for 22 years I denied a part of myself
a part that I wanted to just associate
with but we’ll get back to that in the
later moment tonight we’ll be speaking
of something that I hold very dear to my
heart tonight we will be speaking about
immigration and poverty and how poverty
feeds into that cycle and how it returns
I learned something this summer it’s
something that Albert Einstein once
taught that the world is a dangerous
place not because of those who do evil
but rather because of those who look on
and choose to do nothing so what does
that even mean it means that when we’re
looking at an issue if we don’t take in
all of the different aspects and we just
choose to look on then we contribute to
that evil
now immigration is like the scab poverty
is like a bleeding artery and the wall
is like trying to put a bandaid on it it
just doesn’t work so tonight we’re gonna
put a story in the life behind the
number so that you can begin to
understand what that picture looks like
I would ask you although to consider the
following three questions what if you
had been dealt this hand in life how
would you want to be addressed and what
choices would you make to sustain and
secure the stability of your children in
your family’s life this is what that
picture looks like it looks like my
children fighting to want to be doctors
lawyers teachers and contributing
members to a society but because
education
isn’t taught to them in a way where they
can elevate themselves and their parents
are too busy working they fall behind in
school it looks like a three-year-old
orphan having to drop out of
kindergarten because there was no safety
net for him but that didn’t stop him
from continuing forward and eventually
he found opportunity for his family in
Southern California
it looks like it’s psychologist a
teacher a curriculum builder only being
paid nine dollars and 40 cents a day
working insatiable hours to fight
illiteracy and then after that going to
a different job to sustain their family
it looks like a fisherman my friend
Antonia in the picture whom I met off
the beaten path and professor working
for 13 hours every night to sell his
catch for about $7 and he doesn’t go
work for those fishing companies because
according to the Mexican government you
were you will only have to be paid four
dollars in 18 cents as minimum wage and
that is it that doesn’t have a number of
hours to it now according to the
Institute of geography and data of
Mexico we know that an individual needs
at least 17 dollars and 38 cents to
survive then that begins to look like
families being separated because as the
parents have to go out to work to
sustain a home and put food on the table
the children are left to fend for
themselves and then it looks like a
literacy when those same children are
asked to help in the efforts to feed
their family it looks like in a common
economy that is not working for those
who need it and it looks like an
informal economy in Wichita
aren’t paid so the infrastructure of the
cities and the towns and educational
programs that wouldn’t maintain an
environment of opportunity are cut or
diminished that picture looks like rich
corrupt and inefficient politicians who
launder money into their pockets and see
riches that not even this audience can
even think of while the country’s most
vulnerable go uneducated and hungry to
bed it looks like a government that’s
willing to censor the political mind at
any cost sending the army to kill
teachers and students protesting for
reform that was a 1968 shootings in
Mexico City in that message of you can’t
make a difference still lingers in their
minds it looks like the 43 missing
students whose bodies have not been
found yet but according to police
reports they were given the police
actually gave them over to drug and gang
drugs and gang members who then killed
and burned the body so badly that DNA
testing can’t be done
you see I see these wounds as of a
society that isn’t healing and that
bleeding arted artery will continue to
bleed and people will continue to flee
for 22 years of my life I denied this
part of me I bet you if you look at me
you would never guess left for a
majority of my adolescence I was an
illegal immigrant and it took me 22
years to admit that to myself
I was afraid that I wouldn’t see my
sister’s another day and my parents
wouldn’t come home and then later I was
told that I would never receive a
college education and over a turn of
events
and finally after years and years of
waiting everything worked out and when I
finally had the opportunity to go back I
came to understand something so
beautiful for every thousand people
hacking away at the leaves of evil
there’s one hacking away at the roots
two years ago in August I was
vacationing in the Yucatan Peninsula
wondering at the marvels of Mexico and
after that we went to eat and a little
boy came up to me for the first time and
I experienced something so sad he came
up to me and handed me a Jaguar and
asked me to buy it from him but I had
just bought in many at the resort so I
was like I’m sorry I can’t so we turned
him away but as I observed him and I saw
a community of young men I came to
realize that this could actually be a
live example of child exploitation
