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Downloaded from
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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.BZ

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A lot of America is never going
to see me as American.

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We don't have a universal language.

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We don't have a universal religion,

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universal identity.

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I don't understand why

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"Asian Pacific Islander" is a thing.

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Who are you?

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How do you see yourself?

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What is your identity?

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Is it as an Asian American?

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Is it as a Canadian?

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Is it as an American?

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And I'd like to say that there's
some sort of holistic thing

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that is like none of it or all of it.

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I think so much of
my understanding of the world,

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consciously and unconsciously,

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absolutely has been

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being an Asian woman

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in a white society.

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I think so much of...

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the struggle

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and the understanding

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has been about probably
that identity first.

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The real battle
is a deeply interior one.

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But I think you have to move
through those kind of

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more visible battles

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that someone is gonna ask you

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to do another accent,

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to look a certain way,
that, that, that,

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and then you'll have to slay
the interior dragon.

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So when I started
really understanding that,

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that's basically
where you start caring less.

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I was so profoundly affected

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and influenced
by the television show Fame.

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That seemed to be like,
"Oh, there's a place

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where this thing
that these kids are doing

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that I feel that I wanna do."

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But the growth of me
actually then finding

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the community of people who have come

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from a similar background
and who look the same

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has been, I would say, a slow one.

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When there was a few of us,
it was so spread out.

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It was the kind of thing of like,

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"Dan's in Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii
off doing his work over there."

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John Cho was doing his work
over there, over there, over there.

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There could not be
more than one of us.

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But it was...

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feeling alone

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because the system makes it that way.

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It's your perspective.

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Every room you're in,

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you can learn something,

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even if it is a place
that doesn't want you.

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In some ways, those rooms
are the best learning vehicles.

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How do you exist

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in a room that doesn't want you

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or doesn't respect you?

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It was a different time.

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The fact that half of the cast
of Grey's Anatomy weren't white,

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that was a thing.
And it was almost like...

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"Shh."

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"Let's just not talk about it.

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Let's just do it and see
if we can get away with it.

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Oh, my gosh. It's a hit."

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That's that feeling that I know

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what I think and hope
is an old feeling.

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It's a feeling of where
I come from, which is just like,

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"Let's just try and sneak it in,

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let no one notice,
and we might have an existence."

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Right? I really hope, and I see

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and I still hope,

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that that kind of thinking
has passed.

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Now I'm only interested
in telling stories

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where the characters
have that cultural dimension.

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That's not just like,
"Hey, I'm just gonna walk around

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eating kimchi and talking about,
you know, Korean filmmaking,"

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I don't know, you know?
That's not the point, right?

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But it is about then
opening that dimension

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where it used to be closed. Why?

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Because it was, at that time,
more palatable

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in a very mainstream
white storytelling.

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White actors cannot possibly
be asked,

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"So what is it like
to be a white actor at 20?

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At 30?

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At 40?

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And at 50?"

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They can't possibly be asked,
but I think they should be.

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The thing with the American name.

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I didn't know you can pick one.

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Nobody gave me the memo.

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I didn't know that you could
change your name like that.

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So many of my Asian friends,

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Hmong friends especially, did that.

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I would have been like,
you know, Optimus Prime

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or something like that,
would've been something cool.

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I had to be stuck with Yia.

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"Yia" in our native tongue in Hmong
literally means iron skillet or wok.

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Hmong kids thought it was funny
and would be like,

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"Hey, where's the Yia?
Not that one, but that one."

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My youngest brother's name is Gong
Hmong

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which literally translates
to "blessing of God."

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He gets "blessing of God,"
and I'm a pan.

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I was born in a refugee camp
in northern Thailand

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called Ban Vinai.

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I came to the United States

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when I was like four and a half.

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I grew up in a small town

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in central Wisconsin,

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predominantly white.

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And then there was like
the Vang family.

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I did not want to be Hmong.

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I lived two different lives
growing up.

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The word "meekah" is
the Hmong word for "American."

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I live my meekah life at school,

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then I live my Hmong life at home.

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My biggest thing was assimilating.

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Even my father said to us,

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"I want you to read books.
I want you to watch TV."

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He didn't want us to have
that Hmong or Asian accent.

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If I can talk like them,
if I can act like them,

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if I know all the pop culture
references like them,

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then they won't be able
to laugh at me.

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They won't think I'm weird.
They won't think I'm different.

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I wanted to make sure
that when I was at school,

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my meekah friends, my white friends,

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my American friends,
knew that I'm American.

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I'm one of you guys.

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These were my friends,

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and they would actually take my face

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and they would take my eyes

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and they would open them
a little wider.

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And they would even ask me,
"Can you see better now?

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Can you see better now?"

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And I just thought
that's what friends did,

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and I would laugh,
and I'm like, "I think so."

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Imagine being an eight-year-old kid,

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your mom gives you lunch
to take to school.

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She worked really hard
to make sure that her boy

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was taken care of.

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The only way
that she knew how was to cook.

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And when you go to lunch,
you get these kids

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who made fun of you
and said your food stank

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and they didn't want you near them.

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You know what I did?
I threw my food away

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so that I could just be friends,
so I can be cool.

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And I would come home
and I would lie to her, saying,

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"Oh, yep, I ate everything."

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So that's like

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eight, nine-year-old Yia, right?

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And you fast forward, like, 30 years

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and feeling shame for, like, that kid

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who didn't know, you know?

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If I could go back and tell that kid,

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what I would say is like,
"Dude, don't worry.

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In like 20 years, they're gonna try

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to Asian-splain
everything back to you

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about how great fish sauce is

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and they discovered oyster sauce
or even, like,

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'Oh, yeah, like, I have Siracha
in my house,' you know."

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You know, my white friends,
my meekah friends

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who now will say,

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"Oh, yeah, like, I ate
this thing and it had like,

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you know, shrimp paste in it
and it was like really good."

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And you're just like,
"Yeah, bro, we call that

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a Tuesday at our house," you know.

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Growing up, if there was
a big celebration or parties

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in the backyard,

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all the dudes all had a cutting board

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and they had a big cleaver knife.

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So you just hand-chop everything

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and then you would stuff
and make sausages inside

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with the aunties and the moms
and the grandmas,

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and they would help make
the rice or the noodles,

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or they're wrapping, frying stuff.

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All the boys hung out
by the grill area.

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And my dad had the tong

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and he handed the tong over to me.

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You train your whole life
for this, for this moment,

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to be able to be like
the meat flipper by the grill.

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And I remember coming in,
I was like, "Mom, Mom!"

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Like, "I smell like Dad."
I had like...

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like that wood burnt, you know,
kind of fire smell on me

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and I thought I was so cool.

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My American friends,
my white friends,

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I didn't talk to them about that.

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I ran away from this calling.

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My dad had a really,
really bad accident.

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This is my hero, you gotta realize.

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This guy fought a war
and he survived.

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He got us to this country.

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And I thought to myself,
"Man, if Dad dies,

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everything about him,

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his legacy goes with him."

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And that day changed the way
I thought about Hmong food

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and I thought about
what it means to be Hmong.

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For me, I feel that my part

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is to remember the story
in the food that we eat.

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There's something about it
that rejuvenates my soul

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when I eat it.

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There's something about
Hmong mustard green

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braised with pork neck bones

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and that beautiful
collision of spice,

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that bite from the mustard green
and the fattiness from the pork,

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and the moment that you touch it
with your lips.

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And if you are a Hmong kid,

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you know that taste.

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You know, there's something beautiful

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about the fresh Hmong cucumber

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that I get to bite into.

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And every time I do
and it bursts in my mouth,

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00:10:43,685 --> 00:10:46,020
I'm taken back
to being a ten-year-old boy

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sitting by my grandma.

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00:10:47,939 --> 00:10:51,025
She's slicing that cucumber
for me, fresh from the garden.

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00:10:51,109 --> 00:10:54,237
And when I realize
that that's who I am

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and that's a part of me,

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I wanna share that with people.

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You look at the sacrifices

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00:11:03,621 --> 00:11:05,790
of the ones that come before you,

221
00:11:06,583 --> 00:11:08,042
and then you take that

222
00:11:08,126 --> 00:11:10,420
and then you keep
moving forward with that.

223
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One day, you have to sacrifice
for the next generation

224
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so that it can grow.

225
00:11:17,594 --> 00:11:19,179
That's what it means to be Hmong.

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I ran so far
that it was like a circle.

227
00:11:24,100 --> 00:11:25,435
I ran back to it.

228
00:11:25,518 --> 00:11:27,270
And that's what I love
about being Hmong.

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And that's why if anybody wants
to talk to me about it, let's do it.

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00:11:30,773 --> 00:11:31,858
Let's go.

231
00:11:37,447 --> 00:11:39,449
I think if you talk
to my parents, they would say that

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00:11:39,532 --> 00:11:40,867
I talked back a lot

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00:11:41,451 --> 00:11:45,121
and that I was really a bossy child.

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00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:49,292
In Vietnamese,
the greatest compliment

235
00:11:49,375 --> 00:11:51,878
that you could give a daughter
is "hiu tao,"

236
00:11:51,961 --> 00:11:53,504
which is to be obedient.

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00:11:55,048 --> 00:11:57,217
I have never been hiu tao.

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00:11:59,010 --> 00:12:03,431
I really reject the idea
that the AAPI community is quiet.

239
00:12:03,514 --> 00:12:05,058
It's such a stereotype

240
00:12:05,141 --> 00:12:08,061
and it plays along
with the model minority myth.

241
00:12:08,144 --> 00:12:10,897
There are plenty of activists
that are Asian American

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00:12:10,980 --> 00:12:12,232
throughout history.

243
00:12:12,315 --> 00:12:15,443
They just don't get the history books
talking about them.

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00:12:16,861 --> 00:12:18,655
My grandma was a freedom fighter

245
00:12:18,738 --> 00:12:20,323
against the French in Vietnam.

246
00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:25,995
You know, I come from this line
of people who talk back.

247
00:12:26,079 --> 00:12:28,122
My name is Amanda Nguyen.

248
00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:33,294
I never thought that I'd be made
to suffer a greater injustice

249
00:12:33,378 --> 00:12:35,546
than what I went through
on the day that I was raped.

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00:12:37,048 --> 00:12:40,885
I studied astrophysics at Harvard,

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00:12:40,969 --> 00:12:44,389
and during my last semester,
I was raped.

252
00:12:46,224 --> 00:12:48,476
I remember
walking out of the hospital

253
00:12:48,559 --> 00:12:50,645
after my rape kit procedure was done,

254
00:12:50,728 --> 00:12:52,647
having never more fully understood

255
00:12:52,730 --> 00:12:55,650
the definition of lonely
than at that moment.

256
00:12:55,733 --> 00:12:57,443
I was handed a taxi voucher

257
00:12:57,527 --> 00:12:59,737
to go back to the dorm room
where I was raped.

258
00:12:59,821 --> 00:13:04,075
It was only after my ordeal
that I discovered firsthand

259
00:13:04,158 --> 00:13:07,704
the ways in which rape survivors
are continually revictimized.

260
00:13:07,787 --> 00:13:09,289
When I found out that my rape kit

261
00:13:09,372 --> 00:13:10,832
could be destroyed at six months,

262
00:13:10,915 --> 00:13:13,751
even though the statute
of limitations is 15 years,

263
00:13:13,835 --> 00:13:15,586
I felt like I was betrayed

264
00:13:15,670 --> 00:13:17,922
by America's criminal justice system.

265
00:13:18,006 --> 00:13:19,966
I realized I had a choice:

266
00:13:20,675 --> 00:13:22,468
accept the injustice

267
00:13:22,552 --> 00:13:25,096
or take change into my own hands.

268
00:13:25,179 --> 00:13:28,057
And so, I decided to rewrite the law.

269
00:13:29,475 --> 00:13:30,977
The law that I wrote is called

270
00:13:31,060 --> 00:13:33,104
the Sexual Assault Survivor
Bill of Rights.

271
00:13:33,646 --> 00:13:37,400
Part of it is to save a rape kit.

272
00:13:38,192 --> 00:13:41,988
Another right is the right
to your patient medical record.

273
00:13:42,947 --> 00:13:46,117
Another right is the right
to your own police report.

274
00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:47,952
Before they were enshrined,

275
00:13:48,036 --> 00:13:49,871
they were being denied to survivors

276
00:13:49,954 --> 00:13:51,664
all across the United States.

277
00:13:53,458 --> 00:13:56,419
When we passed the federal law,

278
00:13:57,003 --> 00:14:01,174
I remember going to the steps
of the Lincoln Memorial.

279
00:14:01,257 --> 00:14:04,344
I just screamed as loud as I could,

280
00:14:05,094 --> 00:14:07,388
and I just felt like a curse broke.

281
00:14:07,472 --> 00:14:10,224
For me, that was my justice.

282
00:14:10,808 --> 00:14:12,435
That's what justice felt like.

283
00:14:16,564 --> 00:14:20,443
My love of space started
even before I was born.

284
00:14:21,527 --> 00:14:24,364
My family were boat refugees
from Vietnam,

285
00:14:24,447 --> 00:14:27,367
and they used celestial navigation

286
00:14:27,450 --> 00:14:29,160
to find their way to freedom.

287
00:14:30,703 --> 00:14:33,956
My mother left
with three other family members,

288
00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:36,167
her younger sister, Number 11,

289
00:14:36,250 --> 00:14:39,462
her brother, Number 3,
and the son of Number 2.

290
00:14:41,172 --> 00:14:43,716
And as they were swimming
and they got to the boat,

291
00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:45,593
there were these machine guns,

292
00:14:46,386 --> 00:14:48,554
and the Viet Cong had spotted them.

293
00:14:50,139 --> 00:14:53,518
My mom turned to Number 3 and said,

294
00:14:53,601 --> 00:14:55,395
"We got to go. It's do or die."

295
00:14:57,355 --> 00:14:59,732
They made it to international waters.

296
00:14:59,816 --> 00:15:01,901
And then because it was a storm,

297
00:15:02,819 --> 00:15:04,278
the boat was sinking.

298
00:15:05,363 --> 00:15:07,990
A big boat came and rescued them.

299
00:15:10,827 --> 00:15:12,537
They threw over a rope.

300
00:15:12,620 --> 00:15:14,038
A literal lifeline.

