Transcripts For CSPAN2 Kao Kalia Yang Discusses The Song Poet 20161023

Can you all see me . Okay. Can you all hear me . Even if you cant see me. Thank you for being here. Im delighted to be back. Two today im excited to bring you this book. Im incredibly proud of it. Im working on speaking slower. People. People have to me that i speak too fast. So you can give me some feedback on how this goes afterwards. Okay. The songbook came out of a conversation i had with my father two years ago. I. I asked my dad, i said how does the song point become he looked at me for a little bit and said when i was young there is few people who said beautiful things to me. My father died when i was two years old. My mother took to the mountainside to see her nine children. Ld i was two years old. Growing up i always wish for a father, i used to go to the house of one number neighbor to the next collecting the beat of the things people had to say to each other. One day was speaking to myself, and the song was born. I thought those beautiful. So i said to my dad, i said, maybe thats going to be the beginning of my next book, he looked at me and he said, may be it is the end, and then he and and said nobody then he and and said nobody wants to read a book about when you can read books about barack obama, my father loved barack obama. Then a few years after that afe producer came to our house, she asked my father, how does it feel to give birth to a writer when you are one yourself my dad looked at her and said i can barely read my own name. Ni my daughter writes in english the stories i wish i could read. As i started thinking seriously about men like my father. And i seen him on the streets of new york city when i was standing there, walking up to columbia university. Men like my like my father who worked in the basement restaurant, i saw themn and that grounds work at other colleges like stanford university. Most of this world is built on the shoulders of men like my father. So for me to say that there lives and they have lessons to offer the world, this is just one way of me telling my fathers the song poet that his words, he was my first poet, my first literary experience of the world. It is his words that feed my heart. The the song poem this is the dedication. For the sense arise in the horizons we have yet to see, for my mothers and sisters, my sons sons and daughters, for my father who sings it this lonely song so that when they hear the trembling of the still heart it begins with an appetite. In the words, and impulse to keep the details and episodes of it experience alive and once aching consciousness. To transcend it not by the calm voice of philosophy, but by squeezing from the near cosmic experience. As a form they can be duets, the voices of the fathers and daughters come together, just as averse misses a song. I am taking on my fathers form. In the in the best way knowhow in this book. I do not have a voice work, my father has it beautiful voice. The your voices only vehicle. Or. I dont have that voice. But i was born underneath the umbrella and so this is my best effort of going to read several selections to give you feel for the book. Ok. The first is through my fathers voice. It is a fatherless boyhood. I ran away from home many times. Each time i left i did not think about the coming of my my only plan was to find the telus tree away from the village and climate. I thought i could say stay there forever, somewhere between the earth and the sky. I would sit and scan thehe mountains from my village. I looked at the gentle curve of the valleys and search with a place that my father was barry. All i knew is what my older brothers had told me. Father is on a mountain in the shape of an uneven rectangle going out of the treetops. From the tree are repeated the words ive gathered from friends and relatives, words id id heard my brother say to their children. T words of appeal of lovinghe trae courage. Do not be afraid, everything will be okay. I will not let anything hurt you. As the sun dissented the jungle foliage was thicker and im made out moving shapes. Now they floated down and hovered on the ground of fog. I curled my legs up on the tree limited felt the cool dampness of the mountain error settle into this move park. My shirt was a little armor against the evening win. I recall the stories told. Ing t seeking evaporations from the living. From the safety of the storyteller it had been fun pretending that the fireflies hovering in the nearby brush where the tortured souls alight with anger. In the dark in my tree limb i cannot trust that the links of like i saw blood to fireflies. Er. My courage wavered then i started thinking that perhaps i acted childless sleep. Running away was that the answer, i was no ones fault that i want to i want to the father. But i cannot locate in the world. Each time i ran away i walked back home along the same path i had taken. Y mother a i went over a long list of things my mother did for each of us each day. I started thinking of all milder brothers and sisters, we attended a huge field so he could attend the harvest with his mother andd brothers. He became a teacher so he could share his government salary with everyone in the set. He crawled into bed each night so he could arise early again in the morning and be the first to do the work of the village. He works hard at raising healthy chickens, ducks, pigs, cows of the family so the family could have meet at each new years day. He carried notebooks in his hands at all the time and wrote notes of politics and humor so he could be an example of education to follow. Fo they did her laundry and helped with the house. While she had complaints they never stopped her busy feats from working. They all do do sod much, what did i do . It was too sensitive, a concern over