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television companies, support "c-span2" as a public service. >> good afternoon and welcome to the 36th annual planning board chicago's printers row lit fest and please tell me thank our sponsors for putting on this event. [applause] before we began, the ask you silence your cell phones and turn off all camera flashes, the restrooms are off to my right, down past the elevator and when we do question and answer at the end of this presentation, i will bring it in microphone up to the standard we ask that you come up there so that the questions are clear on the videotaping. and with no further ado, i want to introduce elly fishman of the author of "refugee high", coming-of-age in america and she

will be in conversation it so thank you so much. [applause] >> hello, there goes and thank you everyone for coming and will, i am a senior producer with wbz, radio, local - and as you heard, the author of "refugee high" is elly fishman and also with us is the director of english language learners partners at the high school and also sammy former sullivan high student, roger c. sullivan high school. so we will start off with some amature reading from the refuge high and it is for those are someone who may have already

rented and may be familiar with the story, "refugee high", maybe not know the story behind it but essentially, it is about the school roger c. sullivan high school in rogers park i think that almost half of the student body are foreign born, immigrants and refugees, and asylum seekers etc. from all the world, from about 50 countries and they speak 40 thing which is in the hall and this is the story is about the community found at roger c. sullivan high school so elly fishman will kick us off with a brief reading to give you a sense of what the story covers. >> hi everyone i am so happy to be here. so the folks that i met as sullivan, there obviously in town but i students in the book therefrom different corners of the globe one student is from

guatemala and one student is from iraq one student is from miramar and another student is from the democratic republican f congo. and you follow the stories of the course of a single school year as well as harris and among others but i thought that i would read today's introduction enough of young woman it and these are actually student shayna is her name in the and she is the young woman it as sullivanan from pmr, gina, every morning on the way to sullivan high school, shayna passes the life that she knew she escaped and that's why he comes on the days until she turns 18, she still has 408 to go but that is because not to keep her in good spirits. so the way to school, bitter memories into hannah refugee is always relieved to be out of the

house tensions are high in helmand sheena and her mother readily speak and whensp they d, she curses her daughters and school offers distraction and insight of sullivan to walks past the quotes painted near the classrooms of the american dream is being able to follow your calling it and one from dr. seuss, think lesson think left and right and low and high anno the thinks that you can think of if only you try read in the in the sea of navy blue blockers with bright yellow insignia painted above them and below grab black and brown checkered floors optimism, the deteriorating first floor girls bathroom, part by large concrete slabs resting 100 by 2 percent is among janus charged faces inside of sullivan, it is there interim that the 16 -year-old station or seven of the mayor and takes dozens of selfies and she will spend hours each day posting photos and has by

filters to snapchat and uploading close-up portraits to instagram and keeping up with ongoing flirtations with a slew of burmese boys on facebook messenger. recently she's been talking to andrew for an boston who claims he carries a gun and a crew with the agent boys can get and his picture post group logo, the name was a lightning bolt. and she's never been particularly interested in school, she had a looks forward to starting her sophomore year as sullivan, as schools you can watch youtube take tutorials on makeup looks and kissed him on social media because of benjamin plans to watch scary movies is right at the mall. as you drink printed coat and eat pizza and ever since shayna, with loose clothing and s began siding with her mother, she refuses to eat at home and most days she pizza school and programs as sullivan, she can be a get it comes six month ago she

thought she would never get the chance again. so that is she hannah, one of the four students that we follow in the book. >> thank youha so much elly fishman, so where want to get started here is you described shayna and you get a good sense of where she is but before you walking the sullivan i would turn the clock back into 2016, and on what is happening in the world at this time, that lead you to seek out refugee stories. >> it does go all the way back to 20 something, this is very much a part of other's lives at this point whether they wanted that are not. [laughter] when i first began this project actually after attending printed

center donald trump was inaugurated in january of 2017, and wanted his first executive order was finding a travel man from majority muslim countries and when i was there at o'hare airport where this protest was happening, i wondered to myself, who are these refugees families arriving in chicago under their lives look like here. that quickly let me to sullivan because i've always been interested in the life of younger people know anything about young people, you think about school. as you mentioned in your lovely introduction it, almost half of the students at sullivan are refugee refugees and immigrants so as soon as i walked into the door on the way to meet sarah for the first time, i was completely overwhelmed by the scene that it's off of the languages the visual languages of legs and different fashions from all of the globe and i

