the world is divided despite all of the
technology we have that keeps us
connected however there is a way to
combat this division and that’s learning
more languages because the more
languages that you learn the more people
you interact with and the more people
you interact with the more cultures you
interact with which ultimately leads to
less confusion lucky for us there are
plenty of ways to learn a new language
today whether that’s downloading an app
on your phone going online or taking a
class so let’s all imagine that we’re
doing just that we’re on this journey
together so the first couple things one
would learn is maybe how to count to 10
maybe some numbers and then you would
progress from there but let’s start out
by talking about my family so I am the
youngest of four children and so family
of six and I love my family they were
super supportive when I’m learning
Spanish and they even let me teach him
some things but they’re monolingual we
only speak English in my house so for
the longest time I thought I was only
destined to know English like my family
doesn’t know it why should I know it so
if you’re coming here today with that
same idea that well I only speak this
language at home why would I ever be
able to speak another one forget that
idea you can do it so that leads me to
my first story I am a rehabilitation
technician at a rehab center not too far
from here and I typically help patients
who have suffered from brain injury
whether that’s traumatic brain injury or
suffering from something like a stroke
so one day I was in the physical therapy
gym with a patient who was
wheelchair-bound so the patient and I
are in the physical therapy gym and she
has a gait belt around her waist which
is just like a little belt so I have
something to hold on to and we’re about
to practice it to stands so especially
for wheelchair-bound patients this is
super important so they’re going from a
seated position to a standing position
and they have to practice it a lot in
order for them to progress so
start walking so my job was the easy
part all I had to do was cure you know
count to three and hold on to her when
she decided to stand up so I look at the
patient I’m grabbing on to her and I say
one two three and I’m pulling up and she
just sits there she’s not moving she
just has this blank stare and I was like
well dang maybe she didn’t hear me so I
looked at her again and I grabbed on to
her and I said one two three and I’m
pulling up and she’s just sitting there
and I was thinking wow okay um
oh yeah her chart so her chart says that
the patient speaks both English and
Spanish but maybe because of her stroke
it interfered with her ability to
interpret English so I had a new idea I
looked at the patient and I grabbed on
to her and I said uno dos tres and she
stood straight up she knew exactly what
to do because I was speaking her
language so that moment didn’t take a
lot of work to learn how to say 1 2 3 in
Spanish but it did take a lot of courage
a lot of courage because it was my first
time using Spanish in a professional
setting so I was later reflecting on
this event and I thought you know I only
learned numbers and I was able to help
somebody a little bit what if I learned
some more so I started learning sentence
structure I was able to conjugate the
verbs to make a complete sentence so
then I was keeping my eyes out to maybe
be able to help someone else because
that little bit of helping the woman at
the rehab center it was motivating me to
learn even more so after I learned
sentence structure I was keeping my eye
out for a new opportunity to practice so
that leads me to my next story I last
year I was an intern at a hospital so I
was following around all these different
medical professionals to see what type
of job I want to do when I grow up so
one day I was following around a
respiratory therapist and a nurse and we
were going into a patient’s room who’d
just come out of a coma so they were
coming out of sedation and patient was
really confused and we needed to take
him off of the ventilator because he was
breathing on his own paula was the
patient didn’t speak English and the
staff didn’t speak Spanish
and my heart was pounding I was like
this is it this is where I get to use it
so I grabbed onto some courage somewhere
and I said I can speak Spanish and the
respiratory therapist the nurse just
kind of looked at me they’re like really
I said yeah we need to tell him so they
were telling me like yeah we need to
tell more what we’re gonna do you know
we’re gonna take out this tube and I was
like oh my goodness I don’t know how to
say those words I don’t know how to say
to I don’t know how to say extubation
and I was like what did I just volunteer
for so I pulled the phone out of my back
pocket the one resource that I had went
to an online translator typed in tube
comes back to bow all right guess I can
do this so I looked at the patient you
know and I was explaining the procedure
the best that I could with the knowledge
that I knew the words that were on my
vocabulary list and the words from the
online translator and a little bit that
I did know I was able to help the
patient you know he didn’t swallow all
good like he was supposed to and he was
able to go through the procedure really
well because I found some courage
somewhere and was able to step up and
practice what I learned so I was
reflecting on that situation later and I
got to thinking you know I learned
numbers I was able to help that lady at
the rehab center
I learned sentence structure I was able
to help the man at the hospital so what
if I stepped it up a little bit so I got
all of my friends at the time we’re
still great friends today who are native
speakers in Spanish I said you gotta
start talking to me in Spanish so I can
get pronunciation down I can start
picking up common phrases because I want
to get to conversation level and I
started doing a couple of other things
too I started listening to radio in
Spanish and I started watching Spanish
