Her new book is a compelling and moving memoir that has received praise from literary community. T11 my family divided. Bat promote civil involvement . She has also then name dash and capacitor for citizenship and naturalization by the white house to night she is joined in the Baltimore Sun and Award Winning education reporter we think you very much to moderate this conversation with diane. Please welcome them to the pratt library. Can you hear us . It does work. I just want to start the conversation off by having diane tell you you probably know of her as an actress but dont know her back story. I want to ask about the briefest of introductions cement 84 being here today. I will try my best. My parents are colombian immigrants of was born in new jersey by raised in boston. My parents came here with the hopes the story changes sometimes that we were just going to check all the states or my mother had hopes tuesday to make a family to have her dreams come true. Eventually the be set expired and they wanted to figure out a way to become citizens that way their journey and their quest. So they were undocumented as long as i can remember. My childhood was shaped by the fact that my parents were very honest with me as a young girl i knew their status in into clearly what my status was a was an american citizen in they werent. I had something that they wanted desperately p. M. Made it very clear that we needed that to stay together. I remember every prayer in every wish my parents got the papers that theyd needed so we could stay together. We manage to live our lives but it was certainly scary and anyone who was then through this experience knows how tens how intends is and how interesting your life can become when you are with begin the shadows. I grew up, with this tree but i had another baby one day becoming entertainer or performer or an artist. And my parents were deported because of their lack of documents. I decided to say and pursue my age dream to stay here and finish my a education to this out by zero entry and the country that we love. I always put that in their. Yesterday i was making a video for the event i put that in there and said in the country i love my friend said o that. Is the country that you love. So now i dont say the country that we love to pursue my a dreams and pursue my own life. So here we are. 1415 years past and i was not dealing with of a huge cloud over my life which was the whole issue of immigration. I started to see the topic, paul lot in the news and peoples daytoday conversations so the word immigration would come up and i would want to talk about it but i couldnt because they felt all sorts of stuff i had a lot of issues because my parents were deported i did not want to deal with that but then masoud there was a need to use my voice in this way. Its started little by little and oped to feel the waters out i didnt think anybody would read that so it is all good. So by trying things out that nobody will see that nothing will come of that but i will just try. And i tried enfeeble did read it did get attention but then i thought it was such an important issue that i had to talk about it because i had been through this experience and i knew millions were going to the same thing in our country needed voices like mine who had been through it firsthand to share a story can be parked of the conversation and then a lot of stuff happened it is in in the book and now i am here. [inaudible] that is great but one of the interesting beings of the of book and i have worked lot on start stories of immigration but we hear so much of the journey to america its from people all over the world but we dont hear when they are here but the child whose parents are deported or how is it if you are the iraqi girl riding in baltimore that what happens after you get here . The thing those voices are important to be heard i once heard to reader crucial moment in of book that once her parents were taken out of the house they were detained for a while in prison so she could visit them. She went to say goodbye to her mom and i will let you start from there. This is in the prison excuse me. I have some learning disabilities. [laughter] that the best professional want to be an actor laugh laugh pushing myself. Three ready . I stood and pivoted to avoid the face. As much as i longed to see her i did not want to remember her like this. Not with arrest chained up in the orange jumpsuit. As if the person behind that barrier was a mother of a stranger to be. The group shuffled back down the corridor the newly handheld mine hand while the walked. This is not the end for you she said the she tried to reassure me bennett felt like the end. Was devastated azide was the was even more scared for myself. She and my dad were going home to family outside she peered out to find where she part to the care review hundred feet away near the entrance l. White police band pulls up we exchanged a look. Seconds later to guards put inmates out my mother was among them. She was stepping into the paddy wagon in turn around and caught a glimpse of me and froze. I could tell she wanted to Say Something and run to be. But before she could make a move a guard were rushed her into the indian. Let go. The engine rumbled. Through her seat mile be twisted herself around to see me through the bars berger she was trying to tell me something but i cannot figure out what it was then all at once i understood. I love you. Costs and love you i love you i love you. She repeated the three words in tell the opinion turned and disappeared. I smiled a that was the only thing i could be scheerer of that my mother loved be. Fuck anyone who tries to come between us. Excuse me those are my teenage years laugh laugh. The flowers the Memorial Services pieta to people i love the most were gone. Gone from me. We would find a way to move forward to carry on the just not with the promise of one anothers presence. [applause] sorry if there were children in the audience. One of the fleeing said i dont think is well understood is the latino immigrant community is the extent of the divisions the immigration experience has on families. With my work and the Baltimore Sun to spend at patterson highschool profiling three students one of them was a latino boy better again and again