thought, this is ahe place where there are many stories to tell and i want to figure out what they are. >> is a mentioned meeting sarah. >> i think a lot of time in sarah's classroom first. and she had to give me the green light before i started meeting students and was very purposeful, sarah really takes great care of her o students ani also in the way that i was an outsider walking into a g classroom with caring series, and i did not want to encroach on anybody before they knew who ii was and got familiar with my face so sarah and me play some of her typical classroom games, when called hot seat which now i put you on a peer, that all

comes full circle. >> thank you. >> and why seven front of thent class and with a big jar of candy and i don't think you were in that class but amid you and around the same time. your sister was in the class, and kids were encouraged to ask questions and as a reward and have an answer and give them a piece of candy is holy and started to build familiarity in relationships with kids and unfolded from their. >> in the trust you and i want attribute, sarah, you said you had to check her out, and journalists pulls up to your school, what was your reaction. >> i'm all nervous about the microphone now, can everybody hear me okay. so i told elly fishman over

time, but it's entertaining to you all is our real lives so new elly fishman, a person comes in any want to stories and they think it is so fascinating to meet kids from all of the world and speak all of these different languages and have had all of these different experiences, trauma or otherwise it can be very exciting to peer especially if you just live in your own little bubble in chicago you hear about things on the news but it can be exciting and you could be swept up in the moment of meeting someone who is actually experienced it and she is talking about being at the airport, we actually have student, sam and b i both know a kid whose family pulled everything in turkey, not in the airplane, there they sold their car in the closer they invented the airplane he came to chicago, and they were stuck in the airport the dayay that donald trump closed everything and they

had to go fly back to turkey but they hades no apartment, no clothing, no car, nothing. so it is exciting for people when they meet his students were actually experience these things that week. on the o radio or be seen on tv but i was regularly through money like that what is news and excited to you, is actually our real life so what are your intentions when you're planning to do with our stories and how are you going to tell our stories because it is not always entertaining, it is not always feel good and we come i say we meeting the students hand the bills working with this dunes whether it be community partners refugees or the teachers, we go home at night and we carry this up with us when to call this thing home with us and try to find a way to compartmentalize and general dance with your regular lives. first hi seat, therefore

questions are not ever allow just someone in america, so was always teaching my students, they come from cultures where you do not ask questions of the teachers give you the information that you need and then it's extremely rude to ask a question or for clarification. and just in general because a really shy about their language and cultural differences of getting to know people in this country and so i was constantly putting people in the hot seat and forcing my students to ask questions except for four questions are never allowed to ask. did you vote for, how much money do you make, how much do you weigh and how old are you. >> that's the best advice to not let in appropriate questions in a culture. >> and dennis any woman in america, how old are you, never. >> also goodte dating advice.

>> and semi want to talk to you, can you give us some background and tell us about where you came from and how you ended up at roger c. sullivan high school. >> my dad is also there and beirut and when the war started we moved to egypt and then we moved to egypt and we lived there for about three years and then we's started there my sister my dad and we started working everything and then egypt was having problems so one day fromow nowhere, my dad received a phone call, was from a church in cairo in egypt and they said we were to see you because you and your families, ready to leave for chicago so my dad did not believe the phone call then he hung up and so is there playing with me and he said you know can up the phone and then they called again.

so we went with everything and then we started to do the process the names in the paperwork and everything and orthen we just came as refugees. >> sosu you can do chicago and u get enrolled at roger c. sullivan high school, what was your first impression of chicago and what is going on in your mind. >> and so i came from o'hare, to the house that they rented for us, his apartment, not a house and it was all the way and really like because like my country, likeut my dad voice and we have everything for us like everything we want within the war started, we lost everything i went dad had to dealerships and hee lost them so to get her, two weeks, right away they send me to roger c. sullivan high