301
00:15:17,208 --> 00:15:21,462
She tells me that you just put
one hand in front of the next.

302
00:15:21,546 --> 00:15:23,172
One foot in front of the next.

303
00:15:27,218 --> 00:15:31,055
When people ask me
how I decided to take on

304
00:15:31,139 --> 00:15:34,183
the United States government
or the United Nations,

305
00:15:34,267 --> 00:15:37,770
I think about how she had
to evade these guards,

306
00:15:37,854 --> 00:15:40,189
machine guns,
climb a rope in a storm,

307
00:15:40,273 --> 00:15:43,317
and I have to just send
an email to a senator.

308
00:15:49,407 --> 00:15:53,411
When I spoke up about my rape,
it was highly stigmatic.

309
00:15:54,245 --> 00:15:56,330
Friends, loved ones said,

310
00:15:56,414 --> 00:15:57,874
"Hey, I don't think
you should do this,"

311
00:15:57,957 --> 00:15:59,792
including, of course, other people

312
00:15:59,876 --> 00:16:03,421
who share my identity
as young Asian women.

313
00:16:03,504 --> 00:16:05,339
And I understand
where that comes from.

314
00:16:05,423 --> 00:16:08,301
So I don't fault anyone
for feeling like

315
00:16:08,384 --> 00:16:11,137
the cost-benefit analysis
of their survival

316
00:16:11,220 --> 00:16:12,930
depends on their silence.

317
00:16:13,014 --> 00:16:14,515
I want people to know that

318
00:16:14,599 --> 00:16:17,143
the most powerful tool
that we have is our voice.

319
00:16:17,226 --> 00:16:18,728
I've never regretted it.

320
00:16:30,323 --> 00:16:32,200
I have three best days of my life.

321
00:16:33,117 --> 00:16:35,578
The first best day
is the day I met my partner.

322
00:16:37,038 --> 00:16:38,498
Sappy, sappy, true.

323
00:16:39,373 --> 00:16:41,459
The second-best day is SummerStage.

324
00:16:42,376 --> 00:16:43,711
The best day of my musical life.

325
00:16:45,755 --> 00:16:49,050
The third best day is when
I got parking in my garage

326
00:16:49,926 --> 00:16:51,385
after 14 years.

327
00:16:53,054 --> 00:16:54,055
That's some New York shit.

328
00:16:57,600 --> 00:16:59,685
What do I identify as?

329
00:17:01,479 --> 00:17:03,272
It depends where I am
and who's asking,

330
00:17:03,356 --> 00:17:05,066
'cause identity is shifting.

331
00:17:06,233 --> 00:17:10,613
I definitely identify as a DJ,
as an artist, as a curator.

332
00:17:10,695 --> 00:17:12,114
I think identity's like...

333
00:17:13,824 --> 00:17:18,037
a slippery slope
as I partake in this project.

334
00:17:19,704 --> 00:17:23,751
My parents had what I call
an outlaw love marriage

335
00:17:23,834 --> 00:17:26,002
in the late '60s in India.

336
00:17:26,753 --> 00:17:29,257
They were partition babies,

337
00:17:29,340 --> 00:17:31,509
so they were born
in what's now Pakistan.

338
00:17:32,718 --> 00:17:34,345
And then moved to England

339
00:17:34,428 --> 00:17:37,515
and then we moved to the States
right before my fifth birthday.

340
00:17:41,811 --> 00:17:44,730
What did my parents want me to be?

341
00:17:45,606 --> 00:17:47,400
I know one thing.
When I started deejaying,

342
00:17:47,483 --> 00:17:48,985
they didn't want me to do that.

343
00:17:50,820 --> 00:17:53,781
They definitely didn't want me
to do that shit. No.

344
00:17:55,700 --> 00:17:57,159
My mom went to England.

345
00:17:57,243 --> 00:17:59,412
There was this one song
that was really big.

346
00:17:59,954 --> 00:18:01,706
So she brought a cassette
back for me,

347
00:18:01,789 --> 00:18:04,750
Malkit Singh, Up Front,
was the album.

348
00:18:04,834 --> 00:18:06,669
There's another song there
that I really like.

349
00:18:06,752 --> 00:18:08,462
One of the lines is,
"We're not gonna dance

350
00:18:08,546 --> 00:18:12,466
to the white man's disco,"
which is, you know, poetic.

351
00:18:17,263 --> 00:18:20,766
My idea for my 16th birthday is
I wanted to do a Bhangra party

352
00:18:21,684 --> 00:18:23,686
and I wanted everyone
to wear Indian clothes.

353
00:18:23,769 --> 00:18:25,896
I was the opposite
of, like, self-hating.

354
00:18:25,980 --> 00:18:27,898
I was like the other side.

355
00:18:28,482 --> 00:18:29,817
And that was literally
in our basement.

356
00:18:33,946 --> 00:18:35,948
When I started deejaying,
I was very involved

357
00:18:36,032 --> 00:18:37,867
in community activism
more than anything.

358
00:18:39,660 --> 00:18:42,455
I was part of a group
that was originally formed

359
00:18:42,538 --> 00:18:45,875
around the wave of violence
that happened in Jersey City

360
00:18:45,958 --> 00:18:47,668
in the late '80s

361
00:18:47,752 --> 00:18:50,338
perpetrated by a group
claiming themselves

362
00:18:50,421 --> 00:18:51,922
to be the "Dotbusters."

363
00:18:53,758 --> 00:18:56,177
We started raising money
by throwing parties.

364
00:18:57,511 --> 00:18:59,847
Those things were inextricably
linked for me,

365
00:18:59,930 --> 00:19:01,766
creating space, holding community,

366
00:19:01,849 --> 00:19:03,100
and deejaying.

367
00:19:05,394 --> 00:19:07,271
The association of Bhangra music

368
00:19:07,355 --> 00:19:09,649
when I was starting deejaying was,

369
00:19:09,732 --> 00:19:11,692
it is lower class people

370
00:19:11,776 --> 00:19:15,529
who are working class,
who are cab drivers,

371
00:19:15,613 --> 00:19:17,448
who are not professionals.

372
00:19:17,531 --> 00:19:19,533
They listen to that music.
They're from Punjab.

373
00:19:19,617 --> 00:19:21,577
I wanted to create a space
that I was like,

374
00:19:21,661 --> 00:19:23,120
"No, we're gonna go all in.

375
00:19:23,204 --> 00:19:25,665
We're gonna play like,
the real shit."

376
00:19:28,709 --> 00:19:30,544
The idea around
Basement Bhangra was like,

377
00:19:30,628 --> 00:19:33,214
"I wanna play this music.
I love hip-hop.

378
00:19:33,297 --> 00:19:34,382
Let's just play it."

379
00:19:34,465 --> 00:19:36,384
It took a minute, but it caught.

380
00:19:36,467 --> 00:19:37,802
People really got it.

381
00:19:39,345 --> 00:19:41,764
By the summer of the second year,

382
00:19:41,847 --> 00:19:43,349
the line was down the block.

383
00:19:44,350 --> 00:19:47,561
Seven o'clock doors
and then the dance lesson,

384
00:19:47,645 --> 00:19:49,522
the Basement Bhangra dance lesson.

385
00:19:50,731 --> 00:19:51,857
Don't do like...

386
00:19:52,900 --> 00:19:55,027
cobra moves when you're dancing

387
00:19:55,111 --> 00:19:57,863
like there's a snake charmer
happening. Not cool.

388
00:19:58,906 --> 00:20:01,575
At midnight, it's like, crazy.

389
00:20:02,076 --> 00:20:03,244
It's wall to wall.

390
00:20:04,412 --> 00:20:07,415
At the end, I just want as many
people to dance as possible.

391
00:20:07,498 --> 00:20:08,708
That's what I'm going for.

392
00:20:11,252 --> 00:20:13,045
I think so much about

393
00:20:13,129 --> 00:20:15,506
the music projects
of Basement Bhangra

394
00:20:15,589 --> 00:20:17,967
and how they could only
have happened in New York.

395
00:20:23,848 --> 00:20:26,559
It became even more important
after 9/11,

396
00:20:26,642 --> 00:20:30,229
especially a lot of Sikh men,
bearded, turbaned.

397
00:20:30,312 --> 00:20:33,941
Post-9/11, a lot of bad shit
was happening to our communities.

398
00:20:34,024 --> 00:20:36,277
We did an event 9/20,

399
00:20:36,360 --> 00:20:38,696
nine days after 9/11,
which we were like,

400
00:20:38,779 --> 00:20:40,114
"Should we do it? Should we not?"

401
00:20:40,197 --> 00:20:42,158
Of course, the club owner was like,

402
00:20:42,241 --> 00:20:44,201
"'Raker,' you just got to do it."

403
00:20:44,952 --> 00:20:46,495
And that's when I learned

404
00:20:46,579 --> 00:20:48,831
the lesson
of you always do the party.

405
00:20:48,914 --> 00:20:50,082
The party must go on.

406
00:20:51,208 --> 00:20:53,335
That's when it really clicked
that this was not just a party,

407
00:20:53,419 --> 00:20:54,462
it was a space.

408
00:20:58,424 --> 00:21:01,135
I like working
with up-and-coming artists,

409
00:21:01,218 --> 00:21:03,262
learning from them
and them learning from me.

410
00:21:04,722 --> 00:21:09,935
And there's just like a lot more
South Asians making music.

411
00:21:10,686 --> 00:21:12,021
And it's exciting.

412
00:21:13,773 --> 00:21:16,233
Some of it's shit, and some of it
has a lot of possibility.

413
00:21:18,694 --> 00:21:21,197
When we walk through a door,
it is our responsibility

414
00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:23,199
to bring other people
through that door.

415
00:21:24,575 --> 00:21:26,744
Like, I think it's great
that South Asians

416
00:21:26,827 --> 00:21:29,538
are getting successful
in certain kinds of visible ways,

417
00:21:29,622 --> 00:21:31,999
but it's like,
what space are we taking up?

418
00:21:32,541 --> 00:21:34,710
We can't just be excited 'cause,
like, somebody's

419
00:21:34,794 --> 00:21:36,462
in office or something.

420
00:21:37,004 --> 00:21:39,548
And that blanket excitement
around power,

421
00:21:39,632 --> 00:21:41,008
it's shitty, you know.

422
00:21:41,091 --> 00:21:43,302
And they need to be critical of that.

423
00:21:44,929 --> 00:21:48,766
We have to speak up
for oppression against all people.

424
00:21:57,775 --> 00:22:00,694
When I first started working
in television news,

425
00:22:00,778 --> 00:22:03,072
I looked around me and all I saw

426
00:22:03,155 --> 00:22:04,323
were white men.

427
00:22:04,406 --> 00:22:06,700
They were my bosses,
they were my colleagues,

428
00:22:06,784 --> 00:22:09,328
my competitors,
the people I interviewed.

429
00:22:09,411 --> 00:22:10,955
All white men.

430
00:22:14,041 --> 00:22:15,584
Anytime I walked into a newsroom,

431
00:22:16,669 --> 00:22:18,212
I was a lone wolf.

432
00:22:20,548 --> 00:22:23,884
I decided that I, too,
would be a white male.

433
00:22:25,678 --> 00:22:29,181
I literally took on
all of their behavior,

434
00:22:30,558 --> 00:22:33,143
bravado, decided I was entitled,

435
00:22:33,227 --> 00:22:35,437
and I had a potty mouth.

436
00:22:35,521 --> 00:22:38,607
I had oh, such a potty mouth.

437
00:22:38,691 --> 00:22:40,860
And it was so unbecoming

438
00:22:40,943 --> 00:22:43,612
because here I was,
a little lotus blossom

439
00:22:43,696 --> 00:22:46,657
with these foul words
coming out of my mouth.

440
00:22:48,325 --> 00:22:51,203
Anytime they'd throw something at me

441
00:22:51,287 --> 00:22:53,706
that was either racist or sexist,

442
00:22:54,415 --> 00:22:56,750
I'd throw it right back at them

443
00:22:56,834 --> 00:22:58,711
in a racist, sexist way.

444
00:23:00,838 --> 00:23:03,591
My boss said,
"Tell them why I hired you,"

445
00:23:04,383 --> 00:23:06,969
and I said, "Because you like
the way I do your shirts."

446
00:23:07,553 --> 00:23:09,847
And he thought
that was the funniest thing

447
00:23:09,930 --> 00:23:11,682
he had ever heard in his life,

448
00:23:11,765 --> 00:23:13,350
and he kept, "Tell 'em, tell 'em."

449
00:23:13,434 --> 00:23:14,894
He kept making me repeat it.

450
00:23:14,977 --> 00:23:18,564
And I thought to myself,
"Why the heck did I say that?

451
00:23:18,647 --> 00:23:19,899
Am I nuts?"

452
00:23:20,900 --> 00:23:22,985
And, uh, that was just my M.O.

453
00:23:23,068 --> 00:23:27,448
It was my way of dealing
with the sexist pigs and racist pigs.

454
00:23:28,157 --> 00:23:29,158
Sorry.

455
00:23:33,162 --> 00:23:34,955
My parents were born in China,

456
00:23:35,039 --> 00:23:38,417
and I have four older sisters
all born in China,

457
00:23:38,500 --> 00:23:40,920
but I'm the only one born
in the United States.

458
00:23:41,587 --> 00:23:43,756
And I was another girl.

459
00:23:45,549 --> 00:23:48,135
I was born and raised
in Washington, D.C.

460
00:23:48,844 --> 00:23:51,013
When I was born, my father called

461
00:23:51,096 --> 00:23:53,432
from the hospital and said,
"It's another girl.

462
00:23:53,515 --> 00:23:55,267
You find a name for her."

463
00:23:55,351 --> 00:23:58,312
My sisters looked through
movie magazines.

464
00:23:58,896 --> 00:24:01,231
So they said, "We're gonna flip

465
00:24:01,315 --> 00:24:02,608
and that will be the name."

466
00:24:02,691 --> 00:24:03,901
And they went flip,

467
00:24:03,984 --> 00:24:06,737
and it was an actress named
Constance Moore.

468
00:24:07,696 --> 00:24:10,449
So I became Constance,
but everybody called me Connie.

