this can be an emblem not being an american is bigger than which party you belong to. >> a graduate of yale law schoolol formerly a commercial litigator now managing partner a firm dedicated to advocating for education and civil rights her writing has l appeared in major publications such as "the new york times" and "washington post" living in brooklyn with her husband and their two dogs.

please give a warm savanna welcome. [applause] >> in the episode of seinfeld call the library cop the library investigation officer this it jerry's apartment. the visit occurs because according to library records, jerry had that topic of cancernc checked out since 1971, but according to jerry he returned at the same year. when he learns of the dilemma, kramer is terrified. do you know how much that comes to? that is a nickel a day for 20 years? that willbu be $50000. when jerry corrects him it doesn't work like that but

then a fear that would have sent chills through my body a dime the day is $100,000. when the lieutenant arrives on the scene he delivers the best monologue of the series and i will try to do it justice. let me tell you something, funny boy. you know thatt little stamp that says new york public library? that may not mean anything to you. but it means a. lot to me. sure, go ahead, laugh if you want to. before.een your type flashing, making a scene, flaunting convention. yeah, i know what you are thinking. what is this guy making a big stink about all library books? let me give you a hint, junior. maybe we can live without libraries people like you and

me, maybe. we are too old to change the world. but what about that kid sitting down opening a book a branch at the local library to find drawings on pp and we we in the cat and a hat and the five chinese brothers? does he deserve better? if you think this is about missing books and overdue fines think again. okay. [laughter] i know what you're thinking. what is she doing? why is she starting with this when will she stop? i am afraid to tell you i will never stopor quoting seinfeld. as a jewish new yorker who grew up in the nineties i'm legally required to open every speech with a reference of seinfeld. i don't make the rules. but the reality is, it is a

beautiful, special day like this when so many of us get to get together to celebrate the written word. he may have been comically overzealous about his job to live up to his name after all. but he got something very .ight books are so much more than words on paper. for a lonely child, they may well be her home, her refuge, her pipeline to a brighter future. i know this because i was that child. when i moved to america from china in 1984 everything that i have ever known disappeared. for the first time in my life i a saw myself a racial minority and a land where i didn't speak the language on a continent where i knew no one but my parents.

thrown into 14 hour shifts of physical labor and at the sweatshop where we make pennies for article of clothing and at the sushi plant from exposure tole icewater. learning that i was newly illegal i walked the other way whenever i saw anyone in uniform, cop or custodian. the firsts english word i learned was a slur for chinese that etched into my brain with a certain knowledge that my race was repugnant. the memory of our first days in america still come to me of loneliness and hunger. i still remember that confusion that enveloped me as i wondered how the chinese would call this land literally

translated, beautiful country. that albert einstein once said, the only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library. we call that man a genius for reason. when i found the branch a block away one day the fog and confusion dissipated and my world opened up again. i was no longer alone library cannot restore my life in china giving back my familyed and friends but it did supply new companions clifford the big red dog in the very hungry can a pillar, the berenstein bears, amelia delia and soon the babysitters club in sweet valley high. thanks to the library i was no

longer living alone with my parents in a single room with rotation of immigrant families, instead i was sitting in claudia's bedroom in stony brook connecticut. hanging out with my friends and fielding babysitting calls just like any other american kid. fans of the babysitters club may recall claudia like to hide junk food in hollow books and it reminded me of home. growing up in the persecuted family during the cultural revolution my father hit his favorite english books manyis band under the floorboards of is ransacked tom he would later become an english literature professor but quickly found even in his classroom he was not free to

teaches students the critical thought and social commentary that he so admired in the words of mark twain and others. he often told me returning frustrated from days of us are teaching was tax a favor books under his arms that narrative is power and nothing matters more than the stories we tell. and the message is more important now than ever before and every time i saw this in china but i did not believe it or living until i arrived in america and discovered the safety of books. as i taught myself english on volume after volume learning about the parts of america otherwise and accessible to me i learned i was not too different from the books so