school. >> is been a million years is a bit of school i know the most nerve-racking him moment is the night before your first day of school, for any get let alone to be coming to a new country and starting at a new school, what was going on in your mind the night before too much the night before>> school my first day at roger c. sullivan high school, i cannot really remember was going on but i remember that i still believe that i can make it and first is the language. when i came here, i speak only arabic pretty might not speak french but i do not learn the prince of much. then again. ♪ airbase speaking english and some inbo spanish and i caring people and we have to talk about the first two weeks that i have here in chicago and walked down to my apartment it and i went buy a sim card on the phone ready in

height could notou talk to them and he kept saying what do you want and i couldn't talk to him and kept pointing it on my finger on the phone and he was like a month i cannot help you man and i said okay, then just go back home and he could not get for my phone i talked to my sister i said happen we make it, we just came here is a different culture and different people in language and there are too many things are different and how are you going to do with that. it is not for me but when i came to roger c. sullivan high school, is way different story. >> do you remember meeting. >> i guess he asked. [laughter] >> tei do and he and his sisterr place in the same class i remember meeting both of them.

>> what were your first impressions. >> will first impressions were he was actually very quiet and he just kind of stood there, 24 hours later, he was no longer quiet and is not stop talking says. [laughter] but first impression, here's another guy had he will learn english in life will be great. >> she met an english department at sullivan, but she said there were 40 languages spoken in on any given day, print english etc. and sam had mentioned that he was there so what is communication look like at sullivan. >> it is funny because i was a we did this a couple of days, i made the audience participate in an activity with all these different languages but it is just like what you see appear,

lots of smiles and hugs and high fives. it's very kinesthetic, a lot of using your body to point have things or should read this and i'm pretty well known by students for my awful drawings of the lord's, a lot of pictionary and she expended. >> one of the first think that he try to do was to go get a sim party to maybe get it no matter how little they have, or how much of struggling, they have a cell phone was on the the first things that i notice sullivan as well and technology is part of the book as well and using the way the young people stay connected to their home countries and communities but also howow they communicate with each other like one of the nicknames for sullivan is that maybe i gave it, is that the

google translate school because i was seeing kids like him who wanted to talk to their classmates from pacific congo, anywhere they want to flirt want to share music google translate, i hada no idea how advanced it has gotten you just take a picture of it and it translate let alone putting in what you want to say than communicating to one of my favorite things that would see inside of kids kind of flirting with each other through google translate. they would be a little bit scrambled in the most beautiful wonderful way and so i think that even though that is not like with the teachers are doing that, this one of the things i saw how the communication happened you know, like with all teenagers. >> it teenager is aag teenager anywhere.

elly fishman, you in the book, you focus on for students who go to the school and the way that we are introduced to them, we learned about them as people and who they are before we read and learn about the victory or the trauma that they may experience and why was an important to you as you are writing the story. >> when i think that i mentioned earlier that i was aware that these kids carry heavy burdens and come from other backgrounds but also i was looking at this young man, i'm not, they are not defined by that they are multifaceted people in theto fid by sim cards so they condenser friends and they are teenagers and wanted to understand who they were in school that day and who they were as teenagers first because of my mind, and this is

something we certainly talked about, what i was seeing were stories of resiliency some the stories simply hardship and so much of that i thank you so often, none is generally overlooked but a left and i wanted to tell a different kind of story that grew directly out of what i was saying inside sullivan, memories that i have or writing a book, i saw him dancing with his friends and plg in his phone, and eventually got his sim card which i'm sure did not take you long putting on his favorite songs and all of the boy starting to dance together and pulling their classmates. at school events, doing that every a couple refugee thing to me and you brought this incredible architectural, i

always mispronounce to trinity, it is. the right of the inverted rise fish, i mispronounce to the natives really try not to do it again most of the things i wanted to highlight and celebrate as much as telling the stories of the culture making from their journeys to chicago intoan sullivan. >> is your list we often report and you mentioned it how you built trust was his hot seat when they got to ask you questions and how else were you building trust with the students. and how are you navigating getting them to trust you and

with her stories. >> we just took it t really slow and a lot better than before ever took out my recorder formalized interviews, i just wanted to have conversations with the young people and even the teachers at sullivan and i wanted them, encourage the students to ask questions in the classroom and i wanted them to feel like they had agency that can ask questions and was a conversation i also try to make it as clear as possible than they could always raise her hand a pointed site they were uncomfortable or they mean they didn't want included in the story and when you do the reporting over three years which is how long i was working on "refugee high", you become part of the lives where i said earlier and felt important to continue to remind the kids as

well because it becomes a conversation over many years in your life change and you building intimacy but i was wanted to make it clear that i was still a journalist this was to look sweet and a visual cue of having outlook out of small things like that is making it a ricky truth they understood i was at work they didn't feel taken advantage of and things like that were important throughout the process. >> from what you are saying is meant for a long time there. >> i did and trying to think, usually the back of these classrooms in your meeting with his students in the how are the kidsds responding to you and sam how are you responding to a journalist in your class. >> she would get there before us and then keep.