469
00:24:12,201 --> 00:24:14,703
When my mother came
to the United States,

470
00:24:14,787 --> 00:24:16,580
she couldn't read or write English

471
00:24:16,664 --> 00:24:19,500
and she couldn't read
or write Chinese.

472
00:24:19,583 --> 00:24:22,628
I basically,
at the age of eight or nine,

473
00:24:22,711 --> 00:24:23,963
taught her how to read.

474
00:24:24,046 --> 00:24:26,090
I used my Golden Books,

475
00:24:26,173 --> 00:24:27,716
all my little kid books,

476
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:30,135
and I helped her learn her signature

477
00:24:30,219 --> 00:24:33,097
so that she could get
her citizenship.

478
00:24:33,180 --> 00:24:35,891
But it was really, really hard
for her.

479
00:24:38,769 --> 00:24:42,523
My four older sisters
were bossy screaming meemies.

480
00:24:42,606 --> 00:24:44,984
All they did was yap, yap, yap.

481
00:24:45,067 --> 00:24:51,448
And I was like this quiet,
timid, shy person

482
00:24:51,532 --> 00:24:53,701
who never opened my mouth.

483
00:24:57,162 --> 00:25:00,165
My family was shocked
that I went into television news.

484
00:25:01,166 --> 00:25:05,254
My sisters literally said,
"Our little Connie.

485
00:25:05,337 --> 00:25:09,758
Imagine that, she's talking
to millions of people.

486
00:25:09,842 --> 00:25:12,636
Who would have thought
that our little Connie..."

487
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:15,764
And I would go, "Uh, please."

488
00:25:18,267 --> 00:25:21,645
The tragedy for my parents
was that they had no boys.

489
00:25:21,729 --> 00:25:25,482
In Chinese tradition,
you have to have boys

490
00:25:25,566 --> 00:25:28,235
because boys carry on
the family name.

491
00:25:30,154 --> 00:25:32,239
My father actually gave me
the mission.

492
00:25:32,865 --> 00:25:34,867
He wrote to me in a letter and said,

493
00:25:34,950 --> 00:25:37,202
"Maybe you can carry on
the family name."

494
00:25:38,412 --> 00:25:40,497
Subconsciously, that's what I did.

495
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:46,920
One day, I got a call
from a journalist, Connie Wang,

496
00:25:47,004 --> 00:25:51,800
and she told me
that she was named after me.

497
00:25:51,884 --> 00:25:54,887
And I said, "What? Are you kidding?"

498
00:25:56,055 --> 00:25:57,264
Her parents asked her,

499
00:25:57,347 --> 00:25:59,975
"What name would you like
to be called?

500
00:26:00,059 --> 00:26:01,602
Because you're now
in the United States."

501
00:26:01,685 --> 00:26:03,812
And she was only like three or four

502
00:26:03,896 --> 00:26:05,105
or something like that.

503
00:26:06,023 --> 00:26:07,399
She saw me on television.

504
00:26:07,483 --> 00:26:09,693
She said, "Either Connie or Elmo."

505
00:26:11,570 --> 00:26:15,199
She discovered that there was
this whole generation

506
00:26:15,282 --> 00:26:18,535
of Asian girls who were named Connie.

507
00:26:21,914 --> 00:26:24,416
Connie Wang decided
that she would write a piece

508
00:26:24,500 --> 00:26:27,252
for the opinion section
of The New York Times

509
00:26:27,336 --> 00:26:30,047
and it would be all about the Connies

510
00:26:30,130 --> 00:26:31,381
that she discovered.

511
00:26:33,342 --> 00:26:36,470
And the photo editor found
a photographer

512
00:26:36,553 --> 00:26:38,680
whose name was Connie Aramaki,

513
00:26:38,764 --> 00:26:41,558
and she gathered
all of these Connies,

514
00:26:41,642 --> 00:26:43,685
-and my tears...
-Thank you.

515
00:26:43,769 --> 00:26:45,354
...just came down.

516
00:26:47,022 --> 00:26:51,318
Every time I think about it,
I start to cry.

517
00:26:56,240 --> 00:27:00,702
It's an incredible legacy
that I never knew existed.

518
00:27:02,746 --> 00:27:05,207
Having all these Connies
named after me

519
00:27:05,290 --> 00:27:07,960
is out of this world.

520
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:14,591
Swimming has been part of my life

521
00:27:14,675 --> 00:27:15,801
for as long as I can remember.

522
00:27:15,884 --> 00:27:17,219
I don't remember a time in my life

523
00:27:17,302 --> 00:27:18,679
when I wasn't in the water.

524
00:27:28,856 --> 00:27:33,485
Because I didn't present myself
often in a very girly manner,

525
00:27:34,361 --> 00:27:36,155
in the girls' bathroom
or the girls' locker room,

526
00:27:36,238 --> 00:27:37,865
I would be bullied for my appearance.

527
00:27:37,948 --> 00:27:41,243
"You're not really a girl"
or "You're like a disguised boy."

528
00:27:42,077 --> 00:27:45,330
And so I would change
in the car into my swimsuit.

529
00:27:47,875 --> 00:27:49,459
Entering the women's locker room

530
00:27:49,543 --> 00:27:51,545
with my shirt off
and my swimsuit exposed

531
00:27:51,628 --> 00:27:53,672
was sort of my ticket
into the bathroom

532
00:27:53,755 --> 00:27:56,717
without being bullied
for not being "girl enough."

533
00:28:00,012 --> 00:28:02,472
When I was thinking about
gender identity and thinking,

534
00:28:02,556 --> 00:28:05,517
"Gosh, maybe I'm not this woman
that everybody says that I am,

535
00:28:05,601 --> 00:28:07,895
maybe I'm a man,"
I thought, "Oh my God,

536
00:28:07,978 --> 00:28:09,479
what am I gonna do about sports?

537
00:28:09,563 --> 00:28:11,023
What am I gonna do about swimming?

538
00:28:11,106 --> 00:28:14,234
How am I gonna keep
being myself as an athlete

539
00:28:14,318 --> 00:28:16,862
while trying to be myself
as a trans person?"

540
00:28:17,571 --> 00:28:20,824
I had still committed to swim
for Harvard's swim team

541
00:28:20,908 --> 00:28:22,951
and the women's swim team
specifically

542
00:28:23,035 --> 00:28:24,703
when I was done with treatment.

543
00:28:27,414 --> 00:28:29,416
Coming out to my women's coach,

544
00:28:29,499 --> 00:28:31,293
her response being a lot of,

545
00:28:31,376 --> 00:28:33,420
"I don't know,
but we're gonna figure it out."

546
00:28:33,503 --> 00:28:35,255
And over the course of that year,

547
00:28:35,339 --> 00:28:37,507
I actually was offered a spot
on the men's team

548
00:28:37,591 --> 00:28:40,928
because the men's coach said,
"Well, if you identify as a man,

549
00:28:41,011 --> 00:28:42,095
swim for me."

550
00:28:44,097 --> 00:28:46,767
I was lucky to be met with this
kind of support from my coaches

551
00:28:46,850 --> 00:28:49,561
that allowed me to step
into my full self

552
00:28:50,187 --> 00:28:52,356
as a transgender man
on the men's team.

553
00:28:56,109 --> 00:28:58,111
In my process of coming out as trans,

554
00:28:58,195 --> 00:29:00,239
I got sick of telling everybody
one at a time.

555
00:29:00,322 --> 00:29:02,032
So I made this big Facebook post
where I said,

556
00:29:02,115 --> 00:29:03,909
"Hey, everybody, I'm transgender.

557
00:29:03,992 --> 00:29:05,994
Here's some information
about what this means.

558
00:29:06,078 --> 00:29:07,955
I'm gonna be swimming
for the men's team."

559
00:29:08,038 --> 00:29:10,332
So I told everybody this online.

560
00:29:10,415 --> 00:29:12,542
I actually have
three Korean grandparents.

561
00:29:13,293 --> 00:29:15,254
My halmeoni, halabeoji,
so my grandmother

562
00:29:15,337 --> 00:29:16,713
and grandfather, my mom's parents.

563
00:29:17,714 --> 00:29:20,550
I also have a great aunt,
my keun-imo.

564
00:29:22,135 --> 00:29:23,845
Halmeoni actually has a Facebook.

565
00:29:23,929 --> 00:29:27,057
So before I hit "post,"
I blocked her on Facebook.

566
00:29:27,140 --> 00:29:28,976
She has a couple of friends
that are mutual with me.

567
00:29:29,059 --> 00:29:31,895
So I said, "Hey, please
don't tell Halmeoni yet.

568
00:29:31,979 --> 00:29:34,147
I'm going to tell her,
but I need to get there."

569
00:29:35,649 --> 00:29:38,026
So then I spent about a month
writing her a letter.

570
00:29:39,111 --> 00:29:40,988
"Halmeoni, Halabeoji, Keun-imo,

571
00:29:41,071 --> 00:29:43,865
I'm telling you this
because I love you.

572
00:29:45,909 --> 00:29:47,869
Because I respect you deeply

573
00:29:47,953 --> 00:29:50,038
and because I want you in my life."

574
00:29:53,166 --> 00:29:54,960
My mother and I were very afraid.

575
00:29:55,043 --> 00:29:57,796
Maybe we'd never actually
set foot in this house again.

576
00:29:57,879 --> 00:29:59,965
And maybe she doesn't only disown me,

577
00:30:00,048 --> 00:30:01,758
but she also disowns my mother.

578
00:30:01,842 --> 00:30:03,093
So we sat down at the kitchen table.

579
00:30:03,176 --> 00:30:04,553
I read them the letter,

580
00:30:05,220 --> 00:30:06,513
I ended with "I love you,"

581
00:30:06,596 --> 00:30:07,931
and then I waited.

582
00:30:09,016 --> 00:30:10,851
My grandfather
was the first to react,

583
00:30:10,934 --> 00:30:13,979
and he started with this, like,
slow old man clap.

584
00:30:14,688 --> 00:30:16,356
And he goes, "So...

585
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:18,692
you come out of closet now."

586
00:30:18,775 --> 00:30:22,154
I was stunned he had the phrase
"coming out of the closet."

587
00:30:22,237 --> 00:30:24,448
And he said, "Oh, congratulations."

588
00:30:25,532 --> 00:30:27,701
My mom and I were absolutely

589
00:30:27,784 --> 00:30:29,661
gobsmacked, don't know what to say.

590
00:30:29,745 --> 00:30:32,581
Keun-imo, she gives me
a squeeze on the hand

591
00:30:32,664 --> 00:30:34,124
and she got up to make tea.

592
00:30:34,207 --> 00:30:35,625
Her love had been communicated.

593
00:30:35,709 --> 00:30:37,210
Halmeoni, again,

594
00:30:37,294 --> 00:30:38,795
the person
I'm the most worried about,

595
00:30:38,879 --> 00:30:40,922
she's staring at me,
she's got this really stern look

596
00:30:41,006 --> 00:30:42,341
on her face, and she goes,

597
00:30:42,924 --> 00:30:43,967
"I knew that.

598
00:30:45,635 --> 00:30:48,472
You can be a boy, a brother,"
she says.

599
00:30:48,555 --> 00:30:50,265
"You can be a man.

600
00:30:51,975 --> 00:30:55,145
But daughters take care
of their parents.

601
00:30:55,228 --> 00:30:57,898
It is still your responsibility,
Schuyler,

602
00:30:57,981 --> 00:30:59,858
to take care of your parents."

603
00:30:59,941 --> 00:31:01,026
Of course I agreed.

604
00:31:01,109 --> 00:31:03,195
I even have those words,
"bumo-hyodo,"

605
00:31:03,278 --> 00:31:04,613
"take care of your parents"

606
00:31:04,696 --> 00:31:06,448
tattooed in my grandmother's
handwriting

607
00:31:06,531 --> 00:31:09,368
beneath my mastectomy scar
next to my heart.

608
00:31:10,869 --> 00:31:12,496
It's my tribute to her

609
00:31:12,579 --> 00:31:15,916
and all the strong womanhood
that I come from.

610
00:31:15,999 --> 00:31:18,335
My halmeoni, she is North Korean.

611
00:31:18,418 --> 00:31:20,921
She walked from Pyongyang
to Seoul to escape

612
00:31:21,004 --> 00:31:24,216
right before the Korea
was split into two Koreas.

613
00:31:24,299 --> 00:31:27,135
She walked when she was
13 years old with her mother

614
00:31:27,219 --> 00:31:29,513
over the oceans to raise my mother.

615
00:31:30,263 --> 00:31:32,057
And so there's this deep value
that I carry

616
00:31:32,140 --> 00:31:34,184
and that tattoo
is part of that symbol.

617
00:31:39,272 --> 00:31:40,857
So when I was growing up,

618
00:31:40,941 --> 00:31:44,486
I was frequently told a variety
of very inappropriate comments

619
00:31:44,569 --> 00:31:46,029
about my appearance.

620
00:31:46,113 --> 00:31:48,156
"Mixed-race babies
are the most beautiful."

621
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:49,491
"Oh, you're so exotic."

622
00:31:49,574 --> 00:31:52,035
"Asian and white girls
are the sexiest."

623
00:31:52,119 --> 00:31:55,038
This was from adults around me,
from peers.

624
00:31:55,122 --> 00:31:56,373
It was from teachers.

625
00:31:56,456 --> 00:31:58,834
Very fetishizing comments
about my appearance

626
00:31:58,917 --> 00:32:03,046
that wove in racism, misogyny.

627
00:32:03,755 --> 00:32:05,090
And then I transitioned.

628
00:32:05,757 --> 00:32:07,968
And now I'm read in the world
as an Asian man.

629
00:32:08,969 --> 00:32:11,304
It's a very different experience.

630
00:32:12,639 --> 00:32:15,225
Now I feel that I just, like,
don't exist.

631
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,104
I'm frequently told
I am not man enough.

632
00:32:19,813 --> 00:32:22,732
A lot of people see
East Asian men as feminine

633
00:32:22,816 --> 00:32:24,234
or submissive or weak.

634
00:32:24,317 --> 00:32:26,611
They also see trans men
in the same way.

635
00:32:28,405 --> 00:32:29,698
My manhood is mine.

636
00:32:31,491 --> 00:32:33,076
And if you don't see it
or if you think

637
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,036
it is X, Y, and Z, that's okay.

