children. i think that the myth that cannot be refuted because they a lot of more children.

it's one of the economic benefits that immigrants bring younger population and generation or so. they have more children, and bring in influx of younger people to the nation and to the economy. that's a plus. >> great points you make. first, answer ting has to do with fear. any community that is faced faced faced with an influx of newcomers will be afraid. it will rationize that fear with arguments of the kind we tend hear because you proved to them those arguments are not true. you prove they are myth. you throw at them the statistics and historical experience. and yet that fear remains. i think it has to do with fear. that's how stereo type were born. you know, at the time of the irish immigration, the idea was irishmen were drunk. that was a stereo type.

all italians were mobster. there may have been one or two but not all italians were mobsters. not all catholicses were repressive. we embrace them because they are about religion and values. catholic were hated a few centuries ago. they saw him as european repressers so today we have the stereotype that his pans -- hispanics are different and worse. we begin to embrace indians because of contribution to silicon valley. they were also the object of stereo type. about children, it's definitely coming down. even in europe. there's no question. it's slightly higher that night native rate in europe it's about two children. here it's 60% higher than the native rate. but the tendency is coming down. that's also the case in latin america.

and incidentally one more point about the previous question connected to this. the average age for immigrants is 27. the average age for americans is 42. so again, that's a -- welfare state is what we really care about. clearly that's a plus. that's more years of con fry biewtion to the system. and in term of taking money out of the system, of the tran for system, only 1.2% of immigrant over 65 against 12% for the u.s. population. so, again, if those arguments were real, then, you know, those fears should be dispelled by the evidence. i think there's fear at the heart of this. it's very difficult to dispel. >> about why the rest of civilization and society doesn't take up the well known argument and fact and economics. i mean, i wish that immigration was the only instance of that. , i mean, there are so many economic notions that have been known for quite a long time that are not taken up in the main

stream society. intellectually, i think we won the debate about free trade. when you ask the common person, you know, do you think we should be able to import goods and social securities from china without any kind of government. it's no, it takes american job. of course there should be barrier. i think the notion goes beyond this to the conception that there is a fixed pie. i think people have this ingrained notion there's a fixed pie of wealth. a fixed pie of jobs, a fixed pie of x, y, z. having more people come to the country will decrease the amount available us. i think it's a wrong headed notion. it's something we have been fighting against every sphere of public policy. for a long period of time when it has to go economics. and we have a lot of work do with immigration especially but numerous other issues. >> we have time for one more question if there is one. we'll take right there. >> hi. my name is mike.

i'm a retired foreign service office with the agency for national development. i was previously the officer in charge of central america. we looked at the lot of issues in central america. and basically i looked in your book and i was going through the idea that most of the poor people do -- maybe within central america. i read in your prolowing mostly poor central americans and mexicans as, you know, in effect the drug war going on. this is a key issue. we have disease in central america right now for coffee plants called coffee rust. it's going impact about 3 million workers in central america that work in that sector. there is talking about 40 to 50% loss of the sector and loss of their employment. if they can move north, i think

they may. i'm not sure it's on anybody's radar screen. it you are right you won't move north. they'll basically change their area of location within central america. that will also have impact. i would like to get your perspective on what could happen. it happened in the past. that's why we have different type of migration from central america before inspect is pending and coming up. >> well, i mean, it's not inconceivable that a small percentage of them will try to move north and eventually come to the united -- united states but they indicate they will mostly my grate within the area. if that what happened in central america. even in mexico. it's something people don't talk about all that much. i know, the experience of my home country of peru very well. it's a country in the last fifty

years has seen a huge amount of migration internally. so much so everything has been impacted. the story incidentally is no different than the united states. domestic immigration is four times larger than international immigration for the united states. so it's just a pattern that seems to be repeating itself everywhere. so i don't know exangtly what will happen with the people. if we can go by historical precedent, it's very likely that that will not have a huge impact in term of international migration. of course, it would probably have an specific domestically in term of the economy. that will take us to the whole issue of the central american economy, institution, drug war, and all of that. it's a different issue. >> yeah. a few hispanics in the research, they looked from 2002, 2010, the

increase in origin of different countries of my grants. central america was 16.5%. it was off the charts compared to any other origin. the next was 9% for south america. mexican country of origin was like 2% increase. something is happening. ethan, you map it out here incredibly difficult to come. but people still coming. and from central america, they're really coming. >> it's because central america is not doing that well and mexico has been doing better the last few years. which is why i predicted that a few years from now, the debate in the u.s. will be where are we going to get immigrants from? the mexicans don't want to come anymore. mexico is growing in 4% a year. i think it that will go to 6% and enough to ash absorb the new

work force. they will be comingless and less and probably replaced by central americas for awhile until they take out the reform they need and get rid of the drug war which is devastating the whole area, by the way. in which case we need find them. i don't know where. it's going to be an issue. it will be, believe me, it will be an issue. there being recorded. twenty years from now mexicans won't want to don't united states anymore. >> and, you know, it's interesting, since 2008 of lawful immigrants coming to the united states, asians have outnumbered the hispanics. now we use hispanic broadly. i'm an american, so i use it central and south americans. asians have outnumbered them in term of the lawful migration system. and the gulf is getting wider every and every year. asia is the new source going forward of immigrants to the united states. it's going the new historical dynamic. so i predict my kid, when they

are adults. they will look back and say, alex, why were so many people upset about his cantic or mexican immigrant. it's absurd. these indians or, you know, these southeast asians. they are different. they are taking our jobs this time. that's when i'm going to hear, i think, in the future not only from my kids if i have done a poor job educating them but also people in society. >> it's fascinating and encouraging discussion. i hope our friends on capitol hill pay attention to the points made today and read out of the book on sale here at the discount for all of you interested. thank you all for coming. please, join me in thanking our great speakers today. [applause] >> a luncheon following upstairs. [inaudible conversations] is there a non-fiction

author or book you would like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail. or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. following yesterday's deadly standoff in egypt between military forces and supporters of ousted president mohammed morsi. president obama delivered a statement today in martha's vineyard on the situation in egypt. condemning yesterday's violence that left more than 500 people dead. here is a little of what the president had to say. >> that's why we are so concerned about recent events. we appreciate the complexity of the situation. mohammed morsi was elected president in a democratic election, his government was not clues -- inclusive and did not respect all the views of all the egyptians. we know many egyptians, millions of egyptians, operators a

majority of gippings were calling for a change in course. while we do not believe that force is the way to resolve political differences, after the military's intervention there remain a chance for reconciliation and ab opportunity to pursue a democratic path. instead we have seen a more dangerous path taken through arbitrary arrests, broad crack down on mr. morsi's associations, and supporters and wounded thousand more. the united states strongly condemns the steps that have been taken by egypt's interriment government and security forces. we deplore violence against civilians. woe support universal rights to human dignity. including the right to peaceful protest.