something I had never been exposed to
and my heart broke as I had to get up
and leave and I and the questions came
to mind how can so much suffering and so
much recreation coexist
while people just entertained themselves
to death so much suffering exists in the
lives of these children and what if by a
turn of events that had been my child I
don’t know exactly what led their
parents to do the choices that they had
to to survive but I knew that day
that I promised myself that I would go
back and do something the world is a
dangerous place
not because of men who do evil but
rather because of those who look on and
do nothing the beautiful thing about the
work that I’m doing and the projects
that I’m starting in the research that I
do is that with there is poverty
alleviation there’s so many gaps and
everyone in this room we can hear the
sound of my voice has an innate gift
given to you to help solve that missing
puzzle piece we can all put something in
whether we may think it’s small or big
with our skill sets but there are three
things that we can’t begin to do if you
do want to help and you don’t know where
to get started one we can start by
changing the narrative along with
immigration recognizing that the reason
it even began is because of corrupt
governments a lack of opportunity the
inability to sustain the security and
stability of your family that would lead
a person or a father and a mother to
protect their child and flee the second
thing is that we need to begin to
realize that it is people just like you
and I that have left the greatest impact
on our human’s history it began with a
caring it began with courage and a
disposition to act no matter how small
you think your efforts or your influence
may be through collaboration we’re
allowed to create change the last thing
that you can begin to change your mind
about is that you can’t just throw money
at these issues of poverty alleviation
and although it’s a very important and
vital fact to the process
more importantly is you giving of your
skill sets and your knowledge and the
things that you learn in your
professions to help organizations fight
those things and through that reaching
we can actually make an impact now I
believe in a world where we don’t see
people for what country they were born
in I believe that every child deserves a
shot at life regardless of where that
child took their first breath and
through collaboration we can create the
impossible and refine the standard but
it’s up to us and it’s up and it’s up to
you to act and I would invite you to
join me thank you
[Applause]
a part that I wanted to just associate
with but we’ll get back to that in the
later moment tonight we’ll be speaking
of something that I hold very dear to my
heart tonight we will be speaking about
immigration and poverty and how poverty
feeds into that cycle and how it returns
I learned something this summer it’s
something that Albert Einstein once
taught that the world is a dangerous
place not because of those who do evil
but rather because of those who look on
and choose to do nothing so what does
that even mean it means that when we’re
looking at an issue if we don’t take in
all of the different aspects and we just
choose to look on then we contribute to
that evil
now immigration is like the scab poverty
is like a bleeding artery and the wall
is like trying to put a bandaid on it it
just doesn’t work so tonight we’re gonna
put a story in the life behind the
number so that you can begin to
understand what that picture looks like
I would ask you although to consider the
following three questions what if you
had been dealt this hand in life how
would you want to be addressed and what
choices would you make to sustain and
secure the stability of your children in
your family’s life this is what that
picture looks like it looks like my
children fighting to want to be doctors
lawyers teachers and contributing
members to a society but because
education
isn’t taught to them in a way where they
can elevate themselves and their parents
are too busy working they fall behind in
school it looks like a three-year-old
orphan having to drop out of
kindergarten because there was no safety
net for him but that didn’t stop him
from continuing forward and eventually
he found opportunity for his family in
Southern California
it looks like it’s psychologist a
teacher a curriculum builder only being
paid nine dollars and 40 cents a day
working insatiable hours to fight
illiteracy and then after that going to
a different job to sustain their family
it looks like a fisherman my friend
Antonia in the picture whom I met off
the beaten path and professor working
for 13 hours every night to sell his
catch for about $7 and he doesn’t go
work for those fishing companies because
according to the Mexican government you
were you will only have to be paid four
dollars in 18 cents as minimum wage and
that is it that doesn’t have a number of
hours to it now according to the
Institute of geography and data of
Mexico we know that an individual needs
at least 17 dollars and 38 cents to
survive then that begins to look like
families being separated because as the
parents have to go out to work to