>> hi debbie get put into an assembly once and i said thank you thank you. >> can you share a memory your hanging out of the school and can you share something that stuck out to you that you saw or experienced when there is only experience with a student or observing the faculty interacting with them are them interacting with each other to michael one of my favorite scenes in the book i was was not there was for for a 30 something birthday party and we don't talk about age appear. [laughter] but sarah i think she called me the day beforeor and she was lie it, i'm pretty sure that candace going to remember the party and think you should be here for it i said okay i will be there

actually sam sister, one of the main organizers in one of my favorite people on t the planet. items this incredible like they got sarah out of the room so they could throw a surprise party which is that a very american a thing, that a serious tradition. >> yes we do that the birthdays and self, like can you represent the rest of the world and tell heus this. >> strong journalism and so shep had planted all all out and she is very organized and they hadn't written a sign this and happy birthday everybody brought dishes from home and somalian pastries and yes, and curry and

sarah's favorite food diet coke and chocolate, and that was in good supply as well and the most amazing thing is that every student in the class, maybe from several classes made sarah this and made a book where they had - >> the day before that i was telling them about the poster boards that was in the shape of the diet cokell it can and it ws all drawn with this diet coke font and everything. >> yes, and he's you diet coke it, you know sarah is not. far. but as a gift her students to her adventure, seen from their home country had to be came in a remember presented it this thick like you know, nick tied it to gather with string it was like a

travel log of all of the places they had fled and the memories they wanted to share with her and it really was one of the most beautiful, that i saw as sullivan and one of my favorite scenes in the book as well. >> then tells a lot about how the students see you sarah, i didn't get that for my teachers at school and we call you ms. q they also call you sometimes mom and he referred to. >> yes go ahead. >> so i can tell you that some of the students will we talk to each other about it but when i came to sullivan high school, sarah was not only a teacher, not because sheyb is sitting hee i was in his to everybody and i would say to my family, sarah for me was a friend, a sister, they month, a teacher, a helper

and everything and she helped me my court date can you believe it, she calledd my lawyer, likei had a speech given she found me with that as you help me to find a job and she used to spin like at least also like more than two hours a day to help me with my dyslexia. i would talk to people and she said don't do that, they will not like that so you have to do it this way and she selected the for me how i should be dressed up and how i should have my here or whatever. she always tell me, she's not only teacher and for the other students, they say the same thing and we go to sarah's class, we feel like we are home because i am telling you, she is not only a teacher, she treats everyone thesa same, we are all the same and she sees us like believe me like as her kids.

>> you also call your office of whom pretty. >> i actually call it the uterus but that was too much for the bucket. [laughter] and to me that tells me like you well that's a different dynamic, the average director of the department or that but you have with your students and what made you want to approach helping because that way. >> because they're all a bunch of babies, one hero. >> yes he was the hero come they're all a l bunch of babiesn their learning to grow or learning how to behave and they're not allowed to leave school, leave the underworld for the uterus, until they have been fully conditioned and trained and ready to be hard for the

rest of you to meet them. so the uterus is a joke, but just in general, i just approach them all as little babies in ayo call of of the time communicant tone, you are learning english we are not going to try to get away with something here because you are from somewhere else or you don't speak english like you still have a brain in your bed you still have experiences and values and morals the lessons that you have learned and the manners and the maybe hard for you to articulate this because you are learning english but you are not dumb and not going to let you get away with this because you're in a different country around different people you don't know the language. >> so i. amber: languages nail. >> three languages. [laughter] >> a lot of these kids are normally speaking fluent english but fluent in spanish so i come out of there feeling real dumb because i was english and i