not having enough light not about him but the war. He told himself the brother was simply being a good father. Was not his intention to make anyone sad. Hers wer all his brothers were acting as best they knew how. The sadness sadness was because he did not have a father. Ca nothing less and nothing more. N he told himself he need to expand his heart and thicken and skin and become more of what the family needed him to be, although without his schoolwhet smarts. I ran away so many times because i cannot carry the weight of words, the ones inside of me and the once around me. I cannot use my mind to escape from the actions, conscious and unconscious, conscious and unconscious, a fella who loves me. In the words i yearn to hear nobody was there to say that. I find myself stumbling back and bear spy my child the this. My mother never asked why i ran away or where had been. Upon my return i said and she agreed, i had gone to play by myself because i was a loner. I stray stray too far in taken me much longer to get home and it was good for me. Of course i was young and i forgot. Even after the other time she had admonished me and told me to remember. My mother accepted this, always only too happy that i found my way home again. She moved close to me and surround me with the scent of mental ill and try earth. A woman of strong words my w mother did not offer many private interments but when i returned home i made out the beating of her frantic heart. The only person that knew my innocent mistake i saw it in his eyes hopelessness, disappointment, regret, and love. He would Library Still in a platform bed he shared with me, he pulled the blanket up to our next and folded his arms to pillow his head, he stared up at the ceiling, his head did not turn, his, his eyes did not close, he took deep breaths. His bony chest rose high one of his pants and pulled it from the other and he reached out quietly to hold my hand in his own. He gave a tiny squeeze. In the force of those fingers i felt i was not alone. I understood that we had the r sadness together. I realized if that not return to truly be alone. That is when i cried for my own thoughtlessness and endless yearning. I didnt dare make noise. My body jerked in motions and my tears ran down my face. The tears i held back by the firelight, on the track away from the village up high in the tree it became a small salty stream. L through the tears i can see my mothers back turned toward the wall into the dark it seemed her body jerked and little motion similar to mild. I was 12 years old when i began singing poetry. My body was changing. More girls are noticing me in my village. My mind was changing too. I understood that school was onn my arena but i could find other pathways into manhood. The world we lived in was changing. Each day grew certain my future would rest at the point of a gun, not a pen. The drums of the battle with the cries of widows and orphans in our village, the the only wayye can meet their pain was to take it inside of me, melt into my flesh and feel the pull through my veins feel my heart and overflow. When i began singing poetry i could share stories of her tense sorrow. Of anger and betrayal, conscious and unconscious. Intentional or not, my silent sensitivities with those around me. My song my brothers my f brothers and sisters, family and friends, followed their own tears down there treats. The promise of eternal care. Do not be afraid, everything will be out alright. I right. I will not let anything hurt you. In 1992 my father came up with an album of portrait. It was can sitter the bestseller. He made 5000 in his goal wasm. Always that he would use that money to come up with a second album. But i remember very clearly that fall, i knew they had the 5000 dollars, i went to my dad and i said i need i need a new schoolbag. If you dont buy me new colored pencils im not going to go to school because im embarrassed. I dont want want to sharpen the same once youre in and youre out. My father went to the 5000 dollars. Dollars. My older sister needed and wanted things to. And so the younger ones came along and they followed in our footsteps and my father kept on going through the 5000 in the second album never came out. Like children, the the world over whenever asked about the second album. It wasnt until i had become a writer, it wasnt until that one question that the one producers, how does it feel to give birth to a writer when you are one yourself. And my dad answered her, i her, i can barely write my own name. My daughter writes into english stories only wish i could read. This next that im going to reach you is from my most emotional track of this book is called love song. It is in my fathers voice for my mother. I loved it when you said we could get up at three in the morning anymore to go to workou away from our younger children. E you want me to change jobs to get work that would allow me to take care of the children during the day. I wanted to tell you that we were in we did not speak much english in this country. I wanted to ask you who would drive you to work in the mornings. Home again when your shift was through. C we only had one car, you are freighter cars. I want to tell you i was scared to go looking for a job and come home without one. I wanted to tell you i was scared to go to work without you in the same place with me. Who is going to help you move the heavy boxes and the missing parts, what if something went wrong in the factory, who would hold your hand and help you outside . I would ever work in this country, racist childrenren without knowing that you are not beside me. Youre the only reason i felt we had a chance chance goingg forward as a family and you are asking us to partner days for children. I love them too much to speak to my fears so i said i would look for