Afternoon, miami. That evening. Imagine that this is going to be a patient american living room. Can you imagine that . So we are here, were welcoming one of our favorite tv analysts on msnbc. Shes a daughter of the beautiful country of haiti, any haitians here . All right, youre coming with the senses. Shes also thepolitical director for move on. Org. She has worked on many local campaigns, statewide campaigns and National Campaigns and she has written this delectable memoir of her personal, professional and political life. Please join me in giving a warm Miami Book Fair welcome to karine jeanpiere. [applause] hi everybody. Thank you forcoming. High, high. I see edward back there, ive gotto give her some love. Both law. [speaking french] i want to take you back to your mommy and copy are watching on cspan santa you, was his nickname . Pecan, maybe,. And your first name is pronounced . Karine. Karine jeanpiere. Moving forward, my first question for you is how does your haitian this inform class i have to Say Something, thank you so much marlon , thank you for doingha this. Ive known marlon for such a long time, you were one of the major supporters for president barack obama in 2008 and now youre doing your own thing, which im very proud of you so i wanted to make sure i honored you as well. And im here to substitute for jorge ramos, thank you jorge who couldnt be honored to be here on his behalf. I want to fronts, what was it like the first time you came across customs into america. Do you remember that . I was about five so i dont remember that but its so interesting yousaid that. I just wrote a piece for load and in the piece i talked aboutbeing hopeful. And i talked about one of the moments that has happened in the last three years that has really just broke my heart there have been many moments have been heartbreaking but one of them was the separation of children at the border and a zero tolerance policy which led to, which basically meant were going to separate children from their families, babies and children in cages and its led to awfulness and i remember when that happened, at least when it became known in the National Media back in 2018 of the summer, going into the summer of 2018. My heart broke because i thought about what would have happened to me. My parents came, we were lucky. We landed at john f. Kennedy. I was about five years old and i thought to myself what would have happened if they had told my parents were going to separate you from your daughter e . Your daughter is going to go here, youre going to go there and potentially i would become an orphan which is what is happening to tens of thousands of children right now who are orphaned under our name. And so i do not remember that moment but its interesting that you brought it up because ive thought about what has happened recently and what would have happened to me at that young age if i was separated from my parents on purpose. You were home with mom and dad, what do you call them . Mami, papi. I grew up 12th street, jamaica avenue. And i lived in a 2 family house. My aunt and uncle lived downstairs, we lived upstairs and at the time you do not know theres a difference. You just do what you are told. Its very much in the haitian culture and asian food. What you wear. And we lived very humble, we had humble beginnings. My dad was a new york city cab driver. They worked six or seven days a week, went to catholic, they did everything they could s. Did mom come home . It depends, if it was nice she had to sleep at her job and nights that she didnt, and it was just different. I grew up inthe 80s and 90s , a totally different experience for haitians living in newyork. It was tough. I didnt learn to read untili was in third grade. I always felt like the outsider and i talked about that in detail in my book. And you know, one of the things that i want to make sure i did in the book was to tell and immigrants story because the last three years has been such ugliness, such antiimmigrant rhetoric and policies, clearly as we just talked about so i want almost correct the record. And tell a story of hope from sadness of some achievement and what does it mean to be in this country . I think another thing i wanted to make really clear is that immigrants, we feel very patriotic. This is our home. This is our country and we are a fabric of america, part of fabric. What you see in america through the eyes of haiti . Is there a haitianness inform your experience in that home witha haitian family, mom and dad. What was the first time you came to American Culture to say theres a difference . Just from the moment go. I was teased at school. It was made very clear i was different, whether its the way i look, the way i dress. Its very clear. But i have to tell you, it took me time to appreciate the haitian culture and the haitian history. That was something that i had to learn myself. And that took probably in my early 20s when i realized how powerful our country is, our history and my ancestry and who and took some time to be comfortable with all that. And i think whats happening now is that im living in my truth and so i think once you live in your truth and once you are comfortablewith who you are, i think that doors open. And i think that is whats happening. Your dad a taxi driver, your mom a healthcare worker. Mom endurance, stress, shes one of the smartest people i know and she does not have formal education but shes clearly one of the brightest people i know. Esshes strategic, you know how haitian moms are. Theres always a plan,theres always a tragedy. Theres always something that youre not thinking about and their is10 steps ahead. My dads kindness is one of the kindest people that youll ever meet. Is he still driving . Parttime. Heres the thing, my parents still live check to check. If you were to look from the outside and look at my parents you would say the american dream, it missed them. They didnt get the american dream. Manypeople dont. And my mom and my dad would tell you that i am their americandream. What was their dream for you . Very specific. Theres always a plan afoot. So my parents, this is something that they talk about in my book thats very, leads to ups