ended with english, nothing more. >> and as far as you know, how we are talking here right now, it is a lot of humor and how do we teach and as i said, the hugs and yes google translator and things, some of kumar and i say if we are not laughing we are crying we have a lot to cry about and she's telling this beautiful story about a war broke out then they called and said we could go to america, that is the shortest and quickest easiest inscription of sam's life like i know where it came from and i had dinner at his family's house and his family came toe my parents house 20 for thanksgiving and another stories and it was father and his mother and you be in the corner crying he knew his real story so i always said that if

were not laughing were priceless do a lot of laughing. >> the way your department sort of supports the students they come in, it to me just seems way beyond, you talked about the life you would given how to get a job in the court dates and the advice gave, just kind of that cultural notes would be hopeful for him, so how is it involved. >> i cannot speak to how it was before we got there and i would i was hired in the fall of 2012. and i started as a teacher and i just started running my classroom that way. and think you're right about the only part that i have ever had. >> yes. >> and so i sort of you know

just ran and i always been my classrooms that way as a family and a every monday through friday with brian i love you and have a good night and then on fridays, that is goodbye love you and have a good weekend and do not get pregnant and you know it started out as a joke, i love you, i was kind of stirring the pot and then a student time said, you know, you know your love he was the only i love you again all day and i said, in my head, now i feel bad, hon of marking them in your telling and 18 and 17 -year-old teenage, by and i love you and they start to say it back and i thought they were just mocking me back within this kid said no, really it is really the only i love you and so i started in the classroom

and i was promoted, implied and, money and glory and honor but really it does not work. i was going to run the department, you're the elly fishman started to write the book, in 2018, 2017. >> so when i met sarah, she was still in the classroom and then she transitioned to the library and much of my reporting it much of the bucket, and part of the i would say is her office which is this small room at the back of the library,he her uterus her wb where she was stationed with her department handed so much of the kind of the classroom is translated into the corner of the library and were talking about how sam's family has had thanksgiving dinner with you and eventually had a dinner at your family's house your mom made me

an incredible feast, pizza, it wast. so good, your mom's pizza. but in this room where i spent so much time there was so much of the heart of the book, and unfold, there is a little table there was confronted as a family dinneram table and the students that came into that room, and the guest mass, yes, there was a lot of napping, but to find that family and they students i followed in theth book, they wee there and i was there and in many cases, whenn they started y the funding and underway sullivan, the show at the library less and less the kind of leave the nest in a way and that is ultimately what you want like as they acclimate to the next become more comfortable but

because sullivan is a place where the are always new students and theyla are about to get many many more from afghanistan who will always have people of thes table and is amazing and the reason that i spent most of my time there was because it just felt like really, is a place, space at seven at the heart of everything that sullivan a was doing. >> i always introduce the kids to each other she speaks about, elly fishman speaks about new kids coming in living and i would say that i was always introducing them to each other and say this is your brother, this is your sister and you would end up having guatemala and syria and iraq and you woud have all, african countries all these different countries sitting on the table andun becae the people who work in the national office trying to get work done all these idiots are gabbing about god knows what to the students. >> you say that lovingly. >> i do, but they are rambling on about the dumbest things like you know, i am trying to work

here. >> it all feels like a a 16 like this is so dramatic. >> but i would noise introduce them as thisi is your brother or sister in the coolest thing is when you see it transcend outside of the office and when you see them interacting with each other in the hallways, or another classrooms. you would see two or three students who'd nowhere outside of home would you see these different cultures and languages interacting and certainly not supporting each other loving each other and helping each other tricky around the way they do, you just look at these kids and you think, if the rest of us could get our act together behave the way that they do, this world would be such a nicer place. >> i was just going to say, the teenagers do kind of spent a lot of time talking about their dating and gossiping and stuffed

and if you look really trivial but actually that was one of my favorite things about being a sullivan is thatsa is also universal language and you know, no matter wherees they're coming from coming languages they are speaking, they are still teenagers and that wasta also really important it to the story and all of that silly stuff that they are talking about a gossiping about is actually you know, from my perspective, because i don't have to try to teach them in the classroom, one of my favorite things about sullivan is something that iom also spent a lot of time talking about in the book because it is what makes us the same and even though i'm not a teenager anymore, although i was filtered into several my class, i see myself in them and all of those experiences, so close to the surface even for me and so i wanted to write about that as well. >> i just wanted to tell everyone, really a few minutes