a job. Even at lesser pay, on a different different shift so i could take care of the children. We would have to part with them each morning for work, every night. I love do throughout the years that we couldnt be together because we work different shifts in different places. Each day you continued your old routine, you woke up at three in the morning, you brush your teeth, cook food interests. He put the key in the lot by four, by five you are at work. I took care of the children until you got care of two in the afternoon. N. My shift started at three. We had the minutes in between to say hello and goodbye. I did not get home until midnight. The only light in the house that was on each night i came home was in the kitchen, the small house in her efforts to say warm, the house is quiet because you and the younger children were already asleep. The older girls are done with their homework on the small dining room table they made an effort to get up and give hugs but i always thought about their safety first. I was told them not to come to e close. Factory i was working in the machine factory and i didnt want the residue of the chemicals in the steel particles i worked with to get on them. I knew it could cause cancer. Se i said, after i shower i will give you hugs. Each night i showered and showered and then i kiss my older girls good night. Then i made our way to our room where a was at the edge of the mattress. The three younger ones in between us. Breathing. Breathing my song in the night. And then when you came in at 3i scooted the children over closer to the wall and slept on my back. It was only my dreams that we were together, there you reach out to me and held my hand across the heads of our children. There he spoke softly and asked me how i was doing in my new work. There you held me close until man was doing a good job right alongside you. But our life is not like herlike dream. I never asked you what your dreams were. I was scared scared of them as you are mine. On the weekends you are shy, angry, tired and exhausted. Too happy to only be with the children, unsure of how to be with each other. Ch our voices colliding, crashing, pleading, on the weekends we shared the same house, the same children, the same life. It was not until i have gotten married was not until my husband and i woke up to the same alarm every morning that we set opposite each other at the same dining table. D the sometimes wheat lunch and dinner together. That i understood the lone willingness of those longss years of for my mother and father. I understood those weekends when they crowded around us and apart from each other. Ather sa so my father says that he is nothing more nothing less than the father he imagined for himself. That at his best in his worst is only the person this is from a track titled the sunless right. On a dark night our father calls for one more family meeting. He presented to with two choices. Who could return to school or get a job and leave home. Our mother sat on the sofa beside our father find of so she did not touch him. She held pieces of tissue in her hand and push them up to her face to cover her eyes as her father spoke. She she continued her tears. She did not contain her mouth. She had listened in the years had grown too long at the worse she wanted to say to her father had students i. All we could do is watch our mother fight our father for whoh he was fighting for. Our mother said she would rather be safe at home than be in a world that were not welcome him. She said her father could blame him for being too soft if she wanted to but she was not going to let him alone take the responsibility for what had happened in andover. She said her father could blame himself if he wanted because of father has as much to carry as a son. Arry as she said what her father did that work was no different than what he did at school. S he was just pulling through the only reason he did not quit was because unlike him he had children to be. Dr he was no more success in america than his son. If anyone gave him ultimatum and told him to lee. At first our father tried to speak over and say that the meeting was not about him or their relationship. But it was about her brother. Our our mother would not be quieted. Ou she cannot stop. She had her hands over her heart, she ripped the tissues in her hands and just shreds yet her voice to not crack. The words did not slur. Alas she said, im so tired of loving you both so much in america and seen you fall into yourselves instead of getting up for the menu are. The mar mother spoke the smaller father came in front of her. The air he breathed in the from his body with each statement she made. It was her brother who raised his hand to her mother, stop sign. He tried to speak but no words came out. He gestured towards max. He didnt want to leave max he was only four years old. He looked at backs sitting by the stairwell. Our father say, i do not want to be an example for your little brother max and how to survive in this country as a lone man. Perhaps our perhaps our father thought his words would motivate sue. We watch them slicer brother apart. In max heard her fathers words, hes now in fathers direction and sitting by the stairwell should he make the decision to leave. When max heard the words max said, he is he is my brother, he cannot leave me. Life without him is no life at all. I would rather die than live in america without my brother by my side. America his gaze with our fathers he tilted his chin up, he walked to her father and held onto his arm. Our father moved away from exes holden stood up, he could see the pace and he walks with a limp. The balls of his feet burned with each step, the flesh tender and abuse by the long nights beside the machines at work. The. The stress of standing and walking, caring