and downs that occurred in my life and so, but my parents were very much like many immigrant families they want you to be three things. Three things is your success. Lawyer, doctor, engineer. Theres some other stuff and in re the three their minds you are one of those three. You will be successful. That is what is going to help uplift you and the rest of your family. For me it was being a doctor and it was being connected to someone in our family who was a doctor that i loved, she passed away early but thats kind of how i grew up. I grew up with youre going to be a doctor and they introduced you to everybody. Our future doctor. What did you break that dream . I went to undergrad, majored in premed but i was going to be a doctor and it just didnthappen. You have to take the mcat, you realize it is just a very big burden and you carry that burden for your family and for your community and i actually went through something that i talked about very specifically. I had to do with mental healthissues. Hand something that we do not talk about in our community and it was one of those moments that was incredibly depressing for me. Because i thought wow, i just disappointed the people that i loved the most. And i felt like i broke their art. And it was incredibly hard for me. I had this thought in my mind that if im gone, then it will be better. Then it will be better for them and i tried to take my life. Thank goodness, thank god im still here, clearly, im talking to you but you know, i did want to Say Something about the book before we move too far in. The book is a memoir and the memoir piece is very raw, its very honest, very authentic and i wrote it that way because i wanted to connect with people. I want people to feel something cwhen they read that story and i wanted for anyone who was having a hard time and felt like they will never make it or they cant make it to look at me, someone who is , who has worked for the first black president , worked in the white house, is on tv regularly, to look at me and say if she was able to do it then i can do it and i think theres this misconception that she must have this great wonderful life and it was very hard. So i write this part because if i can change one persons life, the book has done its work and then the other part of it is a call to action to get politically involved. Dont sit back. We need your voice, we need everybodys voice in here to get involved especially in this time but its also connected because i wouldnt be on tv. I wouldnt haveworked in the white house if i didnt have dthe experience that i had hegrowing up. All that has made me the person that i am today so yes, its a sad part of my story but it made me who i am today. What was your support system in getting through that . Ge i actually didnt have. That story i told you about trying to take my own life,my mom doesnt know that story. My parents did not know that story. My sister knew that story, shes the one who found me and we never talked about it. After i decided that being a doctor was not going to be my thing, i took some time off , worked and i went to columbia to get my masters. And it was at columbia when i got my masters that i was out of the home and living on my phone that i started to go see a therapist. Thats what helped me because when i was at graduate school i was actually having anxiety attacks because i havent dealt with the pain from prior so that was the time, the moment i was really able to dig deep and ask for help and growing up in my community, you donttalk about your secrets. You dont talk about your business. You know go to therapy and so i wanted to break that r. We are so glad youre still with us for sure. So what was your First Encounter with the political world . The political world, my First Encounter was actually in grad school. And the first week i started grad school was the first week of september 11. And it was clearly hard and heartbreaking and it was something that i think many of us really just speaking for myself, i felt like i lived in a bubble and when that happens you are awakened very quickly, especially it happens. We lost more than 3000 souls in new york city alone and so that was an awakening and i ndwent to the program that i was in was at the International School of Public Affairs at other, my peers were from all overthe world. So youre opened up whats going on outside of the country and you meet people who are going through their own hardships whether theres a civil war in their home and theyre coming here to try to get a better educationor whatever is going on , that theyre trying to do at the school and then the second thing that happened is i went to haiti for the first time in 2003 which was also a mind opening experience. So those two things let me to this kind of new awareness peand new path for what, for where i am today and half has led me to this moment the reason i say that is when i came back from haiti i wanted to make a difference. What can we do, what can i do and two of my mentors, one of them was David Dinkins who was the first africanamerican mayor in new york city at that point and still out teaching and i had this amazing answer, her name is esther fuchs, this fiery feminist who pushed women and young women to get involved in politics and suggested you should get into politics and i thought well okay. What was your first job . My first job was working in new York City Council. That was my first experience, doing local politics which is very important, localpolitics is very important. Get involved, make a change. Not just federal government and the white house. You can change peoples lives on the local level and thats what i did. What was your First Encounter with being a black woman inamerica . That question is so interesting because its a conversation i was having recently. Ive been all over, literally all over the country on this tour at one point i was in a different city every day for 10 days straight. And there was a conversation that i was having about being a black woman in america and i think there are sayings and i know there are things that black women take on on a daily basis that has just been part of our dna that we dont eventhink about. There