they are going to be prepared for that.

>> good afternoon and welcome to the 36th annual lit fest. please help me thank our sponsors for putting on this event. [applause] before we began we ask you to silence your cell phones and turn off all camera flashes. the restrooms are off to my right pastas the elevator and we do question and answer that and of the presentation i will bring a microphone up to the standard we ask that you come up there so it's clear on the videotaping. no further ado i want to introduce elly fishman the author of "refugee high" coming of age in america and she will

be in conversation with meha ahmed. thank you so much. [applause] >> thanks everyone for coming. welcome. i am meha ahmed a senior producer with the local npr affiliate radio and with me is elly fishman the offer of "refugee high" also with us is the director of english-language learners department sarah quintenz and sam who is a former sullivan high student. thank you guys for being here. we are going to start off with a short reading from "refugee high." some of you may have already read it and some of you may be familiar with the story and some

hiof you may not know the story behind it. essentially it's about sullivan high school in rodgers park which has a think it's almost half, half of the student body are foreign-born. they are immigrants and refugees, asylum-seekers etc. from all over the world from 50 countries and they speak something like 40 languages in the halls. the story is about the community of sullivan highsc school. elly is going to kick it off with what the story is about. >> thank you. so happy to be here. among the folks i met at sullivan obviously are sara and sam. i follow for students in the book from different corners of the globe. one student is from guatemala

and one student is from iraq and one student is from myanmar and one from the democratic republic of congo. they followed their stories over a single school year among others. what if i were read today is the introduction of a young woman. these are pseudonyms. her name is shaheen and a book and she's a young woman a sophomore at sullivan from myanmar. every morning underway to to sullivan high school she passes her library. that's why she counts down the days until she turns 18. >> she still has 408 to go. that's close enough to keep a sophomore in good spirits. the way the school conjures memory tensions are high at home. she and her motherh rarely speak and when they do she curses her

daughter's obstinacy and school offers a distraction. she walks past each classroom. the american dream is being able to follow your calling and one from dr. seuss think less and think right and think low and think i oh the things you can think u up if only you try. the school is a sea of navy blue lockers with a bright yellow s sullivan's insignia painted above the entry below the drab black and checkered floor there's optimism advertised on the walls. the deteriorating bathrooms marked by large concrete slabs and resting water pipes stands among her spaces inside of sullivan. she will take dozens of selfies and spend hours each day posting photos to snapchat uploading

portraitist instagram and keeping up with ongoing flirtations with a slew of boys on base. messenger bridge has been talking to a rohingya boy in boston who claims he carries a gun and runs with the crew called the boys gang. their name was a lightning bolt for -- though she'd never been particular just in school shahina started her sophomore year at sullivan pacheco watched future tutorials and catch up on social media gossip that she can make fans to watch scary movies and hitch a ride to the mall. drink diet coke and eat pizza. ever since shahina began fighting with her mother she refuses to eat at home. most days the meals provided school are the only one cheats. shahina can be a kid. six months ago the teenager thought she'd never get that chance again.

that's shahina one of the poor four student that we follow in the book. >> thank you so much elly. were it want to get started here is maybe to describe something teen and the school to get a sense of where shese is. i want to go even before that and before you walk into sullivan turning the clock back to 2016. what is happening in the world at this time that leads you to seek out local refugees? >> the story does go all the way back to 2017. we are very much part of each other's lives at this point whether they wanted that or not. i first began this project after attending a protest after donald trumpas was inaugurated in januy

of 2017 and one of his first executive orders was signing a travel ban from majority muslim countries and when i was at o'hare airport where this was happening i just wondered to myself who are these refugee families arriving in chicago and on what to their lives look like here? that quickly led me to sullivan because i've always been interested in the lives of young people and when you think about young people you think about school. as you mentioned in your lovely introduction almost half the students at sullivan are refugees are immigrants. as soon as i walked in the door on my way to meet sara for the first time i was completely overwhelmed by the scene that i saw, the languages in the visual languages and the flags and different fashions from all ovr the globe and i thought this is

a place where there are many stories to tell. hispanic you mentioned meeting ,sara. who else did you meet? >> i think i spent a lot of time in subeighteen's classroom and they had to give me the green light before i started meeting students. osthat was very purposeful. sarah takes great care of her students and i was aware that i was an outsider walking into the classroom caring all different kinds of experiences including very serious trauma and i didn't want to encroach on anyone before they knew who i was and got familiar with myspace. sarah played some of her typical classroom games. it's one where i put you in