novellas I was trying to increase my
interaction with Spanish as much as I
could because the more I interacted with
it the more confidence I was going to be
able to have to use it one day in a real
setting and that brings me to my next
story
so I work at the Austin College
Admission Center which is just across
campus here and one day I was sitting at
the front desk and a family comes in and
they were all speaking Spanish and so
eventually the Sun came up to the front
desk and he said hey I’m a student and
I’m interested in Austin College is
there any way that
can get a campus tour I was like this is
it this is what I can do so I ran over
to my boss’s office and I said there’s a
family here who needs a campus tour in
Spanish can I do it and my boss is
looking at me like you can do that he
had no idea that I spoke Spanish or was
attempting to and I had just gotten the
campus tour guide job a week ago so
found a lot of confidence and went over
to my boss my boss like all right well
go ahead so I went back into the lobby
with the family and I said I’m gonna be
able to give you a campus tour in
Spanish and they’re excited as I am and
so the tour was going great family and I
were having a great time and then I hit
this big roadblock we get to the coffee
shop here on campus which is the
kangaroo coffee company where students
can use their kangaroo hopper dollars
which are like pre-loaded money for
students to buy a coffee at the shop and
because we have all these kangaroo
things here because we’re the Austin
College kangaroos so the big problem I
had was I don’t know the word for
kangaroo and I’m trying to get this
family to understand kangaroo okay we’re
the Kangaroos and I’m like what am I
gonna do and so I was forced to describe
it so I looked at the family for help
and I said okay this big animal in
Australia that jumps up and down and has
a big tail and I look crazy because I’m
jumping up and down in a coffee shop and
the family and I our bus are laughing
uncontrollably and eventually they got
what I was trying to say but it dawned
on me that if that would have happened
to me in English I would have done the
same thing I wouldn’t have just stopped
communicating if I didn’t know a word I
would have relied on the people around
me to help me out and I would have
started describing it so that they could
help me figure out what I was trying to
say so all of these moments you know I
was reflecting on that and the rehab
center and the hospital and I was
thinking okay I really want to up my
Annie so maybe I know the language but I
really want to start appreciating the
culture and appreciating the people who
speak language so that’s when I booked
my trip to Puerto Rico which was
probably the most courage I ever had to
take on this journey of learning another
language because it was my first time
traveling alone without my family I was
so out of my comfort zone I landed
Porto Rico and the stop signs weren’t
even in English and so everything was so
new to me but I was learning so much
because I was interacting with the
people and the culture and the language
simultaneously so I was with my class
and we had a Puerto Rican tour guide so
she knew everything about the island and
she was showing us all sorts of things
so we got to see a coffee plantation and
we got to go to a cooking class and make
a native Puerto Rican dish and we were
learning all sorts of things that we
couldn’t have learned in a textbook and
it was helping us appreciate the culture
and the people and the countries that
speak Spanish so I remember one day real
specifically we were walking through old
San Juan and we were going to dinner
that night and I remember our tour guide
pointing out this man in the road who
had this giant iguana and he’s just like
holding him like a sack of potatoes just
like random guy in the street with an
iguana and I was like what is this guy
doing and the lady are our tour guide
points out she’s like well that man is
actually like that’s how he makes his
living he like lets people hold his pet
and you know that’s how he gets a living
and so before I know it my Spanish
teacher is pushing me over there towards
the guy with the iguana with some money
in my hand and she’s just yelling like
iguana on your neck and before I
know it
Juana when all its glory and all its
scales is on the back of my neck and I’m
freaking out and it dawned on me that
this is where I came full circle I was
interacting with the people and the
language and the culture all at once and
I was learning so much so as we all go
on this journey together of learning
another language and it doesn’t have to
be Spanish it can be whatever language
that you choose if you only want to
learn a little bit of that language then
do that if you only want to learn
numbers you can do that and still have a
meaningful interaction with someone
however whatever you learn you have to
use it because if you know it and you’re
just sitting on that knowledge it
doesn’t help anybody it doesn’t benefit
anybody but the more that you know and
the more you’re using what you know the
more motivated you will be to learn even
more you’re not going to be satisfied
with just knowing numbers and
their language you’re gonna want to know
sentence structure and you’re gonna want
to know how to have a conversation in
that language and it’s gonna build up
your confidence to actually use it in
real life so as we draw here to a close
I want you to think about a language
that you want to start speaking and just
do maybe a little bit each day to build
up your confidence to start speaking
that language with somebody who could
benefit from it so I was interacting
with the people and the language and the
culture and all of that combined was
helping me see the value of Spanish and
appreciate everything so much more and
interacting with the people and the
language and the culture is what makes
our world more connected and more
unified and that I think is an idea
worth spreading
thank you [Applause]