during that experience i heard the of plays in particular that made it across the border they told stories their mothers or fathers disappearing usually their parents did not tell them they will leave honduras or el salvador pay believe sometimes in the middle of the night or while they were at school and could not bear to say goodbye so they just left. Did in one case one of the boys said he came home from school and realized his mother was gone and everyone was crying and he could not figure it out then another case the boy told me he was told his mother was going to take a bus to another town so she knew something was wrong. So he ran to see her before she got on the bus and he did just barely glimpse her and she was crying and he didnt see her for eight years. That happens so often. And when the kids are reunited with think oh my gosh this is the most wonderful saying in the world to be reunited but in fact it is terribly difficult because you dont really know them. They are strangers to you. And this is such a problem in the latino immigrant community now the teachers have started to develop curriculum that helps parents and their children that they have been apart from for a long time reunite because until then you cannot move on in many ways with your new country so i think first tory is a little different but is this a twist on the same theme to have years apart in not able to communicate any real way but separate and if we could tell about the separation for you and how you came back around. In this very difficult this when i went through that separation because if my family unit had died that day. And for you it is like a death but nobody treats it like that because they are alive but the family unit has died see you have to move on or go back and i chose to move on and stay and continue my life in the states and i figured out all i knew was a need did my education in love my parents taught me that if you work really hard you will make something not of yourself and that was my belief as a kid that this is where i can do that. And i could be resourceful and i was determined the enough that something could happen but what i did realize that that age was the of relationship was going to be with my full san for some reason i thought we will figure that out but i did realize the huge strain that had on us and on our e emotional life and psychological impact it would have on me. I wanted to talk about that in the book with the relationship that the effect on the family to be separated like that. Nobody talks about that psychological or devotional damage because nobody sees this you never hear that as a human issue but it is important to realize these are important people with the real effected i was lucky enough to comeback from that but i was in a very deep hole for a very long time. I did not speak to my parents or did not see them eight to years because the pain was too much would go back to colombia and visit them but i didnt know what to do because i was growing and they were growing in those are my parents they will stay the same bet they grow and change. Your mother absolutely did not give up she would call and call and call like a teenager said i will not deal with that spirit there was the point i didnt know how to handle it so i had to separate myself i feel in any way that gave me lakes to continue i did the best that i could. I always look at you. I didnt know how to be a dull and handle things correctly i did the best i could sometimes shutting down was the only way i could move forward. It took me just tell of a few years ago i still have to work added every day. For me not being responsive enough to show that motion that she wanted from me. In this work everyday but that is the relationship that was so strained that i wish i could get back but you have to do the best that you can talking about technology and that has played a huge part in reconnecting and obviously my work with the Immigration Reform has helped my mind and my heart to steal so i could accept a relationship the way it is. And you just have to adjust well life has given you in that is what i tried to do. So i sort of have done this to help others so in my fashion igo bagel or go home so i had to do this. So i had to open my heart. Also you had to repair that relationship to go on with your life. [inaudible] get was a big deal when you repaired that relationship. She was really mad at me. I want you to talk about becoming an actress and if you thought that grit and perseverance you thought you needed to get through without your parents ad helped you become an actress . That you were willing to nonstick it out with auditions wore a long time between work greg. This is very up and down every day i get of call trying to figure out my life in it isnt a sure thing and the reason why i didnt want to take the chance in the beginning with that base to pursue anything. I thank you are right. But you really had to say eff it i have already been under so much. Are they going to say no . What ever. I have already been through so much i lost my parents and the one thing that meant the world to me so it totally prepared me for the amount of rejection that i got. And i grew up. But everything i went through in highschool and after like going to college was a huge miracle i dont know how it happened vice still dont. But doing the things that i got to do and having the support i dont know how what happened its but i do know needed to be resourceful and respectful and i mean keep my place and be grateful to others to help me along the journey this and that all served me the real need to carry that with few to be resourceful and respectful and resilience. That is a good one. What is the of the one i do . I knew i had to do those so that has served me well. Yes. From the time your parents laugh to until fairly recently actually the fact that your stock parents were undocumented and deported you kept from a complete secret even those you were close to rope so i wondered what that transition was like scott suddenly with all of this class. [inaudible] for a long time i feel my immediate friends knew some of them its of what happened to me. Sometimes i feel like it held me back first of all i am a very happy and outgoing person i felt if i ever told the story people