we propose the pursuit of marshall law which denies the right to citizens under the principle that security trumps individual freedom or fight makes right. today the united states extends its condolences to those who were killed and those who were wounded. given the depth of our partnership with egypt, our national security interest in this pivotal part of the world and our belief that engagement can support a transition back through a democratically elected civilian government. we companied our deployment egypt and its people. while we want to sustain our relationship with egypt, our traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual when civilians are being called in the streets. rights are being rolled back. as a result, this morning we notified the egyptian government we are canceling our annual

military exercise. going forward i asked the national security teem assess the the implication of the actions taken by the interim government and further steps we may take if necessary with respect to the u.s.-egyptian relationship. let my say the egyptian people deserve better than what we have seen over the last several days. and the egyptian people, let me say the cycle of violence and escalation needs to stop. here is a lit of what the foreign minister had to say in regard to his country's response to events in the region.

[inaudible] yesterday in egypt. we have ongoing demonstrations and -- [inaudible] in months. and -- [inaudible] or even the demonstrations have a level of violence. once again we look forward to -- [inaudible] and -- [inaudible] you can see more of that event and the president's full remarks prior in our video library at c-span.org. tomorrow the center for strategic will host the iraqi

foreign minister in a discussion expected to focus on u.s. iraq relations as well as the developing situations in egypt and syria. that gets underway live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. the next deepak and sanjay chopra. discussing their book "brotherhood: dharma, destiny, and the american dream." this is an hour and fifteen minutes.

[applause] [applause] >> thank you very much. before we get started, i want to tell everybody a quick story. as much you know, we have you can only come here as a guest. we have the golden rule one time. today depack depack is going break his own record. it's at fourth time. we make an exemption for him. the amount of people come out and how great he is. and we were delighted to learn of the incredible bock that was coming out, and to see his other half, or as some people would say, your better half. [laughter] anyway, redelighted to have both of them here. deepak and tonight also sanjay are going to impress us with an incredible fascinating story. we're going do a 45 minute conversation followed by about fifteen minute of audience questions. and for those people are standing. there's about ten seats in the

first two rows. please feel free to come to the first duorows as there are seats in the first two rows. we don't want you to stand. so tell us, what was it like growing in india? how did that play in to your future but different careers? >> so growing up in india was an absolutely enchanting experience. we had the most loving parents, we had uncles and aunts, amazing grandparents. each one of them was an amazing story teller. growing up, we participated in the ancient ritual. every few weeks an uncle would arrive, an aunt would stay with us. our grandmother lived with us for many years. and hearing stories from them

was absolutely intoxicating. it was a vibrant colorful experience. i can't ever forget it. deepak, what role did growing up in india play on your future career? >> sanjay say, we grew up with stories. our mother told us stories. mostly from spiritual literature from the mythological literature, and it was many, many years later i realized that everyone's life here is a story, you know. there's a story with us standing on the streets 2,500 years ago and lot of traffic on the street. and it was crowded even 2,500 years ago. and waiting for the camels to, you know, clear the traffic and

-- [inaudible] explain life to me. that points to the char yacht passing by at the moment. and we have three divisions. life is like that. the will have karma, memory, and desire. and this is we experience our thoughts. we tell the story. we lived the story. we call it life. we were fortunate, as he said, to live in a household of stories. then we became doctors, and we realized that every person that comes to see us comes to see us because they have a story. you know, that have the tradition we grew up. we got stories from our families but also our parents. and also from my father about his experiences with his patients who were his best teachers and we learned later

that was the same for us as well. >> and three -- [inaudible] i'm going pass along the mike phone. i know, some people are able to hear the microphone. there's three more streets up front and i think more in the back. >> all the stories had a lesson. what that instilled in us was the core values of growing up in india. the principles that we now -- hopefully passed on to our own kids. and now to our grandchildren. >> and your father was an incredible individual, one of the most famous doctors in india. what do you think he provided you for both of your future journeys? >> i have a dhapt in the book called blindfold a day. and i -- it's a true story. we were started in saint

columbus high cool. e were -- hindi with an irish accent. after the a match on sunday, i was reading reader's digest. i fell asleep and woke up 45 minutes later and i'm blind. i cannot see. i nudged deepak and he's next to me and i said i can't see. he raised his hand in front of me. as if he's going poke my eye. i didn't believe. then he knew official that i was blind. he started crying. he said i have one brother and he's gone blind. [laughter] and then we were staying with our -- suddenly. suddenly. we were staying with our fathers younger brother, and he took us

to the military hospital. they had no idea what was going on. they were using the term hysterical blindness. i was a 12-year-old kid who was a great athlete, a good student, and there was no reason for me to fake it. finally they got ahold of my father who was 300 miles away on a military jeep in a field trip. this is the art of medicine. he said tell me everything that happened to sanjay in the last two months. he's been fine. he's been perfectly. tell me everything. did he have any injuries? any new medicine. sure enough i had a laceration from a cricket. a week later, and i received stitches. so he put -- any antibiotic. did he get a tetanus shot the answer was yes. he ain't biotic and a shot.