638
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:36,997
You can think whatever you want
about my manhood,

639
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:38,081
but I know who I am.

640
00:32:38,165 --> 00:32:40,584
My racial identity
and my trans identity

641
00:32:40,667 --> 00:32:44,004
have really forced me to find
that grounding on my own.

642
00:32:44,087 --> 00:32:45,714
Now I see it
as a bit of a superpower.

643
00:33:00,187 --> 00:33:03,273
To me, the most nervous
I am in my life

644
00:33:03,356 --> 00:33:06,902
is when someone comes up to me
and says, "Hey, I loved you in..."

645
00:33:06,985 --> 00:33:09,404
And that pause between "in"
and whatever they say

646
00:33:09,488 --> 00:33:10,906
is the most nervous I've ever been.

647
00:33:12,407 --> 00:33:14,284
Harold & Kumar, I get that.

648
00:33:16,077 --> 00:33:18,914
That's like ten years
before I started doing comedy.

649
00:33:21,333 --> 00:33:22,918
And it happens
to all those other guys too.

650
00:33:23,001 --> 00:33:24,127
You know, it happens to Hasan.

651
00:33:24,211 --> 00:33:25,837
It happens to Aziz.
It happens to Kal.

652
00:33:25,921 --> 00:33:28,423
It happens to Hari.
It just happens to all of us.

653
00:33:28,507 --> 00:33:30,800
And I always say the same line
when someone says,

654
00:33:30,884 --> 00:33:33,637
"Hey, I loved you
in Big Bang Theory,"

655
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:35,305
I'm like, "No, that's the other one."

656
00:33:37,974 --> 00:33:38,975
Yeah.

657
00:33:39,559 --> 00:33:42,062
It has led
to some awkward situations.

658
00:33:42,145 --> 00:33:43,146
Yeah...

659
00:33:46,107 --> 00:33:47,442
Hey, what's up, guys?

660
00:33:47,526 --> 00:33:50,820
I started doing stand-up
right after 9/11.

661
00:33:50,904 --> 00:33:52,364
I just got an Xbox.

662
00:33:52,447 --> 00:33:54,074
Whenever I got on stage,

663
00:33:54,157 --> 00:33:55,951
I would feel that tension
from the audience.

664
00:33:56,034 --> 00:33:57,202
They're like,
"Is he gonna mention it?

665
00:33:57,285 --> 00:33:58,286
Is he gonna mention it?"

666
00:33:58,370 --> 00:34:00,413
And I tried to not address it.

667
00:34:00,497 --> 00:34:03,124
It just wasn't working.
I had to address it.

668
00:34:03,208 --> 00:34:05,085
I would get on stage
and if I was doing

669
00:34:05,168 --> 00:34:07,128
like a bar or something,
you know, suddenly,

670
00:34:07,212 --> 00:34:09,547
everyone's like a little tense,
looking at me.

671
00:34:09,630 --> 00:34:12,759
And I would go,
"Hey, I'm from Pakistan.

672
00:34:14,344 --> 00:34:15,637
We're the good guys."

673
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:17,013
That's what I would say.

674
00:34:18,306 --> 00:34:19,849
"Where's Osama?"

675
00:34:19,933 --> 00:34:21,726
I got that one a few times.

676
00:34:23,853 --> 00:34:26,273
After the first two
or three times it happened,

677
00:34:26,356 --> 00:34:29,484
I was like, "Okay, these
are not isolated incidents.

678
00:34:29,568 --> 00:34:31,194
This is gonna keep happening,

679
00:34:31,277 --> 00:34:33,280
so I need to come up
with comeback lines

680
00:34:33,362 --> 00:34:34,989
that I can just memorize."

681
00:34:35,072 --> 00:34:38,326
People would call me "terrorist"
on stage,

682
00:34:38,409 --> 00:34:40,495
and I'd be like,
"If I really am a terrorist,

683
00:34:40,579 --> 00:34:42,289
do you wanna, like,
pick a fight with me?"

684
00:34:42,371 --> 00:34:43,540
"Where's Osama?" I'd be like,

685
00:34:43,623 --> 00:34:44,916
"I don't know.
I haven't seen him at the meetings

686
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:46,001
in a long time."

687
00:34:46,083 --> 00:34:47,418
Someone says something to you,

688
00:34:47,502 --> 00:34:48,628
you say something back,

689
00:34:48,712 --> 00:34:51,089
and then suddenly,
the audience explodes.

690
00:34:51,172 --> 00:34:53,007
They love it. They love you.

691
00:34:53,091 --> 00:34:55,885
I found out one of the levels
in the new Call of Duty

692
00:34:55,969 --> 00:34:57,596
is called "Karachi."

693
00:34:58,346 --> 00:35:00,557
Which is where I fucking grew up.

694
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:01,850
That's weird for me.

695
00:35:01,933 --> 00:35:04,436
They're like,
"Your hometown is now a battlefield."

696
00:35:05,353 --> 00:35:07,522
"How many points can you get?"

697
00:35:07,606 --> 00:35:10,734
For me, the negotiation
of my identity

698
00:35:10,817 --> 00:35:13,820
is still an ongoing project.
I still don't know.

699
00:35:13,903 --> 00:35:16,031
You know, if you asked
how I identify myself,

700
00:35:16,114 --> 00:35:17,115
I say Pakistani.

701
00:35:17,198 --> 00:35:19,117
Wikipedia says Pakistani American.

702
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:20,869
I don't really know what that means.

703
00:35:20,952 --> 00:35:23,622
So I don't feel fully Pakistani

704
00:35:23,705 --> 00:35:25,165
because it's not my home anymore.

705
00:35:25,248 --> 00:35:27,834
And I don't feel American because...

706
00:35:27,917 --> 00:35:32,130
your membership in a group
is based on the other members

707
00:35:32,213 --> 00:35:33,840
seeing you as a member of that group.

708
00:35:33,923 --> 00:35:36,051
And I understand
that a lot of America

709
00:35:36,134 --> 00:35:38,261
is never going to see me as American.

710
00:35:39,512 --> 00:35:41,306
And so I don't feel American.

711
00:35:43,308 --> 00:35:44,601
You have to come up with something

712
00:35:44,684 --> 00:35:47,187
that's completely unique to you.

713
00:35:52,025 --> 00:35:53,902
When I was a little kid,

714
00:35:53,985 --> 00:35:56,321
I loved movies and TV.

715
00:35:58,156 --> 00:35:59,574
Movies, TV, video games.

716
00:35:59,658 --> 00:36:01,159
There was a long stretch in my life

717
00:36:01,242 --> 00:36:03,370
where I watched a movie
every single day.

718
00:36:05,163 --> 00:36:08,291
Star Wars and Star Trek
and Gremlins and Ghostbusters

719
00:36:08,375 --> 00:36:10,293
and Indiana Jones and all that stuff.

720
00:36:10,377 --> 00:36:12,879
But I also watched a lot
of Bollywood movies

721
00:36:12,962 --> 00:36:14,923
and that sort of, uh,

722
00:36:15,006 --> 00:36:18,385
depiction of the sort
of strong, silent man

723
00:36:18,468 --> 00:36:20,512
who doesn't ever get sad
or feel fear,

724
00:36:20,595 --> 00:36:23,515
like that's a big part
of Bollywood movies, you know.

725
00:36:23,598 --> 00:36:26,142
And so I really grew up
sort of idolizing those things,

726
00:36:26,226 --> 00:36:29,104
you know, being the stoic man
who takes care of his family

727
00:36:29,187 --> 00:36:32,148
and takes care of the bad guys
and all that stuff.

728
00:36:33,191 --> 00:36:35,944
And now realizing that, honestly,

729
00:36:36,027 --> 00:36:40,532
that conception of manhood
for me was very damaging.

730
00:36:41,658 --> 00:36:44,452
You can't be sad
and you can't be scared,

731
00:36:44,536 --> 00:36:48,331
and that angry
is the only manly emotion there is.

732
00:36:50,291 --> 00:36:53,670
Now, when I go on stage,
I wanna talk about how...

733
00:36:53,753 --> 00:36:56,881
understanding how I'm feeling

734
00:36:56,965 --> 00:37:00,135
and being able to express that
is strength, you know.

735
00:37:00,218 --> 00:37:02,595
Like, anger is not
necessarily strength.

736
00:37:02,679 --> 00:37:05,557
Saying "I'm scared of this"
is also strength.

737
00:37:07,892 --> 00:37:09,644
Now when I do stand-up,

738
00:37:10,645 --> 00:37:12,856
I wanna be someone who looks like me

739
00:37:12,939 --> 00:37:14,482
talking about that stuff, you know.

740
00:37:14,566 --> 00:37:18,778
That even though I am successful
and I'm very fortunate,

741
00:37:18,862 --> 00:37:20,780
but I-I still have

742
00:37:21,823 --> 00:37:23,658
these things inside me

743
00:37:25,577 --> 00:37:26,745
that scare me.

744
00:37:35,670 --> 00:37:39,257
So I came to the
United States in the late '70s

745
00:37:39,340 --> 00:37:41,384
and I went straight to Kansas City.

746
00:37:42,427 --> 00:37:45,972
When I was flying
from the Philippines,

747
00:37:46,055 --> 00:37:47,807
the lady seated next to me said,

748
00:37:47,891 --> 00:37:49,517
"You are my first Asian,"

749
00:37:50,185 --> 00:37:53,396
and she said it
in such a derogatory way.

750
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:57,150
So I retorted back and probably
not respectfully, I said,

751
00:37:57,233 --> 00:37:59,027
"You're my first stupid."

752
00:38:01,029 --> 00:38:03,782
It was quiet
all the way to Kansas City.

753
00:38:07,786 --> 00:38:10,121
In the '70s and in the '80s,

754
00:38:10,205 --> 00:38:12,499
there was a huge nursing shortage.

755
00:38:13,333 --> 00:38:16,461
Many administrators
from all over the United States

756
00:38:16,544 --> 00:38:19,798
would go to the Philippines
and recruit in Manila

757
00:38:19,881 --> 00:38:21,925
all the nurses that they could get.

758
00:38:24,928 --> 00:38:27,347
What I would earn in 12 months

759
00:38:27,430 --> 00:38:29,766
as a head nurse of the medical ICU

760
00:38:29,849 --> 00:38:32,352
at the Philippine Heart Center,

761
00:38:32,435 --> 00:38:36,314
I would already earn here
in the U.S. just for one month.

762
00:38:36,397 --> 00:38:39,609
And my story is no different
from any other Filipino nurse

763
00:38:39,692 --> 00:38:42,445
who would come here
to look, as they say,

764
00:38:42,529 --> 00:38:43,947
"for greener pastures,"

765
00:38:44,030 --> 00:38:47,158
for a better opportunity
for their families.

766
00:38:50,328 --> 00:38:52,831
When I came to the United States,

767
00:38:52,914 --> 00:38:54,290
I was 25.

768
00:38:54,958 --> 00:38:57,502
I was leaving my husband behind

769
00:38:57,585 --> 00:38:59,754
and my first-born baby.

770
00:38:59,838 --> 00:39:02,674
He was only a few months old
when I left.

771
00:39:05,677 --> 00:39:10,557
I would send half of my salary
back home every month.

772
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:15,144
I was so homesick.

773
00:39:15,979 --> 00:39:18,147
I was very, very lonely.

774
00:39:20,441 --> 00:39:23,903
There's a music back home
called "Manila, Manila."

775
00:39:26,072 --> 00:39:29,117
Somebody played it during
one of the Christmas parties

776
00:39:29,993 --> 00:39:33,371
and I broke out crying like crazy.

777
00:39:36,165 --> 00:39:38,126
My husband and the four children

778
00:39:38,209 --> 00:39:39,460
joined me in the U.S.

779
00:39:39,544 --> 00:39:41,546
and we settled in New Jersey.

780
00:39:42,672 --> 00:39:45,216
And I retired in 2019

781
00:39:45,967 --> 00:39:49,304
after serving as a nurse
for 46 years.

782
00:39:51,973 --> 00:39:54,934
We were planning to start
my husband's retirement

783
00:39:55,018 --> 00:39:57,312
in November 2020,

784
00:39:57,395 --> 00:39:59,647
and we were going to travel
the world.

785
00:40:02,025 --> 00:40:04,569
Breaking news about
the spreading coronavirus.

786
00:40:04,652 --> 00:40:07,280
At least 19 deaths
are now reported in the U.S.

787
00:40:07,363 --> 00:40:09,741
-There are now...
-In March 2020,

788
00:40:09,824 --> 00:40:11,326
after watching TV,

789
00:40:11,409 --> 00:40:14,537
my husband dozed off
as he usually does.

790
00:40:14,621 --> 00:40:16,456
And then we FaceTime
with our children

791
00:40:16,539 --> 00:40:18,249
because we couldn't gather anymore,

792
00:40:18,333 --> 00:40:20,710
and they were like,
"Mom, he doesn't look good."

793
00:40:20,793 --> 00:40:23,463
And that was the start
of my nightmare.

794
00:40:25,548 --> 00:40:28,301
He was admitted to the hospital
where I worked.

795
00:40:29,928 --> 00:40:31,596
A few more days to that,

796
00:40:32,305 --> 00:40:35,391
my family called 911 again for me.

797
00:40:37,769 --> 00:40:39,270
I had COVID too.

798
00:40:42,482 --> 00:40:43,942
Who would take care of my husband

799
00:40:44,025 --> 00:40:45,151
when he comes home?

800
00:40:45,234 --> 00:40:47,195
I'm the nurse.
I will take care of him,

801
00:40:47,278 --> 00:40:48,988
so I have to live.

802
00:40:51,282 --> 00:40:53,368
It was Holy Week and I do believe

803
00:40:53,451 --> 00:40:54,786
in the power of prayers.

804
00:40:54,869 --> 00:40:58,206
I felt lifted up on Good Friday.

805
00:40:58,289 --> 00:41:01,084
On Sunday, Easter Sunday,

806
00:41:01,167 --> 00:41:05,254
I saw a rainbow
in front of my hospital window

807
00:41:06,130 --> 00:41:09,258
and I said to myself,
"I'm gonna live."

808
00:41:11,260 --> 00:41:13,846
My husband was going
into his third week

809
00:41:13,930 --> 00:41:16,057
intubated in the ICU.