appear so it all comes full circle. there's a big jar of candy and i don't think you are in that class. i met you around that same time. her sister was in that class. kids were encouraged to ask questions and as a reward i would answer and give them him a piece of candy and slowly rebuilt familiarity and relationships withnd the kids ad a kind of unfolded from there. >> sarah i want to turn to you. you said you sought her out. what is your reaction? >> i'm all nervous about the microphone now. tcan everybody hear me? i told elly i tell people the time what is entertaining to you

all is our real lives. you elly commented they want to hear our stories and they think it's so t fascinating with peope from all over the world to speak all these different languages and have hadad all these differt experiences of trauma of and otherwise and it can be very exciting to hear especially if you live in your own little oval in chicago and you care about things on the news but it can be exciting and you can be swept up in the moment. being someone who has experienced it and she was talking about being at the airport. sam and i both know a kid whose family sold everything in turkey there closed their car and everything got an error proof plane and they were at the

airport when donald trump closed everything and they had to fly back to turkey. they had no clothing, no cars, nothing. it's exciting for people when they meet students are made people who have experienced these things that we hear about on the radio and i was regularly reminding elly what is real and exciting to you was actually our real life so how are you going to tell our stories? it does my still good and we and i say we meaning the students and the adults at work with those students whether it beom community partners the agency were teachers, we go home at night w a week carry that stuff with us and we take all of those things home with us and try to find a way to compartmentalize it and shut it down so we can do our regular life too. i just wanted to add error for questions that you are not ever allowed to ask someone in

america so i was always teaching my student they come from cultures where you don't ask questions. the teachers give you information you need and it's considered extremely to ask a question or for clarification. in general the kids are really shy about a their language and e cultural or princes of getting to know people in this country. i was constantly putting people in the hot seat and forcing my students to ask questions except for core -- for questions you are never allowed to ask. who did you vote for? how much money do you make? how much do you weigh and how old areyo you? them if that's the best advice. >> it those are inappropriate questions in our culture. >> don't ask any woman how old are you.ca she saved your life with that.

>> i want to turn to you, can you give us a little bit of backgroundnd about yourself and tell us where you came from? >> my name is sam a-9 from syria. my dad lives in beirut and when the war started we went to egypt and then we moved to egypt and we lived there for three years. we started the business and start working and then egypt started having problems so one day out of nowhere my dad received a phonecall and cairo egypt and they said they'd like to see you. your family is ready to leap to chicago. he said to my mom someone is playing a game with me. they called again.

we worked with the media and from there we started doing -- and only just came as. so if you get to chicago when you enroll in sullivan threw a sure first impression of chicago and what was going on in your mind? >> i came from o'hare and i went into the house they rented h for us. it was an apartment and not aus house. it was really a -- house. my dad always had everything for us. when thehe war started my dad hd two dealerships. when i get here after two weeks i go to sullivan high school. >> it's a been years since i've

been in school. the most nerve-racking moment is the night before your first day of school. that's where any kid let alone someone coming from another new school.ting a what was going on in your mind the night before got here? when i i mean i can't really remember what was going on. i can tell you i couldn't believe that i could make it. the first thing was the language. when i came here i spoke only arabic. everybody was speaking english and someone spoke as daniel. before we talk about school we have to talk about the first two weeks i had in chicago. i'm going down the street just to find a card for my phone.

i couldn't talk to the guy and he kept looking at me. i have my finger on the phone help youlike i can man.i i was like okay and i just went back home. i couldn't get a card for my phone so the day i get to sullivan i was talking to my sister and i told her how can we make it? it's a different culture different language and different people and there aree, too many things and how are you going to do with that? it was tough for me. when i came to sullivan it was a way different story. >> do you remember meeting sam? >> i better leave. >> i do. he and his sister were placed in the same class. >> what were your first impressionss cliques