he said what kind of tetanus shot. this was 1961. antitetanus zero. and the app was antitetanus zero. our father was a cardiologist a specialist in heart disease but ably brilliant and said to the doctor he's having a rare id owe -- idiosyncretic give him masses doses of steroids. so they did that, and after that i could see gray and finally see deepak. it was an amazing experience. that's when i decided to become a doctor like our father. i told this story to professors of ophthalmologist.

they are bedazzled. they said oh my god. such a rare reaction in 1961. >> here is another story. and this is when he was? england. my father and my mother. we were staying with our uncles. i was six he was maybe close to three and a half. my father was at eden eden burr roy and passed his exam he became a member of the royal college of physicians. in those days know e-mail. we got a telegram from england that he passed his exams. and so my grandfather, his father, took us both out that evening to see a movie. i still remember the movie, i don't know if you do. -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> then we went to a carnival

they took us out for dinner. then in the middle of the night, we were woken up to the wailing of women crying. my grandfather had died. he skyed of a heart attack that -- died of a heart attack that evening. the next day they took him to the cree -- the same uncle he's talking about. he used interesting remarks and said what is a man, what is human being one day taking the children out to see a movie and a carnival, the next day he comes back as a bunch of ashes. for a 6-year-old to see someone

and disappeared completely. he started losing his skin. his skin started peeling like a snake. he had sores everywhere. and they took him to see lot of doctors. and nobody could make the diagnoses. until my father was in england. remember, it take ace while to get the information. he made a diagnose is from opening land. he said he's feeling vulnerable. so he's losing his skin. he's feeling insecure about what happened. and then he actually he was going stay there longer, but he didn't. he took a boat and two week later he arrived in bomb dosh bombay. his skin came back. in hindsight, i'm thinking, you know, i wondered about this.

if it was the mind body connection. a long time ago and my obsession with the meaning of death. >> bril -- brilliant. you have a fascinating funny story. i was hoping you could share it with us and also the qerks of how that really helps start this lifelong bond between both of you. >> right. so those of you who are sitting in the front, if you have met deepak before will realize and appreciate he has a dimple in the chin. i call it douglas chin. and with great pride, i want to tell you that i'm responsible for that. [laughter] so i was about nine years of age, and deepak was 11. i was a very good shot with bow and arrow, one our uncles gave

him a gift of a bb gun as a birth certificate day present. bsh birthday present. i took a can of cherry blossom shoe polish and knocking it. and deepak comes and stands next to me and said shoot. he said what are you saying? i have a gun. he said you never -- remember the story of will -- [inaudible] i'm your older brother. i'm telling you to shoot. so i was -- i shot and missed the can and it hit him in the chin. so he said you know what? we have to go home, mom is there, and our grandmother is there. stay us with, and he said, i'm going to say i tripped and there was a piece of barbed wire on the ground and it anybodied me. i said, deepak, that's a lie. he said listen, mommy has been

telling the story of ancient epic spiritual test. in it there's the guard, the guard, and younger brother, and i am -- i'm the older brother and you're the younger. you have to listen to everything i say. barbed wire. so we go home, he's bleeding weab my mother comes out. she cleans and said what happened? so i said tripped. there was a piece of barbed wire. [laughter] and that night our father return, he would come home often at 9:00 in night seeing patients in the hospital, teaching. we would wait for him for dinner. we were sitting for dinner. enhe said what happened to deepak. i said he tripped on a barbed wire. two days later there's a lump here. my grandmotherred a demon and people come from all over india to see you, and you have not met the diagnoses in your own son.

there's probably a piece of rue barbed wire stuck in there. go get him an x-ray. it's the summer holiday. off he goes in the morning for an x-ray. i'm facing ther have ran data. and every two minutes i go, mom, did they call from the hospital? she said, you know, you're worried about this. just as she said that. the phone rang. and my father was on the phone and said impress what we found? a little pellet. the surgeon is going extract it. that's why he's got that little dimple in the chin. [laughter] >> it seems the key lesson is the good chart. if he missed a little bit it wouldn't be here; right. and i wouldn't be here to tell you share the story with you. [laughter] >> and moving forward in time, what age did both of you arrive in the u.s.? and what was it a challenge or benefit arriving as two newly

immigrants? >> i came two years before sanjay, at this time, there was vietnam war was coming -- before watergate. at love you won't remember that because you weren't born. there was a shortage of physicians in this country. we had to go outside india to take the exam to come here, because india had -- [inaudible] banned the exam if. further more if you passed the exam you couldn't create the country with more than $8 foreign exchange regulation. you know the story. we had an uncle in the navy who was england at this time. he lend or gave me a gift of $100. i had $108. which if you're from india is a

very us a push awe pushes number. all of that. and we have do do something auspicious. i spent it at gambling. when arrived in new york, jfk, i had nothing but in those days no cell phone, you to make calls and put money. but has been told me you can make the collect call. so i made collect call to the hospital in new jersey. they were so desperate they sent a helicopter. there was a shortage of doctors at that time. i my first experience of the united states was riding over manhattan in a helicopter looking at the manhattan skyline this time. and totally being wonder struck. i said this is manhattan?

i want to go disney land. [laughter] shortly thereafter we arrived. i was joined by the nurse who was in the emergency room. i could take a nap. i went to the dorm twenty minutes later she called many and said dr., chopra, we have an extraction. i have no idea what the word meant. i said you bet i'll be there. [laughter] and bounded down the stairs. she showed me to the room with the dead person. lots of machines, no people. in india you see only people and no machines there. and so i looked at the patient, i looked at her, and made my first diagnose is. i said he's dead.

she said i told you. you had an excavation. if he's dead why do you need a doctor? and she looked at me and she said, pronounce him. and said this is a bizarre statement for me. your body, your soul is going leave the body to the lady otherwise known as md. i pronounce -- then i realized like everybody else in our profession. we have ritual listen to the heart, check the pupil, so we had learned english in india, with which is a little similar to british english, where the words are in torch. said to the nurse, may have a torch. [laughter] [laughter] and she was looking at me very

strangely. she looked at the other nurse and said she wants a torch. the other nurse sideses me up-and-down and said maybe he wants to do a cremation. talk about culture shock. [laughter] six months later i was totally at home. >> what was your first experience? >> we came -- my wife is also a physician. we were classmates at the same medical school. a very competitive medical school. 10,000 people would sit for an entrance exam. after you go there and premed. they would windle it down to nineteen. have an interview. in the book i write i was first -- my wife was first. she's a pediatrician and brilliant. out of 10,000 people.