810
00:41:16,975 --> 00:41:18,726
And the doctors would update me

811
00:41:18,810 --> 00:41:20,728
that this medication
was being put up,

812
00:41:20,812 --> 00:41:23,690
this ventilator setting
was being done,

813
00:41:23,773 --> 00:41:25,233
and I understood them all.

814
00:41:25,316 --> 00:41:27,819
Remember, I'm a critical care nurse.

815
00:41:27,902 --> 00:41:31,656
And when they told me that
a certain medication was added,

816
00:41:32,615 --> 00:41:33,616
my heart fell.

817
00:41:36,077 --> 00:41:38,287
I was able to hold his hand

818
00:41:38,371 --> 00:41:40,915
for the last three hours of his life.

819
00:41:42,166 --> 00:41:44,419
I had the priest bless him.

820
00:41:44,502 --> 00:41:46,295
We prayed the rosary.

821
00:41:46,379 --> 00:41:48,673
The children FaceTimed him.

822
00:41:48,756 --> 00:41:51,676
And I whispered in his ears,

823
00:41:51,759 --> 00:41:54,429
"It's okay to go, Daddy. It's okay."

824
00:42:08,026 --> 00:42:09,485
So how do you move on?

825
00:42:10,695 --> 00:42:12,530
I pray for him every day.

826
00:42:12,613 --> 00:42:15,658
I visit him every week,
bring him flowers.

827
00:42:16,451 --> 00:42:18,828
And now I'm a happy grandma of six.

828
00:42:19,454 --> 00:42:22,665
I go home to the Philippines
to visit relatives,

829
00:42:22,749 --> 00:42:24,292
do the medical mission.

830
00:42:27,211 --> 00:42:30,590
And I always say in Tagalog,

831
00:42:31,382 --> 00:42:34,510
"Ang hindi marunong sa pinanggalingan

832
00:42:34,594 --> 00:42:37,430
ay hindi makarating sa paroroonan."

833
00:42:37,513 --> 00:42:41,434
"If you do not look back
at where you came from,

834
00:42:41,517 --> 00:42:44,604
you can never reach
your destination."

835
00:42:45,146 --> 00:42:47,607
We have only one life to live.

836
00:42:48,232 --> 00:42:49,609
Make a difference.

837
00:42:55,531 --> 00:42:59,035
If you grow up poor, you're just
more motivated to not be poor.

838
00:43:01,496 --> 00:43:03,414
When it snowed and we had snow days,

839
00:43:03,498 --> 00:43:05,583
I would get my friends
and be like, "We're shoveling."

840
00:43:05,666 --> 00:43:07,335
We had a lawn mowing business.

841
00:43:07,418 --> 00:43:10,254
I learned some magic
and started doing magic shows.

842
00:43:10,338 --> 00:43:12,924
All I have to do
is shake it up a little...

843
00:43:14,967 --> 00:43:15,968
blow it out,

844
00:43:16,052 --> 00:43:17,261
and they're all tied together.

845
00:43:17,345 --> 00:43:19,639
I had racked up hundreds of dollars

846
00:43:19,722 --> 00:43:21,015
in library fines.

847
00:43:21,099 --> 00:43:24,310
So I offered the library
to do magic shows,

848
00:43:24,393 --> 00:43:26,896
and I said, "All I want
is you to wipe my fines."

849
00:43:26,979 --> 00:43:28,314
And they did that.

850
00:43:28,397 --> 00:43:30,358
"Horrendous Haroon"
was what they called me.

851
00:43:32,860 --> 00:43:34,821
On the day of my birth,

852
00:43:34,904 --> 00:43:36,697
the Russians invaded Afghanistan.

853
00:43:38,616 --> 00:43:39,951
I was there for three years.

854
00:43:40,535 --> 00:43:42,328
My father was arrested

855
00:43:42,411 --> 00:43:44,539
for supporting
some of the resistance.

856
00:43:46,332 --> 00:43:48,167
When he got out of prison
six months later,

857
00:43:48,251 --> 00:43:50,044
we decided we gotta get out of there.

858
00:43:52,755 --> 00:43:56,217
The Mokhtarzadas
were actually quite well-off.

859
00:43:56,300 --> 00:43:57,760
The currency inflated

860
00:43:57,844 --> 00:43:59,887
and so the Afghani
wasn't worth anything.

861
00:43:59,971 --> 00:44:01,389
It was a full wipeout.

862
00:44:05,268 --> 00:44:08,020
When we came to America,
we moved into

863
00:44:08,104 --> 00:44:10,940
my mother's parents'
two-bedroom apartment

864
00:44:11,023 --> 00:44:12,066
in Maryland.

865
00:44:13,734 --> 00:44:17,572
A family of six at the time,
plus my grandparents.

866
00:44:17,655 --> 00:44:19,240
I don't quite know how we fit.

867
00:44:20,032 --> 00:44:21,367
We were packed in there.

868
00:44:22,451 --> 00:44:25,371
We really couldn't afford
kind of anything.

869
00:44:28,291 --> 00:44:30,209
I definitely remember
being on free lunch.

870
00:44:31,085 --> 00:44:33,921
They would separate the kids
before lunchtime.

871
00:44:34,714 --> 00:44:37,383
They would call you over
and check you off on a list.

872
00:44:37,466 --> 00:44:39,635
When I moved to reduced lunch,

873
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:42,763
I was like, "Ooh, we are arriving."
You know?

874
00:44:45,349 --> 00:44:47,268
I grew up with an awareness

875
00:44:47,810 --> 00:44:49,687
that my people

876
00:44:50,396 --> 00:44:52,398
were going through extreme struggles.

877
00:44:53,399 --> 00:44:57,403
My mother really drilled into us

878
00:44:58,070 --> 00:45:00,031
that we were very fortunate

879
00:45:01,115 --> 00:45:03,784
and you have to do
what you can possibly do

880
00:45:03,868 --> 00:45:07,580
because there's a million people
who would trade places with you.

881
00:45:07,663 --> 00:45:10,917
That definitely had a lot to do
with my ambition.

882
00:45:12,835 --> 00:45:15,546
When I was in high school,

883
00:45:15,630 --> 00:45:18,799
I had interned for a marketing firm.

884
00:45:18,883 --> 00:45:21,552
They had me learn
how to build websites.

885
00:45:21,636 --> 00:45:24,180
They were selling 'em for thousands
of dollars to these companies.

886
00:45:24,263 --> 00:45:27,433
And so I realized every company
and maybe every person

887
00:45:27,516 --> 00:45:28,684
is gonna need a website.

888
00:45:28,768 --> 00:45:29,936
What if we build something

889
00:45:30,019 --> 00:45:31,395
that builds their websites?

890
00:45:31,479 --> 00:45:33,731
And that's where the idea
of Freewebs came from.

891
00:45:34,565 --> 00:45:36,651
Having brothers who can code

892
00:45:36,734 --> 00:45:38,569
is a very valuable thing.

893
00:45:39,195 --> 00:45:41,864
I sort of roped them in and said,
"Guys, let's build this."

894
00:45:42,531 --> 00:45:44,951
We started Webs
right when I was a senior

895
00:45:45,034 --> 00:45:46,452
at the University of Maryland.

896
00:45:48,913 --> 00:45:50,706
We had to have physical machines,

897
00:45:50,790 --> 00:45:52,708
the servers that everything ran on.

898
00:45:53,793 --> 00:45:57,588
It moved from dorm
to apartment to a closet.

899
00:45:58,673 --> 00:46:01,968
One day, everything goes down.
Every single thing goes down.

900
00:46:02,051 --> 00:46:03,552
Hundred thousand websites

901
00:46:03,636 --> 00:46:05,429
are sitting on this server
and it won't boot.

902
00:46:05,513 --> 00:46:07,848
We couldn't get that to boot,
that's the end of the company.

903
00:46:07,932 --> 00:46:10,601
Finally, we call Dell
and Dell says, "Hey,

904
00:46:10,685 --> 00:46:14,397
sometimes there can be dust
that causes this problem.

905
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:17,733
Try opening it up,
pulling out the cable,

906
00:46:17,817 --> 00:46:21,279
blowing into it like
a Nintendo cartridge or something,

907
00:46:21,362 --> 00:46:24,490
and then reseeding it
and then turning it back on."

908
00:46:24,573 --> 00:46:27,451
We open it up, we pull out
the cable, we blow...

909
00:46:27,535 --> 00:46:29,537
blow into it, put it back,

910
00:46:30,538 --> 00:46:31,998
turn it on,

911
00:46:32,081 --> 00:46:33,541
and the whole thing came back up.

912
00:46:33,624 --> 00:46:36,252
Right there was a fork
in the universe.

913
00:46:36,335 --> 00:46:39,171
One path would have been
very, very different.

914
00:46:39,255 --> 00:46:41,674
Our entire future
hung in the balance,

915
00:46:41,757 --> 00:46:43,634
suspended on a piece of dust.

916
00:46:45,136 --> 00:46:48,097
So my parents,
they didn't quite understand

917
00:46:49,015 --> 00:46:52,018
the level of success
that we were starting to have

918
00:46:52,101 --> 00:46:54,854
until we told them
how much we sold the company for

919
00:46:54,937 --> 00:46:56,647
ten years after we started it.

920
00:46:56,731 --> 00:46:59,859
We sold the company
for almost 120 million dollars.

921
00:47:01,986 --> 00:47:03,821
Me and my brothers
were sitting around a computer

922
00:47:03,904 --> 00:47:06,157
and we were just refreshing
on our bank account.

923
00:47:06,741 --> 00:47:08,826
Suddenly, a lot more zeros popped up.

924
00:47:09,660 --> 00:47:11,579
That was when it really felt real.

925
00:47:12,455 --> 00:47:15,249
Wow, my family is taken care of.

926
00:47:21,172 --> 00:47:23,299
For our next start-up, I had realized

927
00:47:23,382 --> 00:47:25,134
that this is
a really annoying problem

928
00:47:25,217 --> 00:47:27,178
that you cannot find

929
00:47:27,261 --> 00:47:28,804
what subscriptions you're paying for.

930
00:47:28,888 --> 00:47:30,723
And Truebill was born.

931
00:47:32,767 --> 00:47:34,268
In the tech world,

932
00:47:34,352 --> 00:47:36,312
there's a thing called a unicorn.

933
00:47:36,395 --> 00:47:39,523
And a unicorn is a north
of one billion-dollar thing.

934
00:47:40,900 --> 00:47:43,861
We sold that company
for almost 1.3 billion.

935
00:47:45,529 --> 00:47:47,365
Wow, what am I gonna do with this

936
00:47:47,448 --> 00:47:50,076
that will make me worthy
of it coming my way?

937
00:47:54,246 --> 00:47:57,708
I have now accomplished enough
in my life,

938
00:47:57,792 --> 00:48:00,336
I'm gonna speak my mind
and I'm gonna create space

939
00:48:00,419 --> 00:48:03,214
for the Muslim community
to have a voice.

940
00:48:03,297 --> 00:48:06,092
That's why I'm investing
in independent journalism.

941
00:48:06,926 --> 00:48:08,761
And that's why
I've been trying to get

942
00:48:08,844 --> 00:48:11,430
emergency malnutrition
packets to Gaza.

943
00:48:12,223 --> 00:48:14,433
And that's why I help fund
and support

944
00:48:14,517 --> 00:48:16,602
a school in Afghanistan for orphans.

945
00:48:18,187 --> 00:48:20,773
And I try to call out
people on Twitter

946
00:48:20,856 --> 00:48:23,442
when I feel like
they're not being honest

947
00:48:23,526 --> 00:48:25,236
or they're spreading misinformation.

948
00:48:25,319 --> 00:48:28,948
If I, after having all of this
success in this country,

949
00:48:29,031 --> 00:48:31,951
if I cannot speak these things,
who is going to do it?

950
00:48:32,743 --> 00:48:33,744
Who can?

951
00:48:39,750 --> 00:48:40,835
I remember being in the Army

952
00:48:40,918 --> 00:48:43,379
as a young officer
going through flight school.

953
00:48:44,296 --> 00:48:47,216
The Army put up a picture
of what the ideal Army officer

954
00:48:47,299 --> 00:48:48,300
would look like,

955
00:48:48,384 --> 00:48:51,887
and it was a square-jawed,
chiseled man,

956
00:48:51,971 --> 00:48:53,389
blond with a buzzcut.

957
00:48:53,472 --> 00:48:55,975
And I was like,
I'm never gonna look like that.

958
00:49:00,604 --> 00:49:02,982
I was literally mid-mission
when I was wounded

959
00:49:03,065 --> 00:49:04,483
and taken out of Iraq.

960
00:49:07,278 --> 00:49:09,447
I remember being hit

961
00:49:10,823 --> 00:49:13,659
and I remember just desperately
trying to land the helicopter.

962
00:49:15,411 --> 00:49:18,205
I mean, my legs were blown off.
My arm was essentially severed.

963
00:49:18,289 --> 00:49:20,916
I wasn't doing anything
other than coming to

964
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:22,418
and trying to fly and passing out

965
00:49:22,501 --> 00:49:23,919
and coming to and trying to fly.

966
00:49:25,629 --> 00:49:28,174
Confusion, pain,

967
00:49:29,341 --> 00:49:32,720
despair 'cause I thought
that I was responsible

968
00:49:32,803 --> 00:49:35,431
and that I'd failed as a pilot,
I'd failed as a soldier,

969
00:49:35,514 --> 00:49:36,932
I'd failed as an officer.

970
00:49:39,143 --> 00:49:41,020
And later on,
it was explained to me that,

971
00:49:41,103 --> 00:49:44,190
"No, you were still trying
to take care of your men."

972
00:49:44,273 --> 00:49:45,524
And I've been fine ever since.

973
00:49:48,527 --> 00:49:50,571
As long as I did my job as a soldier.

974
00:49:56,285 --> 00:49:59,413
When I first ran for Senate,
and I talked about

975
00:49:59,497 --> 00:50:00,998
being a daughter
of the American Revolution,

976
00:50:01,081 --> 00:50:03,250
my opponent very derisively
in the debate

977
00:50:03,334 --> 00:50:05,294
looked at me and said,
"Oh, yeah, I'm sure your parents

978
00:50:05,377 --> 00:50:06,504
came all the way from Thailand

979
00:50:06,587 --> 00:50:08,464
to fight with George Washington,"

980
00:50:08,547 --> 00:50:10,049
as if like there is no possibility.