are things that we have to deal with that we dont even realize or we dont have time to realize that this is notokay. Were just trying to survive. So i think about that question and i think that we all just every day from probably as young as we can remember, there is something that reminds us that we are black, we are a woman and sometimeswe are not accepted. And so thats why i think its something thats just part of the day today that i personally have to deal with and sometimes you dont even realize microaggression. Its like it happens and you just have to deal with it. So you dedicated this book for folks who have ever been told no. When was the first time that someone told you know . The dedication was probably one of the most importantthings to me in this book. And i think it goes something, i dedicate this book to anybody whos ever been told no. I hope this book inspires and motivates you. When i was first taking about the dedication i thought i would dedicate it to my mom and my daughter and the women in my life and then i really thought about the book and the main ingredient and what the book encompasses. I want to dedicated to folks who have been told no similar to what i was saying earlier that this book, if you have been told no i hope that you can read this book and know that you can get to the other side. I know that you can reach that dream, reach whatever aspiration you have for yourself, even if youve been knocked down. Even if people have told you know time and time again that you can get there and ive been told not know so many times. When i got intopolitics, one of the reasons i left new York City Council , i moved to dc is because i was told no. I was working for my second councilmember and the region that i went to work for him if he had said look, the chief of staff is going to be leaving in about a year. Come work for me. You will see how i work and that job is yours. And when we got to by the way the chief of staff was his fiancce. They got married. I was in their wedding, whole other story. Things that you do as a staffer. Youre a bridesmaid and in your bosses wedding, unexpectedly lastminute bridesmaid but they got married and i remember this moment very vividly. They got married and i ran his campaign, i helped him get reelected and i remember we were Walking Around the block and he says to me were going to, im going to give the job to somebody else. He gave it to a man was older than me, had 15 years more experience than i did and i remember crying and i remember thinking i worked so hard. I remember thinking i ranyour campaign and help you get reelected and im not getting the job . That moment i said to myself im leaving. And i took a leap of faith and i said i want to do National Politics and i looked through my rolodex, my phone contacts and started having coffeewith people and i was like how do i get to washington dc because i want to do National Politics, i eventually want to work for the white house. Who ananswered the phone . It so many people. Therewere local consultants in new york that were really well known. People who just been around ic the political atmosphere for a while who had contacts in dc. I ended up working for an issuebased campaign called walmart watch. But you left on goodterms. Its not that i left on bad terms but they knew i left because i didnt get the job so its not like i blew everything up and i suggest never to do that. It was just one of those things that i decided i needed to leave so it wasnt bad terms but it was disappointment. They tried to get me back a couple years later and at that point i had worked on president obamas campaign, im not coming back. I rememberthat. But anyway, that no was the best know icould have received. I dont know if i would have gone to washington dc and worked on the president ial campaign and ended up working for obama in chicago. I dont know what my trajectory would have been. I could have stayed at new York City Council happy as chief of staff for another year or two and it was the best know and it pushed me. How did you choose which campaign to work for andwhich campaign not to work for . In that moment when i moved to dc, i worked for walmart watch for a year and then i had a choice of multiple campaigns. Not multiple campaigns but i interviewed for edwards, even interviewed for obama and at the time, i decided to work for edwards. Ec because it was the work that i was doing seemed more connected to what he was doing. He was a labor guy doing poverty work and i was one of those people that thought were not ready for a black president , were not ready as a country. Thats what i thought. Marlon did not think that. He was smart so i went to go work for edwards and it was a good experience. I worked for edwards for a year and went to North Carolina chapel hill. And he dropped out after south carolina. And that experience and the connections that i got from that campaign that led me to the Obama Campaign because there was somebody that i worked with on the edwards campaign. She went to the Obama Campaign and called me and said im working, where getting ready for the general election campaign. We want you to come here and do what you did for edwards for obama and i did that so this is part of having good relationships, making sure that you stay connected to people and thats how i got the job. So the first time you walked into the oval office. Theres nothing like it. Seriously, i mean i write about this in my introduction iwhere i talk about walking through the gates of the white house. And you know, this black girl , patient american immigrant, like i was told i had no business doing this a. And here i am walking through the gates of the white house going into the white house. With the whole entire Haitian Community i felt with me. [applause] and you walk in and you think im representing not just the president. Im representing my community, the country. It is one of the proudest, proudest moments. You walk into the oval office and you see obama, theres nothing like it. And it is one of the proudest moments that i have, that i carry with me. What did you learn about the office of the presidency tduring that period. Not the person the pres