at the end here, so if you have questions, pleasepl feel free to get ready to ask them but while you're thinking of a question, unless for a few more, was six out to me, elly fishman, you mentioned the story of resiliency, ballistic sesame is the story of community and will be fined community and even in the most surprising ways and how the communities evolve. would you say about the point of refugee life. >> in many ways yes, and also how a school visit to a community and one of the things that i think sullivan particular the staff do so well they recognize that they are part of the broader community and really invite the neighbors and build

that community from the classroom out words. and it means it extends beyond the four years or however many years, but that canada's are the building summa look at sara and sam, they are still so close and i still keep in touch with many students and also a reflection of the park where i think the neighborhood in chicago where sullivan says, is a neighborhood mentioned it in earlier events, but is that when the whole neighborhood came out to support the school that it is a place that rises up around it sullivan in many ways and rises up from the refugees and the immigrants as well as and that is community. >> that last question will go to sarah you guys mention the physical space offices and the relationships that you build which are obviously

long-lasting, and during the pandemic, a lot of this last year and half was promoted we didn't have physical space to build the relationships and the physical space and one is how do you cater to the needs of the kids really need help and also like how are you navigating that in building those relationships. >> yes, we lost a lot of it, and i am sure there was a lot of things fell through the cracks and things that the kids rely on, the school staff noticing there are things that happen at home order personal lives that they go on noticed and trained professionals run train, just run each other, we pick up on and as we notice and didn't leave their homes in the sun onto the computer nice and you're not picking up on this

thing so out of stuff that we missed and the things that we could, i went to a students home and that was certain her backyard and she didn't go to school for three weeks and it and it drover year her there and i said going to mask up instead of there and i will stand here and i'm not leaving it in figure out what you are not in school and i have you know, coworkers did the same thing, josh from the social worker, one of the social workers at my school that he would run the groups outside in the parking lot every minute drive to people's homes and drop things off outside of the door and we relied heavily on the kids as they were reaching out for help which are not so good about doing so we know that we missed allotted 20 a long time to catch up. >> would you guys are back in school now okay to ask who is 45 minutes.

>> yes like thatk really was i thought hunting i guess. >> so want to see if anybody has any questions sure. >> i just want to say that i love your book from the first in the last and i wish that it was longer. >> will thank you i know my editor. >> my only complaint is that i wanted to really know what these various languages were like if you had a sample of that topline and mentioned what language it was to ♪ ♪ yeah, i do my best but what i will say about the cover is, on the cover right actually many of these translations are

from the students themselves and actually and my amazing book designers here the audience, jacqueline, we should hire her. [laughter] as we had students at "refugee high" in their native languages and then took a picture of and then photoshopped it together to this bookr. cover so there is never a bad candidate while he lee, there is spanish and a couple of other ones and i could tell you if i had my nose in front of a big yes this was special i wanted tosp have a way to bring the kids on the cover that was it. >> because the third one, i could not figure out what language that would've been. >> i think that is natalie's the

third, oh, the fifth. [inaudible]. >> i do want to say your grandmother is very proud of you.u. >> thank you. >> she was a class mate of mine in a writing group. >> another place that i wrote about one. >> are there any other questions. [background sounds]. >> i was going to ask the english apartment, you run at the wayut that you do but what about math and science and do they keep the same kind of approach or that's how we do things. >> a teacher question, finally.

>> so we are very fortunate as element that we have an administration at the reports innovations, and creativeness and approaches and everything so we ended up doing was we made ourselves our own department so in the english learner department is math, english, science, history, music and arts and gymnasium, like the attorney that the kids see week have our own meetings around staff development in our everything everything that thedo schools doing, were doing but we get tot on our own so how is special ed department when we planned their stuff and their own unique way the stars are students in their own unique way so such as english like that math teacher in the southeastern history teacher, they're doing the same things were talking about where we teaching life skills over

content. >> are there any other questions. >> this is a question for sam, so i would just like you to talk a bit about how you continue the traditions in your culture and in your language as you now have become an american. >> or do you even want to or is that something that you value. >> and it's okay if you say no if you just explain to us why. >> she is always a teacher. [inaudible].