often portrayed as a writing beautiful country from there there was no saving me. i lived and breathed books. actually think that lynn may have understated the importance of books that offers companionship for the lonely and saves lives in a roadmap to the last. refuge for the persecuted. and in the darkness of undocumented life the number one priority was blending in and my father told me early akand often if i can learn to speak english perfectly, just like a native speaker then i could possibly say that i have been born here a full and legitimate american and allown

no suspicion about the immigration status. if i could blend in i knew exactly what christmas was and what los angelesn look like then i would fit in just like another american kid. and that information and access to safety and belonging was freely available to me in one place. and one place alone. and now is an education lawyer i see the sanctuary they offer to the rest of our society that has forgotten to those who have no adult supervision after school no means to travel around the world and no one telling them they are loved, safe, worthy, every single volume offers the voice, the hope, and the guidance they need to chart a

different path to dream the bigger dream for themselves. and for those children they offer a home in the presence on —- in the present and in the future. this is even more true for then it was for me because i was fortunate to have landed in a large city walking from library to library from bookstore to bookstore to avail myself of allnt the public resources for free. i had countless books at my r disposal and i chose for myself the stories and wanted to read. but yet even in that freedom, i felt at times, loss. reflections only came in slivers through suburban and households and in the diary of anne frank whose identity

meant she also had to grow up in hiding in through the eyes of jonas seeing all that wasn't visible to others the glimmers of recognition for even more precious because they were rare and under their eyes i felt seen and hope they signal likely to be worthy of america can love those characters perhaps i also could be loved perhaps i was not so different after all had a grown up in a different part of the united states or in a different time it is worth returning at this point to my father's words that narrative is power and nothing matters more than the story we tell.

just days ago the american library association reported the unprecedented 330 challenges and in november i was fortunate to speak at a library and convention where i was shocked to at the act of providing equal access to books and resources have become more political on —- politicized and exhausted than ever the movement to ban books is not just happening in classrooms but in our libraries across the nation and discourse. i am sure you all remember a time inou your childhood when you're parenthood on —- when your parents were godlike 200 feet tall and all-knowing and all encompassing as long as they were around you are safe. for me, that smoke screen

faded early. when i landed at jfk at age seven i saw my parents shrink down to mere mortals size. overnight they were reduced to fallible beings were just as afraid and confused and lost as i was. but library books and the characters never lost the equality and over the years learning to fear all authority figures under the fear of authority or deportation. librarians for the host to my best friends are the only beings where it was safe to be my true self. and charlotte and wilbur who we mean by northstar from friendship and those who kept me company when i felt singularly odd. and when i feel that i alone

had endured the stress of moving in. the abrupt conditions, just need to think of mrs. frisbie and the rats. through the library that t i learned for the first time about the work of thurgood marshall and the work of ruth bader ginsburg and 25 years ago i resolve to become a lawyer just like them and change the stories our country chose to tell in the courtrooms and laws in books. neither that day nor that conviction has left me. but the they are etched into my being in my heart mourns from the red fern grows and to the silliness of the wayside school and then a wrinkle in

time. the most of all the honor of having found books that reflected me at a time when i needed them gave me a sense of perhaps, despite all messaging, start singularly unwanted. that perhaps i wasass just as r the as the next child. to this day, whenever i feel scared and lost there a few things more comforting than the sight and smell of books here the book festival at 9:00 a.m. on a saturday. [laughter] i suspect you can relate. so now that you know a little that about me, i think it may be safe for me to share a confession. i'm actually not that different from jerry. sometime over the winter in the fifth grade in 1998 i also

had a missing overdue book because i checked out a new batch of books one afternoon librarians and there was a problem for five period you book out there was quickly accruing fines. i said i remembered returning at the week before but the system had a record of it. when i heard this i always sink into the ground with what would happen if i was not allowed to borrow books anymore? would we be thrown into prison for the debt? what i get to read imprisoned? [laughter] worst of all, as i went home and had no book weather because i lost it or returned it without record, but would happen? does the library have other copies or what i forever deprive the other children of