981
00:50:10,132 --> 00:50:11,842
And I had to correct him.
I was like, "Actually,

982
00:50:11,926 --> 00:50:14,053
my ancestors did fight
for George Washington."

983
00:50:17,681 --> 00:50:20,809
I am half Caucasian, half East Asian.

984
00:50:20,893 --> 00:50:22,978
My mother is actually
ethnically Chinese,

985
00:50:23,062 --> 00:50:24,688
but born and raised in Thailand.

986
00:50:25,564 --> 00:50:27,483
So she identifies as Thai.

987
00:50:28,526 --> 00:50:29,777
It was a twist of fate.

988
00:50:29,860 --> 00:50:32,196
My parents met
because of the Vietnam War.

989
00:50:32,279 --> 00:50:34,615
My dad was in Asia
because of the Vietnam War.

990
00:50:34,698 --> 00:50:36,450
He fell in love with my mom.

991
00:50:37,993 --> 00:50:42,122
But he married my mom, unlike
so many of the other Thai women.

992
00:50:42,206 --> 00:50:44,375
And to this day, I still get letters

993
00:50:44,458 --> 00:50:47,711
from biracial
Thai American kids my age,

994
00:50:47,795 --> 00:50:50,047
"Can you help me find my dad?
His name was Bob

995
00:50:50,130 --> 00:50:51,799
and he was a sergeant in the Army."

996
00:50:51,882 --> 00:50:54,218
And it just breaks my heart.

997
00:50:55,803 --> 00:50:58,514
Growing up post-Vietnam
in Southeast Asia

998
00:50:58,597 --> 00:51:02,393
as a biracial Amerasian child
was not a positive thing.

999
00:51:03,185 --> 00:51:05,604
Had my dad not married my mom
and stayed,

1000
00:51:05,688 --> 00:51:07,856
I would have had no future.

1001
00:51:08,691 --> 00:51:10,526
And my mother
would have had no future

1002
00:51:11,569 --> 00:51:14,196
'cause everybody knew
that I was a child of a soldier.

1003
00:51:16,073 --> 00:51:18,993
Well, the other kids would say,
"Oh, you're big and clumsy,"

1004
00:51:19,076 --> 00:51:21,829
'cause I was a lot taller
than other kids.

1005
00:51:21,912 --> 00:51:24,164
"Oh, you and your dad
smell like cheese."

1006
00:51:25,583 --> 00:51:27,876
I think when I started feeling good
about being biracial

1007
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:29,753
was when I moved to Hawaii.

1008
00:51:31,505 --> 00:51:35,175
In Thailand, the term for me
was "Luk khrung."

1009
00:51:35,259 --> 00:51:38,596
Luk is child. Khrung is half.
So you're "half a child."

1010
00:51:38,679 --> 00:51:41,015
But in Hawaii you're a hapa,

1011
00:51:41,098 --> 00:51:43,726
which means also half,
but it just means mixed.

1012
00:51:43,809 --> 00:51:45,394
But it's a positive term.

1013
00:51:45,477 --> 00:51:48,647
That's really the first place where
I sort of grew into my identity.

1014
00:51:51,108 --> 00:51:53,986
I was in middle school
when my dad lost his job

1015
00:51:54,069 --> 00:51:56,030
and our family
descended into poverty.

1016
00:51:56,864 --> 00:51:59,825
My mom and I told my dad,
"Let's go to the States."

1017
00:51:59,908 --> 00:52:02,911
My mom couldn't come 'cause
she didn't have a Green Card yet

1018
00:52:02,995 --> 00:52:05,247
and she did not have a visa
and we couldn't afford

1019
00:52:05,331 --> 00:52:06,582
for her to come anyway.

1020
00:52:08,334 --> 00:52:10,544
When I got on that plane
leaving Thailand for Hawaii,

1021
00:52:10,628 --> 00:52:12,713
she told me, "You have to take over."

1022
00:52:14,006 --> 00:52:15,215
I had to be mom.

1023
00:52:16,050 --> 00:52:18,802
But we were struggling.
We had nothing.

1024
00:52:20,888 --> 00:52:24,016
I finally had a big fight
with my dad and said,

1025
00:52:24,099 --> 00:52:26,477
"You are not in charge anymore
because you cannot provide.

1026
00:52:27,478 --> 00:52:29,188
I'm gonna go get a job."

1027
00:52:29,271 --> 00:52:32,149
I marched down to Waikiki Beach
and got a job

1028
00:52:32,232 --> 00:52:33,400
handing out flyers to tourists.

1029
00:52:34,193 --> 00:52:36,737
That was the first real income
our family had.

1030
00:52:37,863 --> 00:52:38,989
I sold roses.

1031
00:52:39,531 --> 00:52:42,576
I scammed tourists
playing volleyball on the beach.

1032
00:52:44,411 --> 00:52:46,622
I would be pretending
to be just a local girl

1033
00:52:46,705 --> 00:52:48,707
and partner with a local dude

1034
00:52:48,791 --> 00:52:51,960
who would tell the tourists,
"Listen, I'll play you

1035
00:52:52,044 --> 00:52:53,671
and I'll get that girl
to play with me."

1036
00:52:53,754 --> 00:52:56,799
And I'd be like, "Who, me?
Really? I get to play?"

1037
00:52:56,882 --> 00:52:59,885
It's kind of like our version
of White Men Can't Jump the movie.

1038
00:53:01,261 --> 00:53:03,347
Five bucks a game
usually is what we played for.

1039
00:53:03,430 --> 00:53:04,473
I was really good.

1040
00:53:08,143 --> 00:53:10,312
I never worked harder in my life

1041
00:53:10,396 --> 00:53:12,231
than when I was poor.

1042
00:53:13,899 --> 00:53:16,110
I was exhausted every single day.

1043
00:53:16,193 --> 00:53:17,444
My dad was exhausted.

1044
00:53:17,528 --> 00:53:20,906
And if we could just help
by a little bit,

1045
00:53:21,532 --> 00:53:23,826
just give people
a little breathing room.

1046
00:53:26,286 --> 00:53:28,747
Those are the policies
that I support today.

1047
00:53:32,710 --> 00:53:35,045
I don't think of myself
as an overachiever.

1048
00:53:35,754 --> 00:53:38,173
I just fell into things

1049
00:53:38,257 --> 00:53:40,759
and I was just trying to survive.

1050
00:53:42,553 --> 00:53:44,138
I wanted to be a helicopter pilot

1051
00:53:44,221 --> 00:53:45,472
for the rest of my life.

1052
00:53:48,016 --> 00:53:49,852
Getting into politics
was something I fell into

1053
00:53:49,935 --> 00:53:51,228
because I was mad

1054
00:53:51,311 --> 00:53:53,439
that we weren't taking care
of veterans.

1055
00:53:53,522 --> 00:53:55,232
I wasn't trying to achieve anything.

1056
00:53:55,315 --> 00:53:58,068
And I failed,
the first time around. I lost.

1057
00:53:58,152 --> 00:53:59,528
So I find myself here

1058
00:53:59,611 --> 00:54:01,321
where people talk about me
as a high achiever,

1059
00:54:01,405 --> 00:54:03,657
and I really see myself
as someone who was just

1060
00:54:04,324 --> 00:54:06,410
trying to survive
and do the next thing.

1061
00:54:07,411 --> 00:54:09,204
It's probably very Asian.

1062
00:54:16,336 --> 00:54:20,966
There was a Chinese Bible camp
that we went to

1063
00:54:22,092 --> 00:54:24,219
in the Rockies, in a lodge.

1064
00:54:25,429 --> 00:54:28,640
The kids ended up
being all these very funny,

1065
00:54:28,724 --> 00:54:30,642
cool, horny Christian teens

1066
00:54:30,726 --> 00:54:32,644
who played the guitar
and hooked up with each other.

1067
00:54:32,728 --> 00:54:33,729
I was never one of them.

1068
00:54:33,812 --> 00:54:38,192
My currency in those situations
was to just be funny.

1069
00:54:40,402 --> 00:54:43,071
And one of the skits,
I was called upon

1070
00:54:43,155 --> 00:54:44,782
to play Austin Powers

1071
00:54:44,865 --> 00:54:46,492
and do an Austin Powers impression.

1072
00:54:46,575 --> 00:54:49,703
I think I said the words,
"Yeah, baby,"

1073
00:54:49,787 --> 00:54:52,164
and then everyone in the room

1074
00:54:52,915 --> 00:54:54,541
exploding in laughter.

1075
00:54:54,625 --> 00:54:58,086
I was like, "Oh, I wanna do that
for the rest of my life."

1076
00:55:04,802 --> 00:55:06,553
I would run to the basement,

1077
00:55:06,637 --> 00:55:09,431
watch SNL and MADtv,
and all these sketch shows.

1078
00:55:10,307 --> 00:55:11,517
I was obsessed.

1079
00:55:12,768 --> 00:55:14,394
I made that my whole identity.

1080
00:55:14,478 --> 00:55:16,522
Being on the improv troupe
in high school,

1081
00:55:16,605 --> 00:55:19,817
going downtown to the Bovine
Metropolis Theater in Denver

1082
00:55:19,900 --> 00:55:22,986
to, like, do shows
with like 33-year-old men

1083
00:55:23,070 --> 00:55:25,280
who had drinking problems,
as a 15-year-old.

1084
00:55:25,364 --> 00:55:28,408
Like, I was building my life
around this.

1085
00:55:28,992 --> 00:55:31,703
I was very, like, meekly, bashfully

1086
00:55:31,787 --> 00:55:34,164
saying that to people,
especially to my parents.

1087
00:55:34,248 --> 00:55:36,375
I was trying to make that
a palatable dream to them.

1088
00:55:36,458 --> 00:55:38,168
In no world would it have
made sense for me

1089
00:55:38,252 --> 00:55:40,212
to be like in showbiz
when they were like,

1090
00:55:40,295 --> 00:55:42,965
"We sacrificed everything.

1091
00:55:43,048 --> 00:55:45,217
Why would you wanna do
short form improv?"

1092
00:55:46,343 --> 00:55:47,803
One day I was me, Cristina Yang,

1093
00:55:47,886 --> 00:55:49,263
and then suddenly I was...

1094
00:55:49,888 --> 00:55:53,058
lying for him
and jeopardizing my career

1095
00:55:53,141 --> 00:55:55,686
and, uh, agreeing to be married

1096
00:55:55,769 --> 00:55:58,438
and wearing a ring and being a bride.

1097
00:55:58,522 --> 00:56:01,692
I loved Sandra Oh
on Grey's Anatomy so much

1098
00:56:01,775 --> 00:56:04,486
that I said, "I guess I'll go to NYU

1099
00:56:04,570 --> 00:56:07,197
to study chemistry and be pre-med
because I wanna be like her.

1100
00:56:07,281 --> 00:56:08,740
I wanna be like Cristina Yang."

1101
00:56:11,201 --> 00:56:13,662
I stayed on the pre-med track
all the way through,

1102
00:56:15,289 --> 00:56:18,041
and it was about what

1103
00:56:18,125 --> 00:56:20,669
a media portrayal was indicating,

1104
00:56:20,752 --> 00:56:22,963
what my parents felt safe
in me doing.

1105
00:56:23,630 --> 00:56:26,383
I remember taking my MCAT
the second time

1106
00:56:26,466 --> 00:56:28,677
and voided my score

1107
00:56:29,928 --> 00:56:30,971
in the middle of the test.

1108
00:56:31,054 --> 00:56:32,431
I called my parents

1109
00:56:32,514 --> 00:56:34,349
and I was like, "I can't do this.

1110
00:56:37,978 --> 00:56:39,730
I don't know what I'm gonna do.

1111
00:56:39,813 --> 00:56:41,273
I'll figure it out.

1112
00:56:42,858 --> 00:56:45,235
But this is what I need to do."

1113
00:56:47,195 --> 00:56:49,656
The audition for Saturday Night Live

1114
00:56:50,616 --> 00:56:52,618
kind of spanned a couple years.

1115
00:56:53,368 --> 00:56:55,245
My manager at the time was like,

1116
00:56:55,329 --> 00:56:57,539
"It's SNL tape season."

1117
00:56:58,749 --> 00:57:01,543
You get to submit a tape
of five minute characters

1118
00:57:01,627 --> 00:57:03,211
and impressions that you do.

1119
00:57:03,295 --> 00:57:07,549
I didn't have too many Asian
public figures to work off of.

1120
00:57:07,633 --> 00:57:11,511
I did... a Ken Jeong impression,

1121
00:57:11,595 --> 00:57:13,180
a SoulCycle instructor,

1122
00:57:13,263 --> 00:57:15,390
a Michiko Kakutani impression.

1123
00:57:15,474 --> 00:57:18,060
It ended up being me
screaming at the top of my lungs

1124
00:57:18,143 --> 00:57:21,104
about how Jeffrey Eugenides
was a hack or whatever.

1125
00:57:21,188 --> 00:57:24,399
It was just me having fun
with all of these different authors

1126
00:57:24,483 --> 00:57:25,859
and literary figures.

1127
00:57:25,943 --> 00:57:28,570
I kind of miraculously took

1128
00:57:28,654 --> 00:57:30,113
the liberated path on that.

1129
00:57:30,197 --> 00:57:32,240
I was like, "I'm gonna do this

1130
00:57:32,324 --> 00:57:34,242
as an exercise to do whatever I want.

1131
00:57:34,326 --> 00:57:35,744
This will never be seen.

1132
00:57:35,827 --> 00:57:37,245
I will never be considered.

1133
00:57:37,329 --> 00:57:39,623
Let me just have fun with this
for me."

1134
00:57:41,792 --> 00:57:45,420
I booked the pilot
Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens

1135
00:57:45,504 --> 00:57:48,882
the same summer that I sent in
the tape to SNL.

1136
00:57:50,092 --> 00:57:51,843
We shot in a Chinese restaurant.

1137
00:57:53,095 --> 00:57:55,138
It was a dinner scene

1138
00:57:55,222 --> 00:57:57,599
and we were eating like wood ears

1139
00:57:57,683 --> 00:58:00,268
and duck and fried rice.