i was also first. i was first on the waiting list. [laughter] think about it. that's 25 out of all of india. so we had deepak had already been in the states for two years. we heard stories and occasionally we could call him and talk open the long distance call. we decided to come to tbons first before going to new jersey, the same hospital. so we stayed with key deepak and his wife for several dais. we had less culture shock. for me one of the most interesting things that happened on day one of the internship. i had already decided i wanted to be a gastro entrolings. and the person giving the lengture was a world famous professor. located in new jersey. he's about to give the talk within and there's a medical

student from rutgers. he's sit ising in the front row and got the feet propped up in the air. and that would have been sack religious in india. that was culture student. a student sitting and his shoes are facing the world famous professor. we would yes, sir, no , sir, good morning, sir. and he gives a brilliant talk. i'm mesmerized and talk notes. the medical student raises his hands and said i have a question. so the doctor said, sure. hoe asked the question and he gave a brilliant answer and the student got the quizzical look on the face and said i don't buy that. and i said, wow, what an amazing country. you can disagree with a professor we would never conceive or think about doing something like that. to me that was the first episode of culture shock.

the other was we were told as interns that when you leave the hospital you're not on call. call the hospital operator, call the operator and tell them him or her you're leaving the hospital. that you're signed out to whoever is on call. so the second day of the internship, one of the other doctors happened also to be from india, said sanjay can i have a dime? i said sure. i give him a dime. i see him go to the pay phone and he's calling the new jersey bell operator. doctor, this is dr. rajiv. i'm leaving the hospital. then he hung up. [laughter] [laughter] >> absolutely brilliant. >> deepak, how did you manage to basically educate a population, help change conservative western medicine to an equally important but different way to address some of the same issues most

important and single handedly create a field of mind, body, medicine. you are one of the greatest contributors. you came to the states in the 1970. grow in different direction. he goes to harvard and you didn't stop with the per sis tens. and basically change the belief of what medicine was viewed in the states. how? several factor in hindsight. i specialized i did end crinology. it's the study of here mono. then -- hormone. for a short while at the va hospital i was rotating under the dr. see more, who was the president of the end crin society at that time. he was a neuroend crinnologist.

he was just like he said. we had brilliant mentor. he was absolutely brilliant and identifying hormones we didn't know too much about at that time. hormone in the hype thalamus like stimulating growth factor. i had a degree at the time -- colleague at her time. later on went 0 to become the chief of brain chemistry at -- [inaudible] she's now at georgetown university. she identified something called. tide -- [inaudible] he boss won the nobel prize for identifying neurochemical. one day candace said to me, these things that we're looking at, because there was a new technique.

the dr. was a va physician and won the nobel prize for discovering the technique. all we did as fellows and residents keep measuring the chemicals. and one day she said to me, these are the molecules of emotion. so i don't know if it was a best seller called molecule of emotion. i wrote the forward to it. it was a huge book. nobody had used that term. it was a little bit of insight that whatever happened in the mind is registered in the brain. you can't have a mental event without a brain representation. our could you? after the brain is what made the event. the brain representation is in the form of electrochemical event. there's nothing that happens in the brain that is not registered in the body. these chemicals, neuro peptides.

the education centuries presentation i have a gut feeling made sense. it was molecule of emotion. he would tell you the gut makes the same chemical the brain does. this is a scientific background. the body of information. and the information is -- [inaudible] it's from consciousness. any physician will tell you you have two patients who get the same treatment who see the same doctor, have the same ill p -- illness and different outcome. the prognosis wouldn't be called proking in sis is -- [inaudible] people on this side and people on this side. and you can accurately make a

diagnose is. you can never accurately make a prognosis. it's like the temperature in new york today is 62. because the average temperature in new york is 62. it doesn't make sense. by saying your income is $100,000 because you come from manhattan and the average and the median income -- it doesn't tell me anything about you. i was thinking to myself why do patients respond unpredictably? even though we can strategically get some idea. just like the individual particle you can't predict when it will pop in and out of the vacuum. no individual event in the universe has a cause. nobody would accept that in the

medical journal. i started to write them in a popular book. nobody would accept that. this is one of the strange things i read an ad in "the new york times" by vanity publisher called vanity press. not vanity advantage press. i paid $5,000 and got 100 books published myself. it was called "creating help; mind, body connection." nobody had used that expression mind body connection. somebody convinced. i had a call from a publisher and it was the same publisher of today's book. okay. [inaudible] next thing i get a call from an agent in new york. i call -- i get a call from jackie kennedy

and said we want to get you for a publisher. what i found i could make a case for the public they couldn't make a case for my own profession. that started in a sense the movement. >> yes. this incredible -- [inaudible] how children succeed. where do you think both of you had the same success -- [inaudible] are >> was tin stilled we were taught to be daring, to not to worry about failure. in adversity is the greater success. one of my favorite quotes is from -- [inaudible] a great danish policy for. he once said to dare is to lose

one's feeting momentarily. not to dare is to lose one's self. t a beautiful quote. i think deepak was being modest when he started to talk about how he launched to this. i thought it was very gut sincerity and courageous when he embraced mind body connection. he has a thriving practice in boston. there were medical students who were rotating. one day he reads a book, -- joseph campbell. no it was anthony. goaf is the other. follow your -- yeah. >> yeah. >> that's joseph campbell. he read another book. by british anthony campbell. >> okay. >> "seven state of consciousness" on the back cover there was if you're interested about meditation call the

number. he went and learned meditation with his wife. he came to our home, in new -- newtown massachusetts. told my wife and me i have been meditating. it's the most powerful life changing event. and i said to him, good for you. [laughter] i wasn't interested. my -- i had a concept of chanting and monks in robe. my wife, a pediatrician, absolutely brilliant learned it. i noticed amazing changes in her. for about a month then i said to the teacher meditation. i said i have three concerns. the first, i'm in a position as associate chief of medicine at the oxford medical center to occasionally reprimand brilliant doctors. i don't want to become mellow.