that branch cracks the fear was particularly weighty because the book in question was number 82 in the babysitters club. [laughter] don't worry you may not have the numbers memorize like i do but that just means you are a normal person. number 82 in the series was called jesse in the troublemaker. it primarily followed jessica ramsey's frustration with one sitting charge, daniel roberts. both characters meant the absolute world to me. jesse was the only black member of theil babysitters club and it felt like her family was the only black family in town just like claudia the only asian member she had on prejudice and ignorance that

were far too common in my life. meanwhile daniel was a childless leukemia. while i was fortunate enough not to have endured anything like what daniel went through, i had a sick mother and we were terrified of all the attention from doctors or hospitals or otherwise and they experienced a part and then together i found reflections of my reality. and now i had gone and misplaced that book. no other child who is struggling with issues can find the comfort that i did. and to me that was the absolute worst. in the end, my librarian was far more lenient than kramer would have suggested they would not be a $100,000 charge.

she said they would flag it and system and given six months to reemerge. they promised i would go home and look thoroughly in case i had forgotten it. seeing the tears in my eyes and said don't worry dear, it always turns up. and of course she was right. it was not at home but if humans later when i inquired about the book at checkout , and i always did the new pet i cannot stop thinking about was the absence. i was told the book have been found. the book have been found and the flight was removed from my account and the overdue charges growing if not the

system but in my brain were white clean. i was free. for a child who was always reading five books at once, every individual book mattered because of what ite portrayed and the message it shared and how it is uniquely positioned to touch and that was the idea that motivated me to a book the fact that my life may matter just one person into signal to an immigrant child that she deserves to be on shelves. and then to hope for my after

all that is why so many of us here are trying to read, write and then commune in the power of storytelling. but what happens to the fabric of our society? empathy? but then another and then another and another. a row of that then where the adults go to feel less lonely and suggest. so as you walk around what an

immensees privilege enjoyed is to be immersed in so many stories, so many perspectives, so many ideas. you don't have to agree with them at 2020 this is at its greatestha this is the kind of day that shows us of how we live in the united states, empowered we are to have words to change the world. howie michael forward to share all the stories we're fortunate to hear. i always imagined that paradise is a kind of

library. well, as you walk around paradise that you can preserve and share she tivo all around you in the weeks and months to come you have the power to rally for change but not calling on the so then as i have legally required to open a closed it with that one. [laughter] maybe we can live we are too old to change the world. but what about that kid sitting down opening a book right now?

can be the voice and the champion of what makes america beautiful. thank you so much. [applause] i'm very happy to take questions one question per person if nobody asks anything i will be having to sing. [laughter] >> thank you so much for

coming t today. you mentioned now that you work as an education lawyer did your love of reading influence the decision to go into that field? >> absolutely i am fortunate enough to be a lawyer having seen inside our judicial system and as we practiced over the years it became very apparent to me that around to systemic change and progress is in our education system on the resources of the power of literacy on my experiences and children and to the direction

of educational law and that is probably the greatest public good i could contribute to. thank you. spent the first barnes & noble gift card was wasted on workbook and a dictionaries if you got $50 today what would you spend it on? >> i don't know how much they go for now that at least five or ten of the babysitters club series. [laughter] recently they've been recast as graphic novels i cannot expose myself to because i want to tarnish the original experience but i would be very curious to read those as well i wish i could get that certificate back. >> i was saddened when i was

reading your book but the parallels and then 25 years previous to yours and i'm just curious as to what you see as immigrantso experiences now.n >> thank you for asking that question i am honored to be compared to her. not only a huge change but advances that we make available through new immigrants but also so often what i see on the ground in chinatown and the problem with the american dream is the way

they materially change for me walking from my fancy home to my fancy law office and on the way there and those going to the trash with their parents to have some of the same pains and fears i would grapple with and that i so want to pick up the child and say it will be okay and there are people fighting for you but i'm afraid it would terrify the child more. so i can do to keep waking up every day and pushing for the change but every day the survivors guilt follows me and it feels like it is not enough every day.