1140
00:58:00,352 --> 00:58:04,314
And it was me, B.D. Wong,
Awkwafina, Lori Tan Chinn.

1141
00:58:05,649 --> 00:58:08,527
Like three different
micro generations of Asian actors.

1142
00:58:10,112 --> 00:58:12,698
Something really enlightening
happened.

1143
00:58:14,700 --> 00:58:16,660
Being on a set
with other Asian people

1144
00:58:16,743 --> 00:58:19,287
and not having to explain myself,

1145
00:58:19,371 --> 00:58:21,498
like not having to justify
my existence there,

1146
00:58:21,581 --> 00:58:24,626
not having to be like peripheral
or ornamental.

1147
00:58:24,710 --> 00:58:26,128
Like, we get each other.

1148
00:58:26,712 --> 00:58:29,840
And I think I took that
sort of comfort and confidence

1149
00:58:29,923 --> 00:58:32,009
into my last audition for SNL.

1150
00:58:34,678 --> 00:58:37,305
In between takes of Nora from Queens,

1151
00:58:38,932 --> 00:58:40,767
I gave my phone to a PA, I was like,

1152
00:58:40,851 --> 00:58:42,936
"If a 212 number calls,

1153
00:58:43,020 --> 00:58:45,897
please call cut
because I have to take it."

1154
00:58:45,981 --> 00:58:47,190
It rang.

1155
00:58:49,026 --> 00:58:52,195
They offered me the job
to be on cast for SNL.

1156
00:59:00,370 --> 00:59:02,914
It's poetic to me that it was

1157
00:59:03,749 --> 00:59:05,625
on the set of Nora,
that I was with Awkwafina,

1158
00:59:05,709 --> 00:59:07,919
that I was with a bunch
of other Asian people

1159
00:59:08,003 --> 00:59:12,215
that this thing in my life changed

1160
00:59:13,050 --> 00:59:15,135
and everything else did in its wake.

1161
00:59:16,303 --> 00:59:17,304
Yeah.

1162
00:59:25,187 --> 00:59:27,147
I got this internship

1163
00:59:27,230 --> 00:59:29,149
with the Pacific Daily News.

1164
00:59:32,069 --> 00:59:35,238
There's a new executive editor.
I said, "I'm excited.

1165
00:59:35,322 --> 00:59:38,075
I'm ready to spend three, four months

1166
00:59:38,158 --> 00:59:40,077
honing my skills as a reporter."

1167
00:59:41,787 --> 00:59:43,455
Then he looked at me and goes,

1168
00:59:43,538 --> 00:59:46,166
"Well, I looked at all your writings

1169
00:59:46,249 --> 00:59:49,586
and I don't think you're
good enough to be a reporter."

1170
00:59:50,962 --> 00:59:54,216
"Oh my God, I love journalism.

1171
00:59:55,092 --> 00:59:58,095
I wanna stay in the business."
And he goes, "Well,

1172
00:59:58,178 --> 01:00:00,222
do you have experience
as a photographer?"

1173
01:00:00,847 --> 01:00:03,141
I said, "Yeah,
I was a yearbook photographer."

1174
01:00:04,768 --> 01:00:07,395
I got my tax refund
and my mom bought me a camera

1175
01:00:07,479 --> 01:00:08,605
at the naval base

1176
01:00:09,523 --> 01:00:11,733
and I started taking photography.

1177
01:00:15,278 --> 01:00:18,156
I was a photo lab assistant.
Every once in a while,

1178
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:21,201
the editors would come back
to the photo department.

1179
01:00:21,284 --> 01:00:22,661
I was the only one there
and they said,

1180
01:00:22,744 --> 01:00:24,371
"Hey, somebody is bringing in

1181
01:00:24,454 --> 01:00:27,415
these weird mutant
vegetables and fruits.

1182
01:00:28,166 --> 01:00:29,626
Can you go photograph them?"

1183
01:00:30,252 --> 01:00:31,920
And I would photograph
somebody holding

1184
01:00:32,003 --> 01:00:34,881
their conjoined twin cantaloupes,

1185
01:00:36,091 --> 01:00:38,176
cucumbers that are oversized,

1186
01:00:38,260 --> 01:00:41,304
and their pumpkins that are deformed.

1187
01:00:44,182 --> 01:00:48,103
The mutant vegetable and fruit beat

1188
01:00:49,229 --> 01:00:51,022
was my early project.

1189
01:00:56,862 --> 01:00:58,822
I left Guam to study photography

1190
01:00:58,905 --> 01:01:00,240
and work on the mainland.

1191
01:01:03,785 --> 01:01:05,287
I was in my late twenties.

1192
01:01:06,413 --> 01:01:09,457
There were a couple
of reporters that spent a year

1193
01:01:09,541 --> 01:01:13,295
working on the Michigan
juvenile justice system

1194
01:01:14,004 --> 01:01:15,630
and some of its failings.

1195
01:01:16,631 --> 01:01:19,342
I was the lead photographer
in that project

1196
01:01:19,426 --> 01:01:21,261
from the Detroit Free Press.

1197
01:01:23,221 --> 01:01:25,724
And then I was, like, thinking,
you know,

1198
01:01:25,807 --> 01:01:27,851
I wanna do something on high school.

1199
01:01:29,227 --> 01:01:30,812
I wanna spend a year
at a high school.

1200
01:01:32,397 --> 01:01:34,107
I picked this high school.

1201
01:01:34,191 --> 01:01:36,526
It was in a part of southwest Detroit

1202
01:01:36,610 --> 01:01:38,945
that a lot of the auto plants
have closed,

1203
01:01:39,029 --> 01:01:40,405
so there's unemployment.

1204
01:01:42,532 --> 01:01:44,159
I was in classrooms.

1205
01:01:46,661 --> 01:01:48,496
I photographed the jocks,

1206
01:01:48,580 --> 01:01:50,248
I photographed the dropouts,

1207
01:01:50,332 --> 01:01:53,126
I photographed pregnant teens.

1208
01:01:55,295 --> 01:01:57,088
I remember going to the prom

1209
01:01:57,172 --> 01:01:59,591
and I just felt like
this doting father.

1210
01:02:00,258 --> 01:02:02,302
They were my kids
and they're all dressed up

1211
01:02:02,385 --> 01:02:04,304
and they're all like,
beautiful and stuff,

1212
01:02:04,387 --> 01:02:06,014
and I was like, super proud.

1213
01:02:11,019 --> 01:02:12,979
We ran the story and, um,

1214
01:02:13,521 --> 01:02:16,399
I got nominated
for the Pulitzer Prize.

1215
01:02:18,526 --> 01:02:20,487
I remember I called up my mom,

1216
01:02:21,279 --> 01:02:23,406
"Hey, Mom, I'm up for this thing

1217
01:02:23,490 --> 01:02:24,866
called the Pulitzer Prize,

1218
01:02:24,950 --> 01:02:26,660
and it's a really, really big deal.

1219
01:02:28,245 --> 01:02:29,746
I'm probably not gonna win.

1220
01:02:29,829 --> 01:02:31,581
But I just wanna let you know
that, you know,

1221
01:02:31,665 --> 01:02:33,124
I'm a finalist and stuff."

1222
01:02:33,208 --> 01:02:35,710
And she goes, "Don't worry, son.

1223
01:02:35,794 --> 01:02:37,754
I'm gonna go to St. Jude church,

1224
01:02:38,338 --> 01:02:40,298
and I'm gonna light a candle
for you."

1225
01:02:43,593 --> 01:02:45,553
You know, a few days later,
I win the prize.

1226
01:02:47,222 --> 01:02:49,266
People say,
"How do you get a Pulitzer Prize?"

1227
01:02:49,349 --> 01:02:51,059
I said, "Just make sure your mom

1228
01:02:51,142 --> 01:02:53,144
goes to St. Jude church in Guam

1229
01:02:53,228 --> 01:02:54,854
and lights a candle for you."

1230
01:03:00,026 --> 01:03:01,778
I just won the Pulitzer Prize.

1231
01:03:02,570 --> 01:03:04,406
I was sort of the top of the game,

1232
01:03:04,489 --> 01:03:06,825
and I was just, like,
really, really homesick.

1233
01:03:08,618 --> 01:03:11,538
The indigenous people of Guam
are called Chamorus.

1234
01:03:12,122 --> 01:03:13,915
We have a word in Chamoru language,

1235
01:03:13,999 --> 01:03:15,667
and it's called mahalung.

1236
01:03:15,750 --> 01:03:18,253
Mahalung is this longing,
this homesick.

1237
01:03:18,336 --> 01:03:21,047
It's wanting to smell the air
of your island.

1238
01:03:22,507 --> 01:03:24,134
I was talking
to a friend of mine about it,

1239
01:03:24,968 --> 01:03:28,555
and she goes,
"The only way to mitigate the longing

1240
01:03:28,638 --> 01:03:30,890
is get a sense of belonging."

1241
01:03:32,726 --> 01:03:35,186
And I sort of make it a mission to...

1242
01:03:36,896 --> 01:03:38,023
belong.

1243
01:03:38,106 --> 01:03:39,691
To find other Chamorus,

1244
01:03:39,774 --> 01:03:41,234
to tell their stories.

1245
01:03:43,903 --> 01:03:48,199
I'm one of 250,000 Chamorus
on this planet.

1246
01:03:49,868 --> 01:03:51,953
I'm on a mission
and I'm passionate about

1247
01:03:52,037 --> 01:03:54,706
photographing each
and every one of them.

1248
01:03:57,459 --> 01:03:58,877
We survived.

1249
01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:00,879
We survived colonial powers

1250
01:04:00,962 --> 01:04:02,964
from the Spanish to the U.S.,

1251
01:04:03,048 --> 01:04:05,050
invading powers like Japan.

1252
01:04:06,259 --> 01:04:07,385
We are resilient.

1253
01:04:08,678 --> 01:04:10,513
I just wanna document that.

1254
01:04:49,344 --> 01:04:51,012
I was a squash player.

1255
01:04:51,638 --> 01:04:53,473
I was in graduate school at MIT.

1256
01:04:53,556 --> 01:04:55,517
There was no women's squash team,

1257
01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:57,268
so I had to play on the men's team.

1258
01:04:57,352 --> 01:04:59,771
And it actually gave me

1259
01:04:59,854 --> 01:05:01,898
a fair amount of secret pleasure

1260
01:05:01,981 --> 01:05:04,067
when I would get on a court
with a man

1261
01:05:04,150 --> 01:05:05,485
who would take one look at me,

1262
01:05:05,568 --> 01:05:09,280
at the time, I was a small,
you know, scrappy young thing,

1263
01:05:09,364 --> 01:05:11,116
and say, "Oh, I got this."

1264
01:05:13,410 --> 01:05:16,371
And they had no idea
what squash I could play.

1265
01:05:17,789 --> 01:05:20,125
I would get great pleasure
from winning that game

1266
01:05:20,208 --> 01:05:21,334
more than any other game.

1267
01:05:21,418 --> 01:05:23,628
There's a piece of me
that-that thrives

1268
01:05:23,711 --> 01:05:26,423
on that kind of being the underdog.

1269
01:05:29,843 --> 01:05:31,970
In Pakistani society,

1270
01:05:32,053 --> 01:05:34,055
there is this desire

1271
01:05:34,139 --> 01:05:36,850
for every family to have a boy child.

1272
01:05:36,933 --> 01:05:39,978
And my mother would say,
when nosy people would ask,

1273
01:05:40,061 --> 01:05:41,521
"Well, don't you want to have a son?"

1274
01:05:41,604 --> 01:05:43,356
And she would say things like,
"Why do I need a son?

1275
01:05:43,440 --> 01:05:44,441
I have Nergis."

1276
01:05:47,444 --> 01:05:49,279
I grew up in Pakistan.

1277
01:05:49,362 --> 01:05:51,906
It's a very interesting milieu
for me.

1278
01:05:51,990 --> 01:05:54,701
I grew up in this Zoroastrian family.

1279
01:05:54,784 --> 01:05:56,661
I went to a Catholic school

1280
01:05:56,744 --> 01:05:59,706
in an extremely Islamic country

1281
01:05:59,789 --> 01:06:03,084
as a rabid atheist myself
from childhood.

1282
01:06:03,168 --> 01:06:06,713
So, it was this constant
juxtaposition of things.

1283
01:06:09,007 --> 01:06:10,675
The messaging from our parents was,

1284
01:06:10,758 --> 01:06:12,218
"There's no future for you here.

1285
01:06:12,302 --> 01:06:13,595
You have to go overseas.

1286
01:06:13,678 --> 01:06:15,680
We have no money
to send you overseas.

1287
01:06:15,763 --> 01:06:18,016
The only way you can do it
is through scholarship.

1288
01:06:18,099 --> 01:06:20,226
So the rest is in your hands,
children."

1289
01:06:21,519 --> 01:06:22,854
That was the dream.

1290
01:06:24,522 --> 01:06:27,650
That was something that changed
the direction of my life

1291
01:06:27,734 --> 01:06:29,819
like nothing else has ever done.

1292
01:06:32,489 --> 01:06:34,991
For a while, I thought I would
be a doctor, a medical doctor.

1293
01:06:35,074 --> 01:06:38,036
This is, of course, you know,
classic Asian family.

1294
01:06:38,119 --> 01:06:40,205
There are only a few things
you are allowed to be.

1295
01:06:40,288 --> 01:06:42,332
You could be a doctor.
You could be an engineer.

1296
01:06:42,415 --> 01:06:43,750
You could be a lawyer.

1297
01:06:43,833 --> 01:06:45,668
I read too slowly to be a lawyer.

1298
01:06:45,752 --> 01:06:48,254
I couldn't bear dissecting animals,

1299
01:06:48,338 --> 01:06:50,507
so that put the whole
medicine thing out of the way.

1300
01:06:50,590 --> 01:06:51,883
So engineering was left.

1301
01:06:51,966 --> 01:06:53,468
But then when I got to college,

1302
01:06:53,551 --> 01:06:56,971
I learned there is this identity
of being a researcher,

1303
01:06:57,055 --> 01:07:00,266
of asking questions
to which no one has the answer,

1304
01:07:00,350 --> 01:07:02,477
and you could be the one
that could find it.