i'm playing in a tennis tournament. i'm in the finals. i'm very competitive. i don't want to be just a applauding every passing shot my opponent hits. number three, i enjoy some scotch. i don't want to give that up. and he said, listen, in term of the scotch. most people start to drink less. in term of the tennis, i'll be back. and he comes back with a pamphlet called the team program and excellence in action. testimonials by olympics diving champion. i said that's good. but i will win. i said i can't guarantee that. if you lose you won't feel that bad. i said, okay, what about brilliant people at harvard medical school and disciplining? >> he said you'll be more assertive but from a silent level. and i learned meditation. it was the most powerful thing i have done.

now i tell my colleagues and medical students as interviewed in the "boston globe." give us some piece of advice. i talked about meditation. the best thing, i think, is saying you should med -- meditate once a day. if you don't have time to do that, you should meditate twice a day. [laughter] >> it's not really clear what happened. there are so many circumstances that the story is true. but also at the certain point what happened i was in a practice with other physicians, cardiologists, et. and i started to notice they were embarrassed about being my colleague, and i realized i was -- at that time an assistant professor bu medical school.

i got the feeling they were -- [inaudible] and i don't want to embarrass them. so at that time, i met another friend of mine who long since passed and invited me to california, and i left. so, you know, these are things in hindsight something was going on. i was very restless and, you know, they responded. >> just a comment. back then, it used to be called alternative medicine. as it's as though you western medicine or the alternative thing you could do to help yourself. and now even at harvard medical school we have complimentary medicine. deepak gives a talk every year i direct with my colleague of mine. about twelve years ago, the

chairman of medicine at the medical center say we should invite your tbroar give a keynote. and see if he could talk about spirit -- spiritualty and healing in medicine. i said i wouldn't feel comfortable with that. that's like nepotism. you can inprovide -- invite him. he's been coming for the last ten or twelve years doing a session about duo, two and a half years. more recently -- [inaudible] i sit on the front row on the side and proud of my brother. and my colleague introduces dpee key -- deepak. >> when did you think outside harvard across the united states and also across the world. whether do you think mind body

medicine will be on equally standing and more standing. most of the people here are strongly attracted to mind body medicine. when did you think it will get the respect it deserves? because it's affecting so many people so positively. when does it send in the curriculum and you mentioned harvard? ..

>> as we find a the scientific findings, then there will be clinical studies. we are looking at the genome and the recent studies that have been sent and all of this is happening right now. the thing that people realize is that your body is active. and so when you look at this, it proves the utility and you can't stop the utility. so this kind of inside has been

very important as we do political studies. we have done double-blind studies. so there are combining factors and the fact is that that are center we give credit for anyone who takes a mind and body education at our center. and this is an important part of integrated medicine. >> this is actually happening at harvard medical school. i am humbled and privileged to say that the faculty deans this education important.

but under the jurisdiction of the department of continuing education, we have to 25 courses, distance learning, some have over 100 online modules. and we reach out to help the allied professionals throughout the world. a couple of years ago we had a seminar on psychotherapy and he did this on wisdom. was actually breathtakingly beautiful. the next day he did a seminar on compassion. richard davidson is considered one of the top 50 best

scientists in the world. he would say that i don't know the answer to that. now, richard davidson has said that this is true and he has done some studies at harvard. not only do they have the subjective experience for these creative and better relationships, but we see anatomical changes in the brain. we do functional mris and we can see changes in different parts of the brain. so that is happening and that is the concept. we have a position at harvard medical school and he talks about the neurobiology of

leadership. when you have time, read about it. the one of the most fascinating syndromes to me and medicine is phantom limb syndrome. so some have an amputation and they experience pain. but here is a study. some of these experiments involving phantom limb syndrome, next to him a stranger is sitting in massaging his right leg. nuance is he gets a lead the lead of his pain by witnessing this. so we are looking at the medicine and technology, now catching up with the subjective

experience that people have had for thousands of years. one of my favorite things is the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. >> i want to give the people the opportunity to ask questions. since we are also being filmed by c-span and we are broadcasting, if you could just wait until microphone gets you the people on television can here. again, we want to start with people that are sending and we want to give as many as possible a chance. i also want to thank someone who is one of my favorite people and

that is maggie. doing a great job getting everyone here. we get someone standing up all the way in the back, please raise your hands if you have a question. >> thank you. >> what are the obstacles and is it's very responsive, how do you find the monetary basis, especially with children and others in the financial business

of medicine. >> as you go on to that, have you and your colleagues ever viewed it as western medicine being complementary to mind and body medicine? >> well, yes. >> the technology that is used is basically growing. the technology is basically catching up what has been done for thousands of years, treating people well for a long time. >> that is correct. but let me make a distinction here. i am the beneficiary of a right total hip. i had daily nocturnal pain. i didn't know better, i would think that i had prostate cancer.