>> first impressions was he was very quiet. he was very quiet and he just kind of stood there for 24 hours later he was no longer quiet and hasn't stoppedto talking sense that first impression he's just another guy and he's learning english and life of the great. >> there are over 40 languages spoken and on any given day you hear swahili etc.. sam had mentioned he learned the language so what is communication look like it's sullivan? >> couple of days ago i made the audience participate in an activity to show them what they do at sullivan with all these d different languages but it's like what you see up here, lots of smiles and lots of hugs and

high fives and very charismatic. there's a lot at just using your body to point at things are sure raids. i'm pretty well-known with my students for my drawings on the board.'s a lot of dictionary and a lot of charades. >> sam mention one of the first things he did was try to getng asem card. he is not alone in that. every kid no matter how little they have or how much they are struggling to have a cell phone. that was one of the first things i noticed that sullivan to. technology is the absolute part of the book is well in this amazing way that young people stay connected at their home country and their community. also how they can indicate with each other. one of the nicknames for sullivan is and maybe i gave it

as a google translate school because i was seeing kids like sam who want to talk to their classmates from that say the congo, anywhere or wanted to flirt or to share music and google translate i have no idea how advanced it is. you'd take a picture that translated into a language and putting in what you want to say and communicating. one of my favorite things that i would see inside the halls were kids flirting with each other through google translate and things would get a little bit scrambled in the most beautiful and wonderful way. that's one of the things i saw is how communication happened. thee teenagers at teenager anywhere. >> totally. >> so you focus on for students

that go to school. the way we are introduced to them we learn about them as people and who they are before we learn about the trauma that they may have experienced. why was that important to you? >> i think, i mentioned earlier that i was aware that these kids carry heavy burdens and come from all kinds of akron said situations. look at this young man you know. they are not defined by that. they are, multifaceted people d they get here and they are trying to buy a sim card card so they can talk to their friends. they are teenagers and i wanted to understand who they were in school that day and who they were as teenagers first. in my mind and this is something we talked about throughout the

process of the stories of resiliency and not simply of hardship. so much of that i feel like is not necessarily overlooked by the lot of stories about refugee narratives focus on applied in the hardship and i wanted to tell a story and that's directly out of what i was seeing inside of sullivan. the memories i have when they were there singing t and dancing with their friends and sam plugging into his phone went to gabanna got a sub 13 and putting on his favorite songs and all the boys dancing together with their classmates. there's an event they do every year and you brought this incredible architectural and i always mispronounce it -- sam,

tell me the inverted rice dish. i mispronounce it's the other night and i was really trying not to do it again. those are the things that i wanted to highlight and to celebrate as much as telling the important stories of the places they came from the places they fled in their journeys to chicago. >> yes journalist we often deal with the ethics of reporting and young people stories and reporting with kids and you mentioned this hotseat gamer they got to ask you questions. how else did you build trust with the students and you are very protective understandably at theda school. how were you navigating getting them to trust you and to trust her stories?

>> we just took a really slow and before i took out my recorder or did formalized into these i just wanted to have conversations with the young people and the teachers at sullivan and i wanted them in the same way sara's encouraging people to ask questions in her classroom i wanted to feel that they had agency and they could ask me a question to end it a conversation i once make it as clear as possible that they could raise a handnd at any poit and say i'm uncomfortable or there was something they didn't want included in the story. when you're reporting over three years which is how long i was working at -- on "refugee high" you become part of people's lives as i said earlier and it's important to remind kids of that as well because it becomes a

conversation and over many years your life change. you build and intimacy. iis wanted to make it clear that i was still a journalist so even visual cues like having a notebook out and things like that just making sure that they understand i was at work and they didn't take -- feel taken advantage of the things like that were also important throughout the process. >> you spent a long time there. i'm trying to think you are sitting at back of the classroom in your meeting with the students. how are they responding to you? sam how were you responding? >> oneft day after are you going to graduate with us quick.

>> he said that in front of a classroom assembly once and i was likeke thank you. >> can you share memory cliques you are hanging out at the school and something that stuck out to you that you saw or experienced weather which are on experience with her student or observing faculty interacting with each other. >> what of my favorite scenes in the book and one that i almost wasn't there for was sarah's birthday party? i think she called me the day before and she was like i'm pretty sure the kids are going to throw me a birthday party and i think you should be here here for and i said okay, i will be there. actually it was sam's sister who

was one of the main organizers and another one of my favorite people on the planet, tasha and it was this incredible, they came out of their room so they could throw a surprise party which is a very american thing, surprise party. >> we go debt to. c. mckinnie represent the rest of the world and tell t us? >> strong journalism. >> she had planned it all out. she's very organized and they written a sign that saidni happy birthday and everyone brought some pastries and you're not going to set me up to fail again.