>> my book club read your book and we are curious as when you ended it when you did but there was more life. >> i always wanted this book to focus on those five years. i know it's on to say of them but i really didn't think of my book as being about me or my life. i wanted it to be a celebration and attribute to new immigrants and children in that special and universal time in our childhood where we go out in the world and we don't understand what is going on and we are so incredibly open and vulnerable and we love to become guarded at the things that can save us and whatea is dangerous. i want to own into those precious years because when

you peel back all of the layers at that little child inside of us the way we engage with each other and interact with the world and that seven -year-old child is very much me. i am only 34 and they don't trust myself to have the wisdom to have enough important things to say about the later years but many people have asked me that question so now i'm thinking of possibly a follow-up to the book. >> i love your talk. i grew up in a very small rural community we have a mobile but when i became a school-age my primary means of having a book was the school

library and that was really for me and i went to law school but i'm just curious what is your feeling because you are an education lawyer as well and the fact the last two years so many children have not been able to actually be physically and the school with perhaps access to the school library which is the only place they can get books. now they are going back we cannot predict what could happen next year or the year after. your thoughts on that? because school libraries are so important. >> the pandemic magnified in those because i relied on those free meals and it may no longer be feasible or feel safe to go out to get the meal

so what happens to the children who don't have food or books at home or internet access and when i have seen engaging with community librarians and then where they can access pdf resources and to send out virtual resources every day to make sure families are attuned to them but they have become the frontlines but even so in my work and my firm i have seen a lot of developmental delays and as we know one year of missed education has ripple effects across the child's future. as everything i am focusing on

to minimize the discrepancies but it is a valid concern and i would say making those public resources as widely available as possible for those who may not have internet access or access to electronic devices should be a first and foremost goal of government and agencies and community members like you. >> i'm curious am only halfway through the book but with all that context in the child the good and the bad have you ever

run into those people as a grown-up. >> the little girl to translate for you any of those influences? you had so many anything you had run into ever again? >> i was fortunate to found a very closed and it and tightknit community. i am leaving from here to go straight to the airport because my best friend from the third grade is getting married tomorrow and i amia officiating. i'm very b excited i've never done this before. i don't mess it up. the book also brought me back to ps 124 where i spoke to a lot of the teachers there

including my second grade teacher was still teaching as well as former classmates who are now teachers. they also had some choice words to say about the teacher i describe as mr. kane. i got a lot of e-mails bemoaning teachers like him. but teaching is a hard job i do not begrudge him at all. the most special perhaps is my third grade teacher principal at ps 124 put us in touch and i sent her photos of the charlotte's web copy that she gave me when i was eight years old. she could not believe i had kept it all these years. but then she said me copies of cards that i gave her often full of gibberish that she kept 28 years or 30 years. and i did not remember. i guess i remembered a little

bit if remember how much of a snarky and sneaky kid i was the in one of the cards i guess i was apologizing because i got in trouble for speaking chinese i said is not my fault because my friend did and it was followed by a riddle what do you call a rich on a beach? to think that she thought that line of random ramblings was special enough to keep comment made me cry instantaneously it is so very special. she has children of her own and we are planning to meet up in brooklyn when everything is less hectic that this book has brought about so many developments and connections i cannot even have talent and i feel like the luckiest person in c the world and i think connecting with readers and

everyone like you that the book has resonated more than i could have thought because it does prove my initial hypothesis that when you pull back the labels really we are not different at all. thank you so much. [applause] >> the broader question why does this matter to the rest of the world? china's willingness to destroy a place like hong kong what threat does hong kong pose to china? was hong kong really going to become independent?

they were worried after 1989 with the spirit of liberty and freedom spilled over to the mainland which clearly was not happening then anytime there is a demonstration those in beijing's see color revolution and then the collapse of the soviet union and arab spring and things that have happened in central asia so they just have to whacked down any kind of uprising. but the bigger point is what china did in hong kong was what is trying to do in lithuania today and australia south korea and the philippines. country after country and steps out of line as far as china is concerned and then to hit hard in the chinese use their language with a variety of places to use the degree of