would look at me differently. I was ashamed you are taught in this culture from the images you see or the rhetoric that you hear from people that if you are an immigrant you are a bad person if you are deported you are a failure. I was ashamed and didnt want to share that. Then once things started to escalate even now more than ever so it was like an explosion . So i would Say Something really bold where did that come from . We didnt know you are passionate about that . Nation of immigrants grex. So when i share that with people in the way that i did i felt the response was opened. People were excepting and i learned where there is no shame in your story or where you come from this something is not right asa and i am not into the raids of what is happening right now. I dont understand the immigration system like the majority of people dont understand that. When you decide to be a part of these solution so i felt it was worth it to share my story at that point. So one of the things we discussed earlier was social media has changed immigration in this country if you look back 100 years ago people came to the United States and that was it. They didnt talk except through letters and it took a long time to get here and back but today the new immigrants like the refugees who left iraq this or any country, are still so connected through face booking and twitter and testing and it is free to be in touch with storefronts so ana a way it is a wonderful comfort to talk to their relatives since i talked to one family the mother was left behind and in turkey with one of the children the rest of the family is here and they cite bad dinner every night so they have dinner together but they cannot unite which is wonderful thing in one sense but its in another it can bowie horribly debilitating because you can never leave your country behind. For instance its highprofile and iraqi girl crew left her fiance in baghdad and for the first yearandahalf she was here she was constantly face book messaging him dozens of times every day. She has finally broken off with him but that sense i cannot go on with this my life so that is a wonderful thing to be in touch with your parents so quickly but also a detriment so people feel you should drop everything when you call . Yes the culture is the parent is everything that if you have this great opportunity to be here in the United States to be attentive man to be there ever provide id want to talk to anybody. I thought that was funny. [laughter] but the time made to american to talk to my mother every night at dinner but there has to be a balance is still feel that responsibility i wake up screaming sometimes. Kelso much on my mind i wanted to do so much for my family but there has to be a moment that we have to do what we have to do not, so that is a long way journeying and in different ways to shut people out i will not let anyone stop me including my family. Of course, that made me clinically depressed it did not make me happy so find another balance that with technology how easy it is to share information like what is going on in the world or what kind of movement we want or what is troubling society to share information so much faster especially for the Latino Community food now gets most of their dues on line. Lot more people that can write articles are have the opinion that just use their voices so in that sense it is dead. We will come for all circle to toplevel this a little about where you see Immigration Reform going and hope with the vast difference of opinion with the candidates so maybe talk how you think we can get through this greg. Eight think obviously having this conversation right now is a step forward i think we need to have first and foremost, this in my opinion we need Immigration Reform lot of the organizations i were quests were quest is outdated. Coladas people are reported every day but nothing is done and we had this system for a long time the gcs system is outdated the way we handle family separation is not dead good saying i feel that there are people getting involved to talk about this issue i still feel a lot of people dont know what we are dealing with the. I dont know of future of Immigration Reform. I dont know what is happening i wish we could have a friendlier conversation that we talk about the culture with those immigrant communities make and i feel safe there needs to be a clear and fair passage to citizenship in they deserve to contribute to the country legally if they are already here. I dont think any undocumented immigrant to say i dont want any documents everyone that i a talk to because hainaut how much my parents love this country how hard they fought to find a path to become citizens so there needs to be more talk about reform and less talk about division and kicking out and building walls. I am not advocating for people to come over and that is silly to think everyone in the world once to be here because that is not true i just think there needs to be a plan for the people who are already here. 18 weekend have some questions now if people want to ask. There is a microphone just run to the microphone. My eight question that it turns that have allowed to say on your Television Shows so you have a great platform i know there is old storyline about the undocumented citizens did you have any employment on that or the people who could be facing similar situations in prison greg. First, i so proud to be on two shows that are so social to comment on what is happening socially. That is why become to love both shows so much because they share what is happening in the world and the stories we havent really heard that part of what i said about changing the culture i feel Television Shows and entertainment have a responsibility to bring forth this issue to talk about them that is why it is said j. Huge deal when chain of virgins had that story line to tie in dash tag Immigration Reform it was a tiny little thing but a quick mention better reached so many people. That is the power that shows like this have and the responsibility in the Entertainment Industry have to use our platform to raise these issues to talk about them to get involved to know the power of our voices and actions and participation. I hope more shows can take a look at oranges the new black to ta