a curry and they are worth diet coke and chocolate so that was an ample supply as well. >> remember the birthday card? >> i wish is going to get to that for the most amazing thing every student in the class and other students made sara this amazing book. back before that the poster board that was in the shape of a diet coke can. it was all of ron with diet coke font in everything. >> yes. if you see a diet coke you know that sarah is not far. as her gift they made her this beautiful book where every student drew her picture as a scene from her home country and every member they gave it to sarah. it was tied together with string and it was like a travelogue of all the places that they had

fled and the memories they wanted to share with her in a really was one of the most beautiful moments that i saw at sullivan and now one of my favorite things in the book too. >> that cell's me a lot about how the students see you sarah. i didn't do that for my teachers in high school. they also sometimes m called yor mom. you referred. >> we always talk to each other about it. when i camee to sullivan high school i will say to everybody and i will say to my family sara for me was a friend, a sister and a mom, or teacher, at help her come everything.

she called my lawyer. i had a speech to give and she helped me with that pitching help me to find a job. she is to spend more than two hours a day with how i have to do deal with people. and she'd say don't do that you have to do it thisik way. and if i want to apply for a job how i should be dressed in my hair and however i needed to look nice for her. further students they say the same thing. when we go to sarah's class we feel like we are at home because i'm telling you she's not only teacher she treats everyone the same. we are all the same and we are as her kids.

>> sarah and sam you call your office. >> actually call it the uterus. i thought that might be inappropriate for the book. >> to me that tells me that's a different dynamic than they average director of the department or particular teacher has with their student. what made you want to approach helping these kids that way? >> because they are all a bunch of babies. they are all a o bunch of 1-year-olds. they are all a bunch of rabies and they are learning to grow or learning how to behave and they are not allowed to leave school, leave the underworld until they have been fully conditioned and

trained and ready for the rest of you to meet them. the uterus is a. just in general i approached the mall as babies. i tell them all the time you are not, you are learning english but you are going to try to get away with something care because you are from somewhere else or you don't speak english. you still a have the -- a brainn your head and you still have experiences and i use the morals and lessons that you've learned and manners. maybe her feet to articulate those because you are learning english but you are not and don't think you can get away with it because you are in a different country and you have a different language. >> i speak three languages now. >> a lot of these kids from sullivan, out speaking not just english with spanish. and i started with english and

ended with english and nothing more.mo >> and how sam and i are talking right now with a lot of humor and a lot of hugs and local translate. there so much humor. if we are laughing were crying. we have definitely lots to cry about. he told the story about the war broke out so we left and came to america. that is to me the shortest quickest easiest description of sam's life. i know where he came from andd i've had dinner at his family's house. his family came to my parents house two years ago for thanksgiving. i know their stories. i know his father and i know his mother and you would be crying if you knew his real story. so i say if we are laughing, were crying.

>> your department at sullivan supports the students that come in. thto me it goes way beyond that. it's about how to get a job and court dates and all that advice to give for cultural notes that might be helpful for him. was the department always taking that approach and how didid it evolve? >> i can't speakt to how it was before i got there. i was hired in the fall of 2012 and i started as a teacher and i just started running my classroom that way. i think you write about -- so i sort of just ran my classroom

that way as a family. i and every monday through thursday with goodbye to love you and have a good night in thursday is go by i love you have a o good weekend and don't get pregnant. it started out as a, i love you i was just kind of stirring the pot. aa student one-time said you knw i love you is the only i love you i get all day and they said in my head now i feel bad for mocking it telling 17 in 18-year-old teenage boys goodbye love you and i started saying it back. this kid said really it's the only i love you i get all day long. i just started it in my classroom and i was promoted and

promotion implies glory and honor. really it's just more work. i was promoted to run the department winds elly started writing the book. >> when i met sarah she was still in the classroom and then she transitioned to the library and much of my reporting and much of the book and it's part of the booke i would say is her office which is just a small room at the back of the library, the uterus room. s,she was stationed with her department had so much of the ethos of her classroom was translated into this corner of the library and you are talking about how sam's family had come and had dinner with you and i've had dinner at your family's house in your mom made me an incredible feast with the