iron and steel. He walked a small stretch of the living room into the light of again. Ing area back he said, this is what happens to feet when they stand and walk without rest. He held out his red hands. A tiny stretch of white lines in his hardline across his palm. He said, this is what happens to human flesh when it cuts into steel. It suffers. He said, i want youe to have a life that is better than mine. I dont want you to become a machinist like me. I dont want you to live life with men and boys far stupider than you telling you that you dont belong here, that you are no good for this country, telling you to return to, telling you to return to a country you do not have. I want you to have a better life than me. I want you to be better than me. He looked at her father, and he said what if youre the best man i know how to be. Our father shook his head, he did not want to accept it. Time for the first time in his life he heard the words of a son to his father, he knew what it was like to your for father to raise a son and make him better thantd you. And he tried to make him safe in a fantasy of father and son but her brother cannot save our father from himself. F. Our father said you cannot be me and survive in this country. My brother said that i cannot survive in this country. Our brother got up and walked where max set and placed his hand on maxs head and offered no words, no goodbyes, he passe by my father and the divide between the living room and dining room. He walked into the dark kitchen and open the cabinet beside the white refrigerator. He pulled out a black garbage bag. He close close the cabinet so lightly it may no sound. He didnt turn off the light in the hallway. O he simply walked into his room, there is no slamming door. It was a horrible nightmare, the nightmare we have been dreading. Where. Where we believed our life together as a family with them. Not because of war were soldiers encroaching because of the remnants of war inside each of us. The battle we fought to survive in america. We ran after him, he held to the end of his shirt and try to hold him still. R they walked in Different Directions turn back to get and stood with their hands of their mouth. Her mother and father watch from the doorway of his room as he stuck a photograph of his grandma and him into the not garbage bag. Theres a a twinkle of naughtiness in his eyes. He has a blade of grass and a smile and on his bookshelf was a photograph of a 2yearold max with his belly showing from ahe shirt that was too small. Maxs hands were behind his back in his his head was cocked to the side. My brother but the pitch in the garbage bag too. He grabbed white tshirts, pair jeans, sweater, jeans, sweater, theres no waking up from this nightmare. He left that night. We sat outside calling for him as he drove away. The taillights of of the car disappeared into the dark. In the distance beyond our days we heard the sound of the car going over the train tracks. I will read one more excerpt and then open up for q a. I will read a short one. The whole time we were thinking, my heart was longing for the country and the other side. The spicy and sweet that each tied dish id tasted tasted brought to mind the simplicity of bamboo shoots dipped in salt id known as a child in the thick coconut richness of red and green curry. More important than the tingling in my tongue, new that the sheer and to see his brothers ande sisters. Their pieces of us that we had left and after all of these long years we knew that we had to return to collect them for a journey forward. Ten days after the arrival in bangkok we made arrangements to go to laos for a week. The dr. Assured us there would be find in the time we were away. The night before we left iai cannot sleep. I listen to i listen to the humming of the small air conditioner unit in the room. I cannot find a comfortable position on the thin mattress. I kicked off the towel like cover, drifted in and out of sleep. Restless as the gray cloud i got up and open the door to the patio barroom, once he slid across i felt the heat and humidity of thailand reach out to me. I close the door behind me, i stood on the small balcony, my hand at the railing and i saw fireflies go to and fro. Small floating sparks the shadows of bushes and trees. Wis zooming motorcycles, and and somewhere i heard the lonely sound of traditional thai instrument, reminiscent and it drifted toward me. I miss my people in way i had never miss. I miss my fatherless youth. Wasnt only my father or mythato mother, that had orphaned me in my journey. Separated by decades of time, believes that my heart aches for return, the area was ravaged by war. I knew the old villages would bo gone, i believed the majestic mountains with stan. Through the years that have been moments where i believed a return only on the wings of dust and then i wouldnt meet again a land that had given me life. I stood on the dark balcony. I saw the roughness of my hands on my brothers face. Thank you for being here with me. [applause] i am here for you. I have no prepared remarks, i dont like to talk at people. I want to be in conversation with them. There with them. There is a microphone set up right there. And please ask all of the questions from the microphone so its captured for the cspan audience. You can ask me anything you want. I. An i will try my best to think it over. [inaudible] my question is, youve written a book for your mother and written a book for yourr father, and how they receive them. Ho e they in conversation about them . So my first book is about. [inaudible] ive yet to read a book about my mother i think as a woman it is very hard. My brain im conceiving of a book a return to refugee, i have only ever grown up with a grandma on my dads eye. I never knew my mothers mother. Everybody