>> okay so my parents, they took us to the college and they are not really here and so speaking with a my friends from syria and iraq or wherever, i still speaking arabic with them so i don't up on the language but half of my friends are arabia keep and then half of them are mexican so i speak more spanish and the whole day because i have my friend to speak with me but my family always says, do not lose it like no matter what, you live here, you will have family here herehe whatever, don't lose the language, that is your own language. >> what about traditions and holidays and customs like when

you first came to america, you did not hug laminate and how you do. >> i know. >> so she wants to know, do you still maintain the link to - >> not really, i live every day here so like my life is here so i am doing other people live here, i am doing the same white like when i say like we do not have things called thanksgiving we do here. and a lot of other holidays like we do not have well many, but i thought doing it is the way it is here because i live here my life is here and everything like i have to live like people are living here and so i would say.

>> thank you everyone have a question about the social networking links the telecommunication length of the students and they have all they are in the schools that communicating with friends from all of the world and maybe people limit in refugee camps before they got here. do you have any sense of what it's like if t they are comparig their life here and people who are located in other countries like where it does the u.s. stand and the kind of imagination of the people who are not here and end of the in the united states communicate about their s lives here two people ended up somewhere else. >> sam, do you have friends - >> i have friends in syria, egypt, and i always cry and remember the story to my friend, he went to germany and also in sweden they went with a small

group and i have three friends they died in the water. and i have a best friend whose dad disappeared and they cannot even find his body in the water so is so sad. i have a lot of friends, we talk, but in america, that is always a dream for the middle east so if someone wanted to go to america, they say that's just a dream and it's hard to go there and i would be live there and how would you have a family life in the language and so forth and people have an easy dream. and then people start to come and they started learning it and they work into everything how you guys live had its hard to say that it is normal. but my friends always say like, can we find anyway to come here

and i said i don't know, there is no way would have to be legal like there is nothing but i would tell you that when i spoke to my friends in syria, they don't have electricity or water, they do not have food, there's a lot of things that don't have that we have. .. have. i don't like to show what i have here because i do work hard for it. i had three jobs in 2016 and 2017 i used to work three jobs. i don't show my friends there what i have here because they cannot have it. i'm still the same person whether i have one dollar in my pocket or 2 million or billions of dollars they are still my friends and i'm still the same

so i don't like to show my friends what i have because it is a dream for them. a lot of people in egypt, they try, they just tried to get here. there's no way to get here especially with covid and stuff. there's people five months ago. but after that after that people stop having hope, i'm going soon, next month, next year. i'm waiting for two of my uncles to go. >> thank you. i think we could probably ask questions and listen to you all, all afternoon, but sadly the time has come to end. i want to thank you all for your time, if we can give them a round of applause. [applause] >> thank you. >> and thank you for telling

your story and being so open with all of this peer we really appreciate it. >> sunday on q&a "washington post" syndicated finance columnist michelle singletary on her book what to do with your money when crisis hits. >> it's not a matter if there's going to be another economic crisis but when. and so we want to set you up actually for the next crisis. it's actually not all about covid what recession is going to come down the road. it may be long, it may be short but life is going to happen andd i need you to prepare now. i do a lot of financial seminars in my community, and so hard to get people to save when you are doing well. because they're doing well. they don't think that tomorrow is going to have an issue. and so i say you need to save, you need to do that, let me get to it. when a crisis hits everybody

then, they're ready to do it but that's too late. the time to do that is when you have the resources come when you have the ability to cut. it's easy to cut when you can't pay for anything or things are shut down. and so i wanted to say let's prepare, let's be like that firemen or fire woman who's ready for the next five. they hope it won't happen but they're going to prepared for that. >> "washington post" syndicated finance columnist michelle singletary on her book "what to do with your money when crisis hits." sunday at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. you can also listen to q&a and all of our podcast on her new c-span now app. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> gary hoover is the author of this book, "the lifetime learner's guide to reading and learning," but before weidg get into that, the themes of the book, mr. hoover, injure biography it's as you live in a famous three-bedroom house. 32 rooms of which contain books. 57,000 in all. explain. >> i'm afraid if you mark in last weeks i've got to be closer to 60,000. it's an addiction and there's no 12 step program for book