warning don't sleep on it. and it's so much of where the heart of the book unfolds. there's a little table that kind of functioned as a family dinner table and the students that came into that room to nap during ramadan. also to find that family feel for that's where and met a lot of the students who i ended up howling in the book because i was there and they were there and in many cases when they get their footing and find their way to sullivan they show up to the library less and less. they leave the nest and away and that's ultimately what we want. they acclimate them become more comfortable. because sullivan is a place where there's always new

students and they are about to get many moreud from afghanista. there are all these people at the table and the reason i spent those of my time there. it felt like really it was a typical space that sat at the heart of everything that sullivan was doing. specter introduced the kids to each other and new kids coming in and leaving. i would always introduce them to each other and i'd say this is your brother and this is your sister and you'd end up having quite a mall a adult these different countries sitting oneo the table and the people who worked in the office trying to get work done while were sitting round gathering about it. >> you say loving way. >> i do. they know it. they are rattling on about a number angst. i'm trying to work here.

it's so dramatic. i would introduce them as this is your brother, this is your sister in the coolest thing is when you see them interacting with each other in the hallways for classrooms and you'd see two or three students who nowhere out of sullivan would you see these different languagess interacting and certainly not supporting and loving each other and helping each other and joking around the way they do. you just look at these kids and think if the rest of us could get our act together and behave the way they do it would be a better place. >> i whichsa is going to say teenagers do spend a lot of time talking about who they are dating and gossiping and stop that he can feel trivial.

i was one ofte my say they were things about being at sullivan. also universal language and no matter where they arere coming from they are still teenagers and that was also really important to the story. all that stuff they are talking about and gossiping about is from my perspective as i don't have to try to teach them in the classroom. one of my favorite things about sullivan is something i spend a lot of time talking about in the book because it was -- it's what makes us the same and even though i'm not at teenager anymore i see myself in that and all those experiences that still are so close to the surface even with me. i wanted to write about that too. >> i just want too tell everyone we are almost to the end here.

if you have questions please feel free to ask them. i'm going to ask one or two more.wo elly what sticks out to me is you mentioned resiliency. what sticks out to me is the story of community and wheref e find community in the most surprising ways and how community involves and definitions of community evolved. would you say that's the point of "refugee high"? >> in many ways yes and also how the school fits into the community and one of the things i think sullivan in particular he the staff that sullivan do so well as they recognize that they are part of the broader community and really invite neighbors in and build that

community from the classroom outward. it extends beyond the four year or however many years the kids are in the building. i still keep in touch with many students and it's also a reflection of the neighborhood in chicago were sullivan sits. it's a neighborhood as sara mentioned the whole neighborhood came out. to place that rises up around sullivan in many ways and rises up around refugees and immigrants too. that is community. >> sarah i'm going to get the last question to you. you mentioned the physical space at your offices and the relationships that you build with the students which are obviously long-lasting. during the pandemic a lot of the

last year and a half was remote and we didn't have the space w o interact to build a relationship and that physical space so one how do you cater to the needs of these kids that really r need hp andd how are you navigating back and building relationships? >> we lost a lot of it. i'm sure there were a lot of things that fell through the cracks, things that kids rely on an and school staff noticing. they are things that happen at home or in our personal lives that go unnoticed that trained professionals are untrained and which were around each other all the time that we notice in students and leave their homes. there's a lot of stuff that we

miss and a lot of things that we could could come i would two sudans home and met with her in her backyard. she didn't go to school for three weeks and it was her senior year. i drove her over there. i said you stand there and i'm standing here and i'm not leaving until we figure out why you are in school. i had co-workers who did the same thing. josh the social worker and one of the social workers at my school would run groups outside the park and not for drive to peoples homes and drop things off outside their doors. we relied heavily on the kids reaching out for help which they aren't always so good about doing. it will take a long time to catch up. >> with>> that really 45 minute?

we c were talking for 45 minute? >> can't do that. >> i wanted to see if anybody has any questions. >> eye. i just want to say that i love you are look at the first page the last and i wish it was longer. >> thank you. my only complaint is i wanted to know what the various languages were. if you run the sample on that topline and mention what languagege it was. >> oh yeah. i can do my best. what i will say about the cover, on the cover right? many of these translations are from the studentsth themselves o it's actually there handwriting

and jacqueline over in the audience there. we had students write out in their native languages and we photoshopped it together to be this cover. there is arabic and there is swahili and or do -- perdue and their spanish and a couple other ones to which i could say if i had my notes in front of me. that was really special. i wanted to have a way to bring the kids onto the cover and that was it. >> the third one in particular i couldn't figure out what language that would end. >> i think that's nepalese.