i saw the best surgeon and that is by the way just seven weeks ago. and we could go i played nine holes of golf. so i would challenge anyone into taking medicine to say if someone pneumonia, you need the right medications. you probably need a good orthopedic surgeon. so western medicine does amazing things that we should not forget about. i have a patient that had a liver transplant. so complementary and integrative medicine has a major role in preventive medicine. how do we prevent obesity and

depression? there is, in my mind, a sort of limit to it. and i preface this by saying that i disagree. i had arthroscopic knee surgery and suddenly my knee was swollen. it was a beautiful day in boston. and he they said sanjay, you had this and my knee was really swollen. and then she got out of the car

and she kicked her foot in the air to see how good it was. so the next day i had a little hiatus and i called the acupuncturists early in the morning and i went to see her. and she did the acupuncture and you can compare one knee to the other. and i called home and my wife is not there. so my wife is going to come home after doing some shopping. went to the country club and played nine holes of golf. and i agree with much of what you have said. but i want to answer your

question. i want to ask you about remediation and how does this practice. this means the disease that has been the result of medical treatment. 80% of pharmaceuticals are of optional and marginal benefit. which means it can make a bit of a difference except for some side effects so in between the

most common heart surgery is part of this. the second most common procedure for heart is angioplasty. it doesn't prolong life or stabilize it more than 3% of people. these are alarming statistics everywhere. back surgery, 98% is useless. hysterectomy, 95% is useless. we are talking about huge amounts of money that are spent on procedures. and the neurological diagnosis

would be made with precision. if you don't walk out with a cat scan or mri, you are lucky. because no one has the ability to do it. so we have what we call health reform that is not health reform. it is insurance reform and has nothing to do with health reform. most of the expenditure is end-of-life care. i just said that i am not going to die in the hospital. i'm not going to have any of these resuscitative procedures. i have been in community hospitals were the same standards don't apply. and i have seen doctors talking about an aberration in electrolytes, which would cause a problem in the patient would die. so a lot of what we call

prolongation is elongation of style. this has been a huge problem and i have discussed it with politicians and have even brought it up to the president. but we have a system. they have a system for every congressman in washington. every business is either lobbyists or military industrial so what when we think that our country makes money? they go to dubai and the trade,

and we have huge problems when the incentive for treatment becomes an influence. if you go to a baker, what is he going to tell you i'm not saying that you shouldn't have chemotherapy, i'm asking everyone here to be a difficult patient. you will know more than the average medical provider. [applause] [applause]

>> icy pace patients who develop the symptoms to who died of liver failure confuted spirit if you have acute liver failure, you better pray that you get a transplant. and every single year the medical literature can result in acute liver failure. 1 billion people in the world have asked every single patient about what you think and so what

are you taking? the list goes on and on. it's like, i say, how much are you paying for that. i am paying out of pocket every month. and just because it is natural doesn't mean that it is safe. hurricane katrina, others that have happened, the tornadoes that they are a part of nature. so we have to have the ability to apply the same standards as we should that we do to complementary and integrative medicine as well.

>> this is a discussion that needs to take place. we have the ability to talk about this. >> could we get someone up on the stairs? someone who needs strong supporters? anyone? could we get someone right behind the cameraman? >> yes, what do you think of this? >> well, this is a very good question. i don't know if you want to go into the whole story. the guy was ambushed i was ambushed by richard dawkins, the preeminent militant atheist of our time.

we were talking of the conversation that we had. and then i was in a movie and if you want to check it out, there are a million people out there. the reason they ridiculed me was a shift in consciousness. ..

wonder, by the way, what is healing? why do certain people in fact, you know, it's -- you have many inflammation disorders, including autoimmune diseases. they published study. what is happening by logically. what is happen together people is a return to -- [inaudible] a return to the word healing or the -- it means the same thing.

they have bilogically what we learned in when we go to medical school, the first lesson we learn. one is in inflammation. the second body protecting us. if you injury yourself you need the inflammation response. if you have a exaggerated response you have autoimmune, allergies, all type of things. in fact, exaggerated inflammation is a disclosing factor for diseases. there's a movement among chemotherapy to treat inflammation first. it's a protective response. exaggerated information is not good. what is the healing response in a return to the baseline of i did -- dynamic nonchange in the change. it occurred to me the people

getting better, what the treatment was. weather it was meditation or [inaudible] even massage or deep hypnosis, or bio feedback or what i like to call bioregulation, because we are all of these devices that can monitor that. they were going to a baseline state of homeostasis. okay when is the healing response. when we go to medical school, because we are so oriented to specialization, say this is a gastrotrolings. not feeling, not thinking. at the lem of being. at that level, evolution has designed us for self-repair and self-regulation nap is what is happening. it's a long answer, but i try to

give it to you. [applause] >> we're going take two more questions. the lady here. one lady in the back. no, no, that lady back there. when it takes three questionses. they are dedicated. first here. both of you have been successful in life in your own respective ways. you each talked about being willing to take on the risk. so i siewm sometimes you've also had failure along the way. i wondered what some of your most impactive failures were. and how they informed your later path to success. >> i'll let deepak go first. [laughter]

>> i washinged out -- walked out of a fellowship because i was asked a question that i didn't know the answer to. the question was how many mill -- milligrams of -- get in the 59 paper. and i said to my supervisor, my professor, i said, i think it was 2.3 million grams. but i'm not sure. let me look it up. in about twenty people. he said you should have the information in your head. i took the briefcase and dumped it on his head and said so you it in your head now. [laughter] i walked out of my fellowship. he called my wife and said your husband blew his career. he's finished. my wife was pregnant with our son.

they were looking for a emergency room physician. i have no experience but a medical license. i need the money. he said, i'll train you. so for one year, i worked in moonlighting, basically. i did feel like a great failure at that time. i felt responsible for my wife, for my children, for the fact that, you know, i joined a press pretentious fellowship, walked out. it took me a long time to realize that as long as i lived for the approval of my peers and my spear yo yours, -- superior i would not be able to dare to dream. it took my awhile to realize if i wanted to explore what i thought was intuitively

something that needed to be explored. now we talk about it. i said i have to be independent of criticism and flattery. it took me a awhile to recover from that. it took a whole year. >> so i remember in the early '80s i signed on one decade and my goal in life. and i put professional, physical, spiritual, family, social. and next to professional i wrote on the bunch of goals. one of them was i want to be a single author. have a book on disorders of the liver. i burn the midnight oil. i stopped playing tennis which was my passion. there was no such thing as google. i had to go to the medical library, which has the largest collection of medical books in the world. and got basement and the sub basement and dig up the original articles published in 1970. and then i wrote the preface, i