1305
01:07:03,770 --> 01:07:07,524
You could be a scientist
and you could be part of discovery.

1306
01:07:11,945 --> 01:07:15,281
In 2015, we were able to,
for the very first time,

1307
01:07:15,365 --> 01:07:18,117
directly observe gravitational waves

1308
01:07:18,201 --> 01:07:20,245
from the collision
of two black holes.

1309
01:07:22,163 --> 01:07:23,373
These had been a prediction

1310
01:07:23,456 --> 01:07:25,917
of Einstein's theory
of general relativity

1311
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:27,210
a hundred years earlier,

1312
01:07:27,293 --> 01:07:28,586
and we had just seen one.

1313
01:07:28,670 --> 01:07:30,630
So the theory was correct.

1314
01:07:32,507 --> 01:07:35,885
We have thought of space
as empty and pristine,

1315
01:07:35,969 --> 01:07:37,428
and it's none of those things.

1316
01:07:37,512 --> 01:07:41,224
It's filled with popcorns
and ripples and tears.

1317
01:07:41,307 --> 01:07:42,767
But the part of it
that I'm interested in

1318
01:07:42,850 --> 01:07:44,227
is the wavy part.

1319
01:07:45,395 --> 01:07:47,772
When you have two objects
like black holes

1320
01:07:47,855 --> 01:07:49,399
and they orbit each other
and collide,

1321
01:07:49,482 --> 01:07:50,567
they give off these waves,

1322
01:07:50,650 --> 01:07:52,652
and we, far, far away

1323
01:07:52,735 --> 01:07:54,153
from where those collisions happen,

1324
01:07:54,237 --> 01:07:55,572
should be able to see those waves.

1325
01:07:55,655 --> 01:07:57,740
And why should we care to see
those waves?

1326
01:07:57,824 --> 01:07:59,742
Because those waves
bring us information

1327
01:07:59,826 --> 01:08:01,119
about those black holes.

1328
01:08:01,202 --> 01:08:03,454
Why should we care about
those black holes?

1329
01:08:03,538 --> 01:08:06,583
Because those black holes
are the building blocks

1330
01:08:06,666 --> 01:08:07,792
of our universe.

1331
01:08:09,377 --> 01:08:11,754
And so, if we want to understand

1332
01:08:11,838 --> 01:08:13,715
how the universe is put together,

1333
01:08:13,798 --> 01:08:15,174
we have to understand black holes.

1334
01:08:15,258 --> 01:08:16,634
If we wanna understand black holes,

1335
01:08:16,718 --> 01:08:17,926
we've gotta measure their gravity

1336
01:08:18,011 --> 01:08:19,511
because they don't give off light.

1337
01:08:20,805 --> 01:08:23,015
And that's what my work
has been about.

1338
01:08:32,274 --> 01:08:35,069
Being a minority has touched my life

1339
01:08:35,153 --> 01:08:36,779
in many, many different ways.

1340
01:08:37,404 --> 01:08:40,575
And the most significant way
is a total comfort

1341
01:08:40,658 --> 01:08:41,868
with being a maverick,

1342
01:08:41,951 --> 01:08:44,370
being an outsider in the mainstream.

1343
01:08:44,453 --> 01:08:47,999
Whether it is being comfortable
being a queer person

1344
01:08:48,082 --> 01:08:50,585
when it was really pretty hard
to be a queer person,

1345
01:08:51,294 --> 01:08:53,379
to working on a physics experiment

1346
01:08:53,462 --> 01:08:55,214
that everybody thought
was sure to fail

1347
01:08:55,298 --> 01:08:56,633
and that you're foolish to try.

1348
01:08:57,550 --> 01:08:59,469
To be other is okay.

1349
01:08:59,551 --> 01:09:01,720
Just by being a scientist

1350
01:09:01,804 --> 01:09:04,640
and being a South Asian,
a Pakistani American,

1351
01:09:04,724 --> 01:09:06,100
and being a queer person,

1352
01:09:06,184 --> 01:09:08,935
and being able to say
all those things,

1353
01:09:09,020 --> 01:09:11,898
and yet have success in science

1354
01:09:11,981 --> 01:09:14,484
has meant other people
can imagine that

1355
01:09:14,567 --> 01:09:16,402
for themselves as well.

1356
01:09:25,870 --> 01:09:26,953
In conversations,

1357
01:09:27,037 --> 01:09:29,374
whenever Japanese Americans
get together,

1358
01:09:29,457 --> 01:09:31,209
we often ask each other,

1359
01:09:31,292 --> 01:09:33,419
"What camp was your family in?"

1360
01:09:44,596 --> 01:09:46,224
But in my family,

1361
01:09:46,307 --> 01:09:48,434
the family never-never
talked about it.

1362
01:09:48,518 --> 01:09:50,310
And I didn't know enough to ask.

1363
01:09:50,395 --> 01:09:52,729
So, like, when Pearl Harbor
was mentioned in high school,

1364
01:09:53,981 --> 01:09:58,111
I just felt very much like
everybody was looking at me,

1365
01:09:58,194 --> 01:10:01,155
very embarrassed,
but not understanding why.

1366
01:10:02,824 --> 01:10:04,617
We didn't really know who we were.

1367
01:10:06,077 --> 01:10:08,454
I think all of us were going
through that identity issue

1368
01:10:08,538 --> 01:10:10,957
of like, trying to be American.

1369
01:10:11,040 --> 01:10:12,959
And American
didn't mean person of color.

1370
01:10:13,042 --> 01:10:14,085
It meant being white.

1371
01:10:16,170 --> 01:10:18,589
I would see other Japanese
Americans group together

1372
01:10:18,673 --> 01:10:20,383
and I'd feel like,
"I don't wanna be with them."

1373
01:10:22,093 --> 01:10:24,971
Going to Japan was part
of that search, thinking that,

1374
01:10:25,054 --> 01:10:28,015
"Well, if I don't fit in here,
maybe I fit in there,"

1375
01:10:28,099 --> 01:10:31,102
and-and finding
very shockingly and sadly

1376
01:10:31,185 --> 01:10:32,437
that I'm not.

1377
01:10:32,520 --> 01:10:35,022
Not and never will be Japanese.

1378
01:10:36,691 --> 01:10:38,568
I felt that there was no future.

1379
01:10:40,319 --> 01:10:42,739
But somehow, I did get back.

1380
01:10:42,822 --> 01:10:44,449
I found Asian American studies.

1381
01:11:02,717 --> 01:11:04,594
The Vietnam War was showing us

1382
01:11:04,677 --> 01:11:06,387
how people saw us

1383
01:11:06,971 --> 01:11:09,223
as the example
of looking like the enemy.

1384
01:11:09,307 --> 01:11:10,725
So, again, we were the enemy.

1385
01:11:10,808 --> 01:11:13,478
Not really being seen
as fully American.

1386
01:11:15,354 --> 01:11:17,565
It was the first time I liked
being Japanese American,

1387
01:11:17,648 --> 01:11:19,275
being around Japanese Americans.

1388
01:11:19,358 --> 01:11:21,819
But we didn't march
just as Japanese Americans.

1389
01:11:21,903 --> 01:11:23,696
It was as Asian Americans.

1390
01:11:31,454 --> 01:11:34,040
We didn't know anything.
We had no skills.

1391
01:11:34,582 --> 01:11:36,542
We just saw a need.
And we just, you know, said,

1392
01:11:36,626 --> 01:11:38,044
"Okay, we have to organize
something."

1393
01:11:40,379 --> 01:11:43,633
We took our ideas a lot from
the Black Panthers, actually.

1394
01:11:44,467 --> 01:11:45,927
Idea of serving the people.

1395
01:11:46,010 --> 01:11:48,012
Starting programs that were needed,

1396
01:11:48,095 --> 01:11:50,473
like the welfare rights group,
parents' group,

1397
01:11:50,556 --> 01:11:51,974
health fairs and clinics.

1398
01:11:53,768 --> 01:11:55,895
After a while, we started thinking

1399
01:11:55,978 --> 01:11:58,314
about how all of this connected
to the camps

1400
01:11:58,397 --> 01:12:00,608
and our experience
as Japanese Americans.

1401
01:12:03,444 --> 01:12:06,030
The demand for reparations
became louder.

1402
01:12:06,864 --> 01:12:08,616
Even if we didn't win,
we had to fight.

1403
01:12:09,367 --> 01:12:11,869
We didn't feel an apology
by itself was enough.

1404
01:12:11,953 --> 01:12:14,789
We demanded monetary reparations.

1405
01:12:16,415 --> 01:12:19,502
And our group demanded
that there be hearings,

1406
01:12:19,585 --> 01:12:21,337
not just in Washington, D.C.,

1407
01:12:21,420 --> 01:12:24,966
where you hear
scholars and legislators speak,

1408
01:12:25,049 --> 01:12:26,592
but you hear the people speak.

1409
01:12:26,676 --> 01:12:28,261
In 48 hours,

1410
01:12:28,344 --> 01:12:30,304
we were told to pack up and leave.

1411
01:12:31,138 --> 01:12:32,640
I did not want my children

1412
01:12:32,723 --> 01:12:34,100
to feel the burden of shame

1413
01:12:34,183 --> 01:12:36,811
and feeling of rejection
by their fellow Americans.

1414
01:12:37,436 --> 01:12:39,522
This inhumane, cruel treatment

1415
01:12:39,605 --> 01:12:43,192
and happening took place
in the good ol' United States

1416
01:12:43,276 --> 01:12:45,194
and not in Gestapo Germany.

1417
01:12:45,278 --> 01:12:46,821
Hard to believe, isn't it?

1418
01:12:46,904 --> 01:12:49,156
That was a total eye-opener.

1419
01:12:49,240 --> 01:12:51,492
It was the first time that I heard

1420
01:12:51,576 --> 01:12:52,910
people speak about the camp.

1421
01:12:52,994 --> 01:12:54,328
People that looked like my mother.

1422
01:12:57,039 --> 01:12:58,666
She didn't get to tell her story,

1423
01:12:59,375 --> 01:13:01,836
and I wanted her family story
to be told.

1424
01:13:04,046 --> 01:13:08,968
My mother's family was removed
from their farm in California,

1425
01:13:09,051 --> 01:13:12,722
taken to Gila River
concentration camp in Arizona.

1426
01:13:13,347 --> 01:13:17,685
And I think that as I learn
more and more constantly,

1427
01:13:17,768 --> 01:13:19,896
I realized what it really meant.

1428
01:13:19,979 --> 01:13:22,773
How the first generation came here

1429
01:13:22,857 --> 01:13:26,319
and overcame all of the laws
and injustices.

1430
01:13:26,402 --> 01:13:28,571
Not being able to be citizens.
Not being able to marry.

1431
01:13:28,654 --> 01:13:30,907
Not being able to own land.
Not being able to vote.

1432
01:13:30,990 --> 01:13:32,617
All of that and they still stayed

1433
01:13:32,700 --> 01:13:34,410
and then they were put in the camps,

1434
01:13:34,493 --> 01:13:36,370
and lost all of it. It's like...

1435
01:13:37,163 --> 01:13:39,415
how do you even continue after that?

1436
01:13:40,041 --> 01:13:43,127
And so, um, my mother,
her future was, you know,

1437
01:13:43,210 --> 01:13:46,547
really sort of changed
drastically by the camps.

1438
01:13:46,631 --> 01:13:49,800
So she had a lot of anger,
still a lot of pride,

1439
01:13:49,884 --> 01:13:51,594
but at the same time,
it had been, you know,

1440
01:13:51,677 --> 01:13:53,220
squashed down by the camps.

1441
01:13:53,304 --> 01:13:56,390
I mean, I don't think I really
appreciated or understood

1442
01:13:57,058 --> 01:13:59,268
the depth of the loss.

1443
01:14:05,942 --> 01:14:08,027
The legislation
that I am about to sign

1444
01:14:08,611 --> 01:14:10,571
provides for a restitution payment

1445
01:14:10,655 --> 01:14:12,949
to each of the 60,000 survivors.

1446
01:14:13,783 --> 01:14:15,868
Here we admit a wrong.

1447
01:14:20,957 --> 01:14:23,167
What happened to us happened
to many different people.

1448
01:14:23,250 --> 01:14:24,877
Being incarcerated,

1449
01:14:24,961 --> 01:14:27,088
being, you know,
removed from your land,

1450
01:14:27,171 --> 01:14:30,424
it's not unusual in this country
or in the world.

1451
01:14:32,301 --> 01:14:34,470
The legacy of fighting
for reparations

1452
01:14:34,553 --> 01:14:36,639
is connection and solidarity.

1453
01:14:39,225 --> 01:14:41,852
You know, 'cause change
will take a long time.

1454
01:14:44,146 --> 01:14:46,774
We're building something new
from the bottom

1455
01:14:46,857 --> 01:14:48,776
and that's actually
gonna sustain us, I think,

1456
01:14:48,859 --> 01:14:50,236
in the long run.

1457
01:14:50,319 --> 01:14:51,737
I may not be here, you know,

1458
01:14:51,821 --> 01:14:53,906
to see what actually comes out of it,

1459
01:14:53,990 --> 01:14:55,449
but we are dealing with trying to...

1460
01:14:55,533 --> 01:14:57,535
and, you know, I think
it sounds very idealistic,

1461
01:14:57,618 --> 01:14:59,787
but change the world,
change the systems,

1462
01:14:59,870 --> 01:15:02,123
change the systems
that are not serving us.

1463
01:15:11,632 --> 01:15:15,011
I ended up winning this science fair

1464
01:15:15,094 --> 01:15:16,595
when I was 16.

1465
01:15:17,513 --> 01:15:20,349
There is this virus
that was running rampant

1466
01:15:20,433 --> 01:15:22,685
on the north shore of O'ahu
in the shrimp farms.

1467
01:15:22,768 --> 01:15:24,562
So I created this experiment,

1468
01:15:24,645 --> 01:15:26,981
essentially a COVID test
for shrimp virus.

1469
01:15:27,064 --> 01:15:28,774
The judges were like,
"Who did this for you?"

1470
01:15:28,858 --> 01:15:30,317
And I'm like, "No one. I just...

1471
01:15:31,110 --> 01:15:32,778
did it at school."

1472
01:15:32