technology we have that keeps us
connected however there is a way to
combat this division and that’s learning
more languages because the more
languages that you learn the more people
you interact with and the more people
you interact with the more cultures you
interact with which ultimately leads to
less confusion lucky for us there are
plenty of ways to learn a new language
today whether that’s downloading an app
on your phone going online or taking a
class so let’s all imagine that we’re
doing just that we’re on this journey
together so the first couple things one
would learn is maybe how to count to 10
maybe some numbers and then you would
progress from there but let’s start out
by talking about my family so I am the
youngest of four children and so family
of six and I love my family they were
super supportive when I’m learning
Spanish and they even let me teach him
some things but they’re monolingual we
only speak English in my house so for
the longest time I thought I was only
destined to know English like my family
doesn’t know it why should I know it so
if you’re coming here today with that
same idea that well I only speak this
language at home why would I ever be
able to speak another one forget that
idea you can do it so that leads me to
my first story I am a rehabilitation
technician at a rehab center not too far
from here and I typically help patients
who have suffered from brain injury
whether that’s traumatic brain injury or
suffering from something like a stroke
so one day I was in the physical therapy
gym with a patient who was
wheelchair-bound so the patient and I
are in the physical therapy gym and she
has a gait belt around her waist which
is just like a little belt so I have
something to hold on to and we’re about
to practice it to stands so especially
for wheelchair-bound patients this is
super important so they’re going from a
seated position to a standing position
and they have to practice it a lot in
order for them to progress so
start walking so my job was the easy
part all I had to do was cure you know
count to three and hold on to her when
she decided to stand up so I look at the
patient I’m grabbing on to her and I say
one two three and I’m pulling up and she
just sits there she’s not moving she
just has this blank stare and I was like
well dang maybe she didn’t hear me so I
looked at her again and I grabbed on to
her and I said one two three and I’m
pulling up and she’s just sitting there
and I was thinking wow okay um
oh yeah her chart so her chart says that
the patient speaks both English and
Spanish but maybe because of her stroke
it interfered with her ability to
interpret English so I had a new idea I
looked at the patient and I grabbed on
to her and I said uno dos tres and she
stood straight up she knew exactly what
to do because I was speaking her
language so that moment didn’t take a
lot of work to learn how to say 1 2 3 in
Spanish but it did take a lot of courage
a lot of courage because it was my first
time using Spanish in a professional
setting so I was later reflecting on
this event and I thought you know I only
learned numbers and I was able to help
somebody a little bit what if I learned
some more so I started learning sentence
structure I was able to conjugate the
verbs to make a complete sentence so
then I was keeping my eyes out to maybe
be able to help someone else because
that little bit of helping the woman at
the rehab center it was motivating me to
learn even more so after I learned
sentence structure I was keeping my eye
out for a new opportunity to practice so
that leads me to my next story I last
year I was an intern at a hospital so I
was following around all these different
medical professionals to see what type
of job I want to do when I grow up so
one day I was following around a
respiratory therapist and a nurse and we
were going into a patient’s room who’d
just come out of a coma so they were
coming out of sedation and patient was
really confused and we needed to take
him off of the ventilator because he was
breathing on his own paula was the
patient didn’t speak English and the
staff didn’t speak Spanish
and my heart was pounding I was like
this is it this is where I get to use it
so I grabbed onto some courage somewhere
and I said I can speak Spanish and the
respiratory therapist the nurse just
kind of looked at me they’re like really
I said yeah we need to tell him so they
were telling me like yeah we need to
tell more what we’re gonna do you know
we’re gonna take out this tube and I was
like oh my goodness I don’t know how to
say those words I don’t know how to say
to I don’t know how to say extubation
and I was like what did I just volunteer
for so I pulled the phone out of my back
pocket the one resource that I had went
to an online translator typed in tube
comes back to bow all right guess I can
do this so I looked at the patient you
know and I was explaining the procedure
the best that I could with the knowledge
that I knew the words that were on my
vocabulary list and the words from the
online translator and a little bit that
I did know I was able to help the
patient you know he didn’t swallow all
good like he was supposed to and he was
able to go through the procedure really
well because I found some courage
somewhere and was able to step up and
practice what I learned so I was
reflecting on that situation later and I
got to thinking you know I learned
numbers I was able to help that lady at
the rehab center
I learned sentence structure I was able
to help the man at the hospital so what
if I stepped it up a little bit so I got
all of my friends at the time we’re
still great friends today who are native
speakers in Spanish I said you gotta
start talking to me in Spanish so I can
get pronunciation down I can start
picking up common phrases because I want
to get to conversation level and I
started doing a couple of other things
too I started listening to radio in
Spanish and I started watching Spanish
novellas I was trying to increase my