sustain a home and put food on the table
the children are left to fend for
themselves and then it looks like a
literacy when those same children are
asked to help in the efforts to feed
their family it looks like in a common
economy that is not working for those
who need it and it looks like an
informal economy in Wichita
aren’t paid so the infrastructure of the
cities and the towns and educational
programs that wouldn’t maintain an
environment of opportunity are cut or
diminished that picture looks like rich
corrupt and inefficient politicians who
launder money into their pockets and see
riches that not even this audience can
even think of while the country’s most
vulnerable go uneducated and hungry to
bed it looks like a government that’s
willing to censor the political mind at
any cost sending the army to kill
teachers and students protesting for
reform that was a 1968 shootings in
Mexico City in that message of you can’t
make a difference still lingers in their
minds it looks like the 43 missing
students whose bodies have not been
found yet but according to police
reports they were given the police
actually gave them over to drug and gang
drugs and gang members who then killed
and burned the body so badly that DNA
testing can’t be done
you see I see these wounds as of a
society that isn’t healing and that
bleeding arted artery will continue to
bleed and people will continue to flee
for 22 years of my life I denied this
part of me I bet you if you look at me
you would never guess left for a
majority of my adolescence I was an
illegal immigrant and it took me 22
years to admit that to myself
I was afraid that I wouldn’t see my
sister’s another day and my parents
wouldn’t come home and then later I was
told that I would never receive a
college education and over a turn of
events
and finally after years and years of
waiting everything worked out and when I
finally had the opportunity to go back I
came to understand something so
beautiful for every thousand people
hacking away at the leaves of evil
there’s one hacking away at the roots
two years ago in August I was
vacationing in the Yucatan Peninsula
wondering at the marvels of Mexico and
after that we went to eat and a little
boy came up to me for the first time and
I experienced something so sad he came
up to me and handed me a Jaguar and
asked me to buy it from him but I had
just bought in many at the resort so I
was like I’m sorry I can’t so we turned
him away but as I observed him and I saw
a community of young men I came to
realize that this could actually be a
live example of child exploitation
something I had never been exposed to
and my heart broke as I had to get up
and leave and I and the questions came
to mind how can so much suffering and so
much recreation coexist
while people just entertained themselves
to death so much suffering exists in the
lives of these children and what if by a
turn of events that had been my child I
don’t know exactly what led their
parents to do the choices that they had
to to survive but I knew that day
that I promised myself that I would go
back and do something the world is a
dangerous place
not because of men who do evil but
rather because of those who look on and
do nothing the beautiful thing about the
work that I’m doing and the projects
that I’m starting in the research that I
do is that with there is poverty
alleviation there’s so many gaps and
everyone in this room we can hear the
sound of my voice has an innate gift
given to you to help solve that missing
puzzle piece we can all put something in
whether we may think it’s small or big
with our skill sets but there are three
things that we can’t begin to do if you
do want to help and you don’t know where
to get started one we can start by
changing the narrative along with
immigration recognizing that the reason
it even began is because of corrupt
governments a lack of opportunity the
inability to sustain the security and
stability of your family that would lead
a person or a father and a mother to
protect their child and flee the second
thing is that we need to begin to
realize that it is people just like you
and I that have left the greatest impact
on our human’s history it began with a
caring it began with courage and a
disposition to act no matter how small
you think your efforts or your influence
may be through collaboration we’re
allowed to create change the last thing
that you can begin to change your mind
about is that you can’t just throw money
at these issues of poverty alleviation
and although it’s a very important and
vital fact to the process
more importantly is you giving of your
skill sets and your knowledge and the
things that you learn in your
professions to help organizations fight
those things and through that reaching
we can actually make an impact now I
believe in a world where we don’t see
people for what country they were born
in I believe that every child deserves a
shot at life regardless of where that
child took their first breath and
through collaboration we can create the
impossible and refine the standard but
it’s up to us and it’s up and it’s up to
you to act and I would invite you to
join me thank you
[Applause]
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