wrote an introduction, table of content then three chapters. then i sent it to my publishers. and four of them said thank you very much. but we're not interested. we already have a major textbook in hep tolings. the first one from new york, actually, wrote back and said sanjiv i like your writing style. i would like to come boston and take you out to lunch. he said we're not interested in your book. i said you're kidding you came from new york. but we like your writing style, and we would like you to write or edit a book on gastrointestinal, which is called second year medical student. i ha thig, uncles

said it. in every adverse i are is the feat of greater success. i said i'm going get two books. i'm still going get my disorders of the liver published, by good publishers and edit a second textbook. i invited a colleague of mine, and i said, roger we willed dit the book. we'll invite the entire boston mafia. i discovered ways in which it doesn't work. [laughter] then he was 57. his company burned down. his factory burned down. and a lot of people commiserated

with him. he said why are you doing that? all of my mistakes have been burned. now i can start anew. the value were instilled in us when we were young. >> the two ladies in the front. and -- [inaudible] [inaudible] patients from the croinic lyme disease community were suffering greatly. we were wondering perhaps we can't -- we e can't reach homeostasis with the western medicine we have tried. we're not getting well. >> yeah. i'm sorry, i'm not the right person to be answering your question. my specialty is liver disease and hep tolings. i think the question could be

best asked of a rheumatologies and rheumatologist who also embraces inte greative medicine in the mind body connection. that would be the best fit. maybe deepak can help. [laughter] >> there are integrated oncologist and rheumatologists. integrative infect use disease specialists. dr. andrew has life all of these people if you go on his website you'll get more information. i'm not the right person to answer that question. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> i know i'm asking a lot, but would you lead us in a group meditation? [laughter]

[applause] >> did you meditate this morning? on your own? [inaudible] there was a wonderful saying you should meditate once a day. if you don't have time to do that you should med date twice a day. maybe deepak lhd lead the group. here is something. if you're not already familiar. tell me if you are familiar with the 21 demonstration challenge. please raise your hands. that's about i would say 15% of the people in this room. every three months the center along -- we offer this meditation on it. and the last time 700,000 people med dated together with us for three weeks. 21 day. i was traveling the world in

moscow, korea, and latin america and said how many people have heard of the 21-day challenge? and 15% of people raised their hands just like this. i want to know if you go to chopra center, meditation.com. free of charge. you will participate with the largest experiment in meditation that has ever been done in the history of civilization. [applause] there's never been. i want to make the opportunity of telling you this. you can register now for free. that's the kind of movement we need to start to create a critical mass of awareness. i'll lead this and then -- [inaudible] >> let me -- after the meditation is done, everybody needs to remain seated for two minutes. because san jiff --

sanjiv and key prak have a media appearance. please, remain seated. [inaudible] ly start you on something if you start your day with it. your day will go a little better. okay. so close your eye. and put your awareness in your breath. and let your mind settle in to your breath. let your mind settle in to your breath. don't try to manipulate it. allow your mind to set to your breath.

bring your awareness to your heart, and ask yourself who am i? and allow any sensations, images, feelings, or thoughts to spontaneously surface. question? who am i? [silence] [silence] now ask yourself the question, what do i want? again, allow any sensation, image, feeling, oar --

or thought to upon respondent usely arrive. what do i want? [silence] one final question. what is my purpose, how can i serve? what is my purpose, how can i serve? again, allow any question, allow any sensation, image, feeling, or thought to emerge. what is my purpose? how can i serve? [silence]

a reminder you don't go searching for the answer. it's deep in your soul. just relax in to your body. and please open your eyes. okay. as i said, there are many kinds of meditation. this is reflection. there's self-awareness, there's conscious-choice making. there's knowing the difference between the perception and the actual -- if you just do three or four minute of reflection, living the question. first of all, you'll experience -- [inaudible] meaningful coincidence in response of the questions you asked. let's do this every day. your day will be much better. thank you. [applause]

thank you. former mtv on politic and her years at mtv. >> i think mtv of incredibly powerful. they realize that, you know, they could tap in to a generation of future voters. also, you know, this is a time when you're in your teens and late teen and early 20s when you're most passionate about thing in your life.

it they realize if you could turn it to politic it is would be an incredible force. regardless, if i agree or disagree with the politics of the people who served over me as my bosses. i like the fact they wanted to engage people. i like the fact they wanted people to express and learn about their own political feelings. every once awhile i jump in and get a little bloody and mix it up. i thought it was for the benefit of all. when you challenge one another, when you really learn what it is you believe and why you believe it. it will make you a better person. not just politically but all around. >> she spoke to booktv at the freedom fest in las vegas. along with our schedule, you can also see our programs any time at booktv.org. get the latest update throughout the week. follow us on facebook and twitter. >> senator ben carden, what is on your summer reading list. >> a book by my former colleague

john lewis. he came to congress together. "march." i'm looking bard to reading. what an incredible story. i am looking forward to reading about his life and becoming more involved in making sure people know the john lewis story. this is ab hour and ten minutes. [inaudible] imagine being a fourth-grader

who lived a rather isolated -- [inaudible] told about a far away place called disney land. she heard exciting things about it. she couldn't comprehend the magnitude of such a place. figuratively speaking, when her family emigratedded from china, she thought she was heading to disney land. what confronted her was a far cry from the magic kingdom. it wasn't the foreign language and culture. it was the shocking racism, eyelation, and disdain she encountered in her own backyard of oakland. her story is a perfect example of what made america great. courage to confront hardship and abuse, determination to move past it, and gratitude to a country that made it possible for anyone to succeed and discover one's self-worth. i highly recommend that you read the personal account of her

amazing journey in her book "chinese girl in the ghetto." she has a come lang way with from the inner-city of oakland. she received her undergraduate degree from cornell and a law degree from harvard. she served as a -- [inaudible] she served as a visiting fellow. practiced law, managed corporate communications, which is 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 article for the "the wall street journal," the international he recalled tribune, the los angeles thyme, the weekly standard, and others. currently she's a senior vice

president of sd berk partner. a strategic advisory firm and policied a vierser of the heart land institute. a free market think tank. it's my pleasure to introduce mink -- ying ma. [applause] >> thank you very much. i want to say thanks to the volunteer who made this event happen. a special thanks to rita for all of her hard work and coronation in recent months, and howard, thank you for having me here. it's an honor for know 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 author is president barack

obama. as you may recall, the liberal media raved about barack obama's writing ability in the 2008 election. back then, senator obama's résume was quite short, and his supporters often would say with a straight face, that he was just marvelous because he wrote two marvelous books about himself. at first i thought it was a joke. when senator obama actually became president obama, i realized it was no joke at all, i decided that i seriously needed to get with the program. and start believing in the dreamy barack obama world of yes, we can. so i thought that what i needed to do was to write two books about myself, and maybe i too can be president of the united states. [laughter]