oh the fifth is nepalese. >> i want to say your grandmother is very proud of you >> oh thank you. she was at classmate of mine in a memoir writingoi group. that was another place i wrote about once. >> any other questions? >> what i was going to ask the english department you were at the way you do. what about mathut and science? do they take the same kind of approach? teacher questions, finally. we are very fortunate that we have an administration that

supports innovation and creative with thought and creative approaches to everything so what we ended up doing was we are in english learner department we made ourselves our own cold heart and their own departments and the english learner in department is math anguish science history are 10 jim go the entire day that the kids see and then we have our own meetings staff development and everything that the regular school is doing we are doing. we can do it on our own. we havepe a special ed departmet where we planned their step and whatever suits their students needs we get to do the sameam thing. the math teacher and a science teacher are all doing the same to.

munich this is a question for sam. i know you haveou assimilated n. i would like you to reflect on how you maintain your traditions inai yours cultures now that you become an american. >> or do you even want to and is that something that you value? it's okay to say no. just explain to us why. >> she's always a teacher.

my parents would determine college and learned english and i started speaking with my friend and i would speak in arabic with them too. half of my friends are arabic and have them are. i speak right now like aspen hill. i have two who speak with me. like family always says don't lose it. noat matter what you leave here and you'll have family here in kids here. don't lose this language. that's your own language. >> she's asking about tradition and holidays and customs. when you first came to america you did not hug women.

and now you do. she wants to know do you still maintain- a link to any of them? >> not really. my life is here so i'm doing it the same way. we don't have things called tanks giving like here. a lot ofwh other holidays like e don't have that there. i'm living here my life is here and it has changed completely here so i have to live as people are living here. >> thank you everyone. i have a question about the

social networking and telecommunications networks that students have been school. they are communicating with friends from all over the world andpl friends they had in refuge camps before they got here. did you have any sense of what it's like comparing their life here to the people who were relocated in other countries and where does it stand in the imagination of the people whot are here and how did these refugees the united states communicate about their lives here with those who ended up somewhere else? >> do you have friends you talk to? >> i have friends in syria and france and egypt. i always cry when i remember the story. my friends went to germany a

small boat in the ocean. my test friend he disappeared and they couldn't even find his bodysa in the water in the ocea. i have a lot of friends and america is always a dream so someonent wanted to go to ameria what are you talking about? it's hard to go there and how are you going to live there and how we have a family life in language? people have it as a dream. when people start coming and people start learning words it starts to become, it's normal. he's living in america okay. my friends always say can we find a way to come there?

i say i don't know. when i talk to my friends in syria they don't have electricity and they don't have water or food. there a lot of things that they don't have that we have. i have questions for my other friends i k what you driving? i don't like to show these people what i have right now. they do work hard for it. i had a job and i used to work threend jobs and i have my own business. i don't show my friend what i have here because they cannot that. no matter what i'm driving i'm still the same person. even if i have 1 dollar in my pocket or 2 million were millions of dollars they are still my friends and i'm the same. i don't like tohe show myself ad

what i have right now because it's a dream for them. a lot of evil in egypt they go to find a way to get here and there is no way to get here especially with covid. people came here five months ago. that was the last plane to chicago. after it that they stopped and people would say i'm going soon, next month, next year. i'm waiting for my uncle to come. >> i think we could probably ask questions and listen all afternoon.ut sadly the time has come to an end. i want to thank you all for your time. please give them a round of applause. [applause] and thank you for telling your

stories. we really appreciate it.

.. ♪ ♪ up to its neck and doctor clark's character the greatest characteristic of being in america we striving to provide equal opportunity for all citizens brickwork's

documentary competition 2022. students across the country are getting behind the scenes looks as they work on their entries student cam. if you are a middle high school soon you can join the conversation by entering the c-span student camp competition created five -- six minute documentary using c-span video clips but answer the question how the federal government affects your life. >> we are discussing to express your view no matter how large or small you see it to be. and know that in the greatest country in the history of the earth it doesn't matter precooked all the filmmakers out the member that content is king. and remember to be as neutral and impartial as possible. both sides of an issue precooked c-span awards $100,000 in cash and prizes. grand prize of