interaction with Spanish as much as I
could because the more I interacted with
it the more confidence I was going to be
able to have to use it one day in a real
setting and that brings me to my next
story
so I work at the Austin College
Admission Center which is just across
campus here and one day I was sitting at
the front desk and a family comes in and
they were all speaking Spanish and so
eventually the Sun came up to the front
desk and he said hey I’m a student and
I’m interested in Austin College is
there any way that
can get a campus tour I was like this is
it this is what I can do so I ran over
to my boss’s office and I said there’s a
family here who needs a campus tour in
Spanish can I do it and my boss is
looking at me like you can do that he
had no idea that I spoke Spanish or was
attempting to and I had just gotten the
campus tour guide job a week ago so
found a lot of confidence and went over
to my boss my boss like all right well
go ahead so I went back into the lobby
with the family and I said I’m gonna be
able to give you a campus tour in
Spanish and they’re excited as I am and
so the tour was going great family and I
were having a great time and then I hit
this big roadblock we get to the coffee
shop here on campus which is the
kangaroo coffee company where students
can use their kangaroo hopper dollars
which are like pre-loaded money for
students to buy a coffee at the shop and
because we have all these kangaroo
things here because we’re the Austin
College kangaroos so the big problem I
had was I don’t know the word for
kangaroo and I’m trying to get this
family to understand kangaroo okay we’re
the Kangaroos and I’m like what am I
gonna do and so I was forced to describe
it so I looked at the family for help
and I said okay this big animal in
Australia that jumps up and down and has
a big tail and I look crazy because I’m
jumping up and down in a coffee shop and
the family and I our bus are laughing
uncontrollably and eventually they got
what I was trying to say but it dawned
on me that if that would have happened
to me in English I would have done the
same thing I wouldn’t have just stopped
communicating if I didn’t know a word I
would have relied on the people around
me to help me out and I would have
started describing it so that they could
help me figure out what I was trying to
say so all of these moments you know I
was reflecting on that and the rehab
center and the hospital and I was
thinking okay I really want to up my
Annie so maybe I know the language but I
really want to start appreciating the
culture and appreciating the people who
speak language so that’s when I booked
my trip to Puerto Rico which was
probably the most courage I ever had to
take on this journey of learning another
language because it was my first time
traveling alone without my family I was
so out of my comfort zone I landed
Porto Rico and the stop signs weren’t
even in English and so everything was so
new to me but I was learning so much
because I was interacting with the
people and the culture and the language
simultaneously so I was with my class
and we had a Puerto Rican tour guide so
she knew everything about the island and
she was showing us all sorts of things
so we got to see a coffee plantation and
we got to go to a cooking class and make
a native Puerto Rican dish and we were
learning all sorts of things that we
couldn’t have learned in a textbook and
it was helping us appreciate the culture
and the people and the countries that
speak Spanish so I remember one day real
specifically we were walking through old
San Juan and we were going to dinner
that night and I remember our tour guide
pointing out this man in the road who
had this giant iguana and he’s just like
holding him like a sack of potatoes just
like random guy in the street with an
iguana and I was like what is this guy
doing and the lady are our tour guide
points out she’s like well that man is
actually like that’s how he makes his
living he like lets people hold his pet
and you know that’s how he gets a living
and so before I know it my Spanish
teacher is pushing me over there towards
the guy with the iguana with some money
in my hand and she’s just yelling like
iguana on your neck and before I
know it
Juana when all its glory and all its
scales is on the back of my neck and I’m
freaking out and it dawned on me that
this is where I came full circle I was
interacting with the people and the
language and the culture all at once and
I was learning so much so as we all go
on this journey together of learning
another language and it doesn’t have to
be Spanish it can be whatever language
that you choose if you only want to
learn a little bit of that language then
do that if you only want to learn
numbers you can do that and still have a
meaningful interaction with someone
however whatever you learn you have to
use it because if you know it and you’re
just sitting on that knowledge it
doesn’t help anybody it doesn’t benefit
anybody but the more that you know and
the more you’re using what you know the
more motivated you will be to learn even
more you’re not going to be satisfied
with just knowing numbers and
their language you’re gonna want to know
sentence structure and you’re gonna want
to know how to have a conversation in
that language and it’s gonna build up
your confidence to actually use it in
real life so as we draw here to a close
I want you to think about a language
that you want to start speaking and just
do maybe a little bit each day to build
up your confidence to start speaking
that language with somebody who could
benefit from it so I was interacting
with the people and the language and the
culture and all of that combined was
helping me see the value of Spanish and
appreciate everything so much more and
interacting with the people and the
language and the culture is what makes
our world more connected and more
unified and that I think is an idea
worth spreading
thank you [Applause]
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