[applause] so i sat down and wrote a book about myself called "chinese girl in the ghetto." when people asked me what the book is about these days, i usually politely tell them it's about my family's journey from communist china to inner-city oakland california. it's about my journey of getting to know freedom. what i'm really thinking. usually what is really on my mind, i need to hurry up and write another book about myself. and why do, maybe i can go to all of those places that barack obama has been able to go. yes, we can! [laughter] i'm joking, of course. i was not born in this country, so i can't become president. [laughter] [applause]

donald trump ceptd my hopes up for a long time. [laughter] 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 dashed. it's a feeling that i'm sure senator marco rubio will become quite familiar with in 2016. in any case, when it became clear that writing another book wasn't going to do anything for my political ambition. i decided to focus on telling people about the book i have written, and i think it's a book that was worth writing for -- its own sake. let me team you a little bit about it. my story is an immigrant story. a legal immigrant story. [laughter] [applause]

i was born in china at the time when the country had been devastated by decades of to tolltarian communist rule. my family lived in a apartment that had no running water, no modern toilet facility, no washer, no dier, -- direr and none of the amenity we take for granted here in the midwest. we live in a place that was considered to be quite modern and quite enviable for folks in china. we lived in a city and didn't have to do back breaking farm labor. back then, everyone who could leave china for america wanted to leave. everyone who couldn't leave wanted to leave too. when if my family had the opportunity come to america, we immediately took it. we moved to oakland, california,

knowing almost nothing about it. we showed up there because we had relatives and we wanted to be close to our family members. yet, instead of finding an america with the streets were paved with gold, we found crumbling schools, unsafe streets, and racist people. that was because we had arrived in inner-city america. the heart of the welfare state. one by one the horror of the ghetto showed themselves to us. poverty and urban decay plagued our new city. store fronts had shattered windows, streets were pockmarked with pothole, bridges and tunnels were splashed with graffiti. the streets downtown even near city hall were often streets that smelled of urine, homeless

men and women aggressively pan handled. that's when they were being nice to you and accosted tourists and residents alike. crime plagued our new city as well. drug dealing seemed more prevalent at time than employment. muggings took place in plain sight. and gunshots rang at night regularly interrupting my tv watching. racism also ruled my town. asians and didn't matter if we were chinese, vietnamese, we often only had one name. and that was chinamen. that was the case at school, on streets, on the bus, and seemingly everywhere and anywhere. on the sidewalks, teens had a habit of entertaining themselves by creeping up behind frail and elderly asian immigrants and frightening them by screaming at the top of their lungs their

worst imitation of the chinese language. more often than not, racial slurs were backed by the threat of violence. and sometimes followed by violence itself. and because the racism of the perpetrators simply did not fit neatly in to the politically correct narrative that our culture so often prizes, main stream america paid no attention or simply looked away. in the ghetto, there was a general break down of law and order. and overwhelming absence of personal responsibility. it was prevalent and supposed to help. it only made the place even more dysfunctional. it provided food stamps but it could not stem hunger. it offer welfare checks but could not promote economic growth or create jobs.

it excused laziness, turned a blind eye to gang banging, and con condoned a break down of the family unit. worst of all, it insilled a sense of entitlement in the subject, and took away their pride, sneered at their dignity. thankfully, for my family we didn't participate in the welfare state. this was in part because we spoke almost no english when we -- showed up in america. we had no idea how to apply for welfare benefits. [laughter] we didn't even know that welfare benefits existed for people like us, and back then they definitely existed because this was the day before welfare reform of 1996, and poor illegal immigrants in the country didn't have to have been here for five years before they became eligible for government money. maybe we didn't take advantage

of these welfare programs simply because we weren't that bright. we never bothered to even inquire about the benefits because it didn't occur to us or hasn't occurred to us by come together united states meant we should hold out our hands and ask the federal or state government for money. perhaps our ignorance was actually a blessing in disguise. that meant 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 menial your -- jobs, 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 fourth hand furniture, and at first my brother and i each slept on half the bed.

he slept on the box springs. i slept on the mattress. i think he insisted i got the better end of the bargain. there was hardship and shared sacrifice. the mother who was once a well respected schoolteacher became a seam stress at the sweat shop. the father who was once a senior mechanic trailed by the group of apprentices became the kitchen help for a chinese-owned restaurant where the owners regularly verbally abused their employees. the children studied day and night instead of hanging out on the streets using drugs or otherwise poorly behavior. our family saved for homeownership instead of splunging on vacation. >> my brother and i learned

english more quickly than they did, we took them to the hospital when they were sick. we filled 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 companies usually with adults many years older than we were when they overcharged us. we did not demand that the government level the playing field by giving us handout or free byes. we accepted that life was unfair, and that not everybody -- not everyone could be born rich or even born in this country. we certainly didn't occupy public buildings or parks. we didn't urinate on the street. we didn't violate city ordinances. we did not destroy public park property. or steal private property even

when things didn't go our way. we thought it was wrong to feel entitled to government already guess or other people's money. we also didn't demand that america somehow give us preferences in the form of racial and ethnic quota. in fact, being asian in california pretty much meant we didn't receive any of those quota or preferences. but racial quota and preferences were dolled out quite lavishly to sons and daughters of dennists, doctors, and other middle class professionals who belonged to 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 impressed me. i think it's something that impresses all immigrants to this country.