says this shape of my jaws just like hers. And i never knew how to mr. Because i have such a call for grandma for so long. It wasnt until i have given birth to my daughter and i heard my mother say her name that i knew it was missing, heard the layers of love that my daughters name is drifting on i never heard my grandmother, i name in the same way. My my mother is a complicated woman. She does not talk, she listens to my fathers poetry. He is he is the poet in the family. It is my mothers actions that enable our lives. Each and every part of the way. Her heart is the engine about who we are meant to be. A fearless mother, i think an incredibly beautiful mother, but the journey to understanding her an understanding her own stories going to take time. My grandma used to say that we are surrounded by wisdom but we cannot use it without it being backed up. Im only beginning to experience and my own journey of motherhood the heart of a woman i am with. That is the longer book. The the heart of who we are. My father spoke, my father talks a lot. The words that he gives me for the world that we live in, he has always gifted me with. All i have to do is close my eyes taking my fathers words. He is the reason i stand before you with a microphone in my hand, eight years ago i didnt speak. I got got up to talk and i couldnt and i sat down. It was my father who walked up and he said to me, the words that perhaps have been the making of my public life, my father said if more tears could be a incarnate they would ring the world with our sorrow. He says that if i speak the winds of humanity below that maybe our lives were not lost. It is for him that i speak, he tells me that when i write i write on paper. When i speak i write on the fabric of the human being. My father has gifted me with so much was so easy to unleash, this book i wrote in two months time after the light home, i was doing so many talks but i cannot write. I know some people write so they can write another speaks they can write. I very much would have nothing to say if i did not write. All of those hundreds of pages that never made it into the books, i dont know how much of those words form to i am standing before you. When i tell my dad i was writing his story, when i told them the stuff i was writing he put up his hand and said no, i hate it. As an artist i hate it when people interfere with my process i will not do that to you. My father said i have seen so many works of art diane talks. We will talk when the work is done. And so it wasnt until the book came out in april, we had initial launch in april of this year my father came in there is about 300 people in the room, it was the first time he heard the book and he sat there and cried. My mom and dad they say to each other so occasionally my mom picks up the book its on the night stay and she picks it up and resisting page over and over again. I dont goes to my talks and he sits in the back. One day says to her why do you read her books, you cant even read and he said why do you cry at her talks you can even understand english. So those are the people i come from. But i believe so much in this book that the document of the refugee experience but also the hard times and the economic depression that we come from. And so i have done it, my dad says that im like the dog for the scent of the bow, i dont know when to give up. And i dont. And so this book is alive and well see if people will read it. Thats the best of the world. Anybody else . People tell me im best at the q as, not the reading part. It would not be okay with me if you left this room without saying a thing anyone into the world and he said Kao Kalia Yang had nothing to offer me. That is not fair. That is not fair to me so please ask me what is in your heart what is on your mind. You can ask me about writing if you like. This is a more simple question. How can i listen to fathers album . It is on my website, www. A3. Com. He has a beautiful Debbie Debbie debbie. Kao kalia yang. Com. [inaudible] i really enjoyed the part where your parents are climbing up. You read the book . Yes. Could you give us any insight od it you have been back to thailand and see what your plans are for that . When i was 20 years old i had an opportunity to study Global Development and i was a junior at carleton college. So i took the opportunity. In order to go ahead to become an american citizen. All my life i had this alien card which is a lovely photo of my ear. I have lovely tears so its okay. But not not her to go i had to become an american citizen. I went september 11 and it happened when i was in thailand. And so american nationals were told to stay put. But i know that in may 1979 my mother had buried the photos of herself, in a bamboo patch right across everywhere i went people would say what are you . U . And i was sick from all and they said no you dont look like that from the hills. And they would look at me and they say you move like an american. Youre so messy in your walk. You eat like an american. Ua so much. But thered all but that all tell me that i look japanese and chinese. So i decided to legally crossr the river as a japanese student. I spent the day on the banks of the river searching through the bamboo groves. I cannot find those photos. Ey now i understand maybe they were not mine to find. Therefore my mom and my dad. Kno he read the book so you know they went to thailand because my older sister was giving birth to their first child in tyler. She and her husband were working however when they got there they were in the airport and her family was there on the outside they let my mom through, my sister my little brother and i stop my dad. The woman said if you value your life, dont leave the airport. My dad said what . She said we kicked you out once, do you want us to kick you out again. My younger sister born in america said can i talk to supervisor. The womens hand went to her gun. So my dad said no. The government hiked upd therefore for my parents to go back so they never went back. In every national they went to all of the libraries and placed a copy of the book. There is a philanthropic couple in new york who have the book and they give 1,000,000 dollars to to this organization that builds libraries over the world. Theres a library where i wrote the dedication for my grandma who never learned how to read. And all the boys and girls when they read the stories that he never wrote. I left to go back and see that. I understand that now on theopi streets of there now copies of my first book, the late late home. Its a little smaller than the american copy in the print quality is not as good but theyre being sold on the streets. So the story has found its way back. I have yet to follow. Theres one thing i want to do. I would love to go back with my mom and my dad. I am like the dog after the scent of the bone, do not let go. In the next five years, even if, even if i dont have money, we have credit cards. Anybody else . This is the first time ive heard you were introduced your work. I wanted to, that your voice and when you are reading is very lyrical and very poetic, very beautiful. Thank you so much. It really touched me. I dont know your story, how long were you, you were born in thailand, and when did you come to america . So i was born in a refugeeee camp in thailand, year after my mom and dad crossed the river. If you do know anything about it theres a secret war but when america was fighting the vietnam war there were they commissioned 32000 men and boys to fight ando die. Were the third of them were slaughtered in the world the americans, not the third were killed in the genocide of its aftermath. R after the americans left the leading paper of the communistt government said and announcing agenda that it is necessary to go down to the root of the minority. So big trucks came into the villages and they took the remainder of the boys and men and the women of the girls saw found them slaughtered infi the jungle. So so my family was one of the first to go into the jungles. My uncle would become leaders because thousands of people fled after him. Where my family my family lived for fivee years, my parents met in the jungle she was 16 he was 19. And she said that they were per walk and there is no end in sight. We talked about my grandma, my moms mom earlier. My mother was 16 and she and my father were visiting her familyt family and soldiers were coming. She washed her mother get up to go to the river to fetch water and my mom said she just did there and did not run after her. She did not hold her close, she never said goodbye. That is the nightmare she carries with her. My mom dreams the stream all of the time. Efore but that is where my life began. These two young people. In our culture we believe that before babies are born they live a pieinthesky where they canoue see the mountains. I saw man and a young woman walking without shoes and i chose to come to them. A size born in 1980. My parents as a as a gift at a time when they do not bear dream a presence. I lived in refugee camps for the first six years of my life. I can to this and i can to this and theres 40000 of us on 400 acres. There is no room anyway. Ot but we got food three days out of the week because therei practicing a humane policy. I can still remember if i close my eyes i can still see the woman and the girls who went up the camp to forge for food, crawling back, blood seeping between their legs. I can still see all of the men and the boys beaten, sometimest killed. For leaving the 400 acres. Thats right was born. Everybody loved me they kept tell me this is not home, this is not them world. My grandma told me beautiful stories and my dad used carry me to the tops of the tall trees and he would tell me that the size of my hand and feet that these things will not depict my life journey. Ther h it is not a child of war, poverty, and a sport but i was hoping born and the captain of a more beautiful future. One day i would walk on the horizon my father had never seen. Becau so on july 27, 1987, my fatherer made the decision to come to sto st. Paul, minnesota because his best friend was here. The he heard there were low skilled jobs in the factory. He he heard there are good schools. After mia my mom had six miscarriages in the camp anything in her hand or mouth should give it to me. Ndul she had six miscarriages, all little boys who cannot come down to our world and our lives because my mom to not have the food and nutrition to sustain them until i. I was her baby, my mom and i came here so that one day my daddy said i could do work. That was good for the world that we lived in. , so that is my story. I was born after the fighting. But me in so many of the people in this room, right here right now blog to men and women who wake up shaking from thenightma nightmares where the soldiers are running after them. For the people they love who are no longer here, talk to them and speak to them once more like they did long ago and far away. A there is a lot of ptsd in the community. Ope, we are the inheritors of trauma, pain, and hope. So much hope. M maybe that is where my story begins and that is why, some writers, started ready my first book at 22. My grandma was dying. Show said that education was the garden i cultivated in america that one day we would reap the harvest together. I was a senior, just a few months from graduating. July 18, 2003 my grandma passede away. She told me, she said it would be selfish for me to cry for her to stay that were people who loved her before me that she had a mom, dad, brothers and sisters. S. While there is no land in the map of the bigger world open upa the house to her youth and everybody would be there. Ldho her mom and dad, my grandpa. Y her beautiful little girl, and everybody would say where view ben, why are you so late in coming home. My grandma nut for went to school, never learn to read or write. Nia we when we got to america i started writing her love letters because we couldnt afford Long Distance phone calls. She lived in california with her to minnesota. Minnesota. I thought if i press really hard on the pages my grandma could feel my love. Gse my grandma died my on wentr h through her suitcases grandma never had a room of her own but she carried 13 suitcases frommsc the house one house to the next. In in one of the 13 suitcases were all the letters that we had written her throughout our lives in america. Some of the letter she read with her hand so many times think had run off and i could see was thei indentations we made into the page. And so my first book began as a love letter to my grandmother. The final love letter to say, to say that ill always remember her and we took down jolly ranchers and ice cubes. To say that with the beauty of my ears i will always rememberve that she was never a full tobe earrings because she had been chased by a tiger and her earlobe ripped apart. Lov that letter grew and grew and i remember clearly my dad asking me when i was on page 37, what are you doing . And i said writing a love letter to grandma. My dad said to me, you know know if future the right direction and never dies. Leveling grows thicker. Surgery was born. That the world, that the reading world would miss her along with me. And that we did there from the lessons she lived through. Story when you write your grandman store you document your own history. So that is what i did and that is why am. Thank you for your powerful words. In the gift of a storyteller. To be able to convey these authentic realities and you do so with courage and integrity. Many of my best friends are members of the medicine among community. They were able to take their children on a remarkable odyssey back to to rediscover their roots of their culture and their families. Th as you talk, so much about your experience is of older generations and perhaps younger generations. I think it resonates with the experience for example, i have a have a friend william who is a jewish author, second generation. Her parents were part of the holocaust. And part of part ofr her journey is to journey back and also to see how this carries out and the story carries out with her son. Native americans i think of many common experiences. But could you remark on the ark of the generations, the survivors, the people dealing with the trauma that are part of an older generation in your own experience. How does that move for to a generation that embraces thembrs traditions and is weaning themselves into the fabric of life. That is the opposite of a simple question. [laughter]was no my grandma new to english words. Hello, and no. Every time the phone rang she would pick it up and she was a hello and if she didnt understand she would say no and hang up. She is my american hero. She never tried to fit in. She knew there is no way. Pamela when my grandma taught me wonderful lessons. I remember being a teenager and wanting braces because we didnt have cable tv so we watched a lot of baywatch. And. And Pamela Anderson and everybody else had splendid teeth. Out asked my mom and dad can i get braces and instead of saying no they set maybe next year. Finally one year my grandma looked at me and she smiled set is my smile not beautiful . It was not until i gave birth my own children then i saw their toothless smiles that i saw smile that rivals my grandmas. Those my grandma. My mom and dad came here they make went immediately to the factories. Thats where they were for long time. Until my dad and 14 of his other coworkers were like we are wanting to have a conversation. Y not about equality were racially quality of the workplace, nevermind they were supposed to eat the hot docs that fall down at an Employee Appreciation lunch. Men co they only want to talk to ask if one of the younger men could run a machine because one of the older men had carpal tunnel and could no longer run it. Ne and they were let go. Theres my generation, milder sister and i came here to parents tell us that we should be doctors and lawyers. A generation of refugees before us. Doctor seale what is it broken and the human body, warriors protect their rights that we never had enough of. Milder sister was going to become a lawyer because she wanted spelling bee in the thire grade. She wanted spelling bee underch the guidance of a teacher. She could somehow take apart english words and piece them together again. I became because i was sevenh and i was with my mother at kmart. Were looking for lightbulbs. My mom, she is ten years younger than i am today before you and i thought she was incredibly beautiful and brave. She went up to the clerk and set im looking for the thing that makes the world shiny. Because she did she did not know the one world, like paul. My mother has a thick accent. The the more she tapped on the ground the thicker the words became. Ited by the time she finished the clerk walked away we waited for her to come back but she didnt as the first time i saw my my mother bow her head in defeat. Was a moment i decided that the world we lived in did not needed to hear my mother and father and they do need to hear me either so i stopped talking. E what became a revolution became a revolution against me. When the teachers say are youu here my would say here and the voice was so rusty all the kids with the. The courage to speak died inside of me. But i was only a kid in the words had to go somewhere. Rds for me all of those onset words were on the way to the pages before me. Every time i made a mistake my teachers would not cross it out there is always a . , you said a little girl chasing after meeting, you you create a writer in the process. Y. The writer does not emerge from a family, here she stands because of the community. My little sister i was once asked if i said that so many of these kids could no longer speak or native language and they lost touch with the culture. Her newborn in america made a little noise and she said, my grandparents are from chinas, theres among all over the world now who say more or less. She says you give me the best piece of yourself, who would i be if i do not carry that forward. How can i not believe. My brother max reminds us that we have the power to bound thewo world for a long time now. But the world remains intact. People keep giving birth. And we tell them, these little boys and girls that they will walk toward a more beautiful future. I tell him he is the happy ending i have been waiting for. All of us in this room, somewhere in time theres a man and woman that were far into the future is there ever going to get. Thats it. Thats all. It rema we have the power to bomb eachha other in and the world as we know it but it remains intact, no matter matter what everybody says. It remains intact for a reason. I i believe so very much in the young people going forward. In their intelligence. I know is a its a teacher that my best teachers have been the ones that are not semi limits the push me for my best possibilities. They saw me the things i could become long before i had the courage to envision it. Thats what i try to do for the young ones. Beyond writing i make my life teaching. Hem thats what i try to do, to tell them as long as i am us long as we have ever been in the future there building. Thank you. [inaudible] i too grew up in another area of the world played in bamboo groves and i miss it terribly. But if i were to take the test to become an american citizen today, i would fail. Because i dont know anything but because of the grace of god my parents were american. Can. So i am american and although i dont feel like i am. My point today is that how can we, even talk about not receiving immigrants in this country. It is so selfish of us. We have so much more than any other country has. Look at all of us. My husband is home if you goh around the globe you end up somewhere where i came from, tiling, 24 hours away. I dont know how we have come together but we have a threeyearold daughter an identical twin boys. When the identical twin boys. When the boys were born neither of us got sleep. Sleep is veryenen precious. T it one night he woke me up and i was not happy about it because i just fall asleep. And he says, and i looked at my husband in the dark and i could see he was crying. Refu because were talking about whether we should let more refugees into the country. And he said, if we dont, then the children are gone. Theres no you and theres no me. Theres no no love that weve been building for the last six years that generations before us has built. I think when we talk about whether we want to let more immigrants and refugees and we dont often talk about why theyre coming. We dont talk about a world that is always continually creating more more refugees every day. We dont talk about how we have the power to help in the abilitt to hurt. For my grandma said if you have the power to help someone youu have the power to hurt them. We dont talk about that. I stand before you is a very proud american. As an an American Writer contributing to world literature. From my perspective in my heart. But every time i leave america i remember that im just a humanua being. It is the human story that every writer in the world tries to talk about. Tries to tell. The beat of the same human heart. [inaudible] thank you for give me the power of a microphone to amplife anybody else . We are good on time . Thank thank you for being here with me. [applause] thank you to Kao Kalia Yang and well be back here at new. Thank you so much. [inaudible] [inaudible]pan2 [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] hello. Thank you for being here. I am an. We are here with Ben Ehrenreich this morning. I want to say thank you for the medicine Public Library from hosting the event. T they could to the medicine Public Library foundation for making this possible. Let me make sure everybody iso hearing me well enough. So we are lucky enough to haveat Ben Ehrenreich with us. He is is a National Magazine awardwinning journalist, heok writes fiction and he is from afghanistan, haiti, el salvador and he came out with and. Wonderful new book, the way to the spring, the lifeanddeath in palestine. He spent a lot of time on the ground their reporting and traveling around the west bank. Also unusually basicallyt embedding himself in small villages, in particular one that is something of an international profile. He spent his time there observing, documenting demonstrations and protest in taking part in every day, simple daily life. That gives his book and empathetic and sustained attention that is rare in the reportings that we get from the middle east. It it means he brings an attention to the kind of daily violence and brutality that families, parents, children experience. A kind of brutality that is not often make headlines. So thank you for being here. Thank you for having me here. So you first went to a spank it was on assignment for harpers. , back in 2011. To change what do you think of the daily conditions on the ground when he went there for the first time . I was quite surprised. I think i was as wellprepared as it was possible to be for an american i knew the basic of the occupation. And probably a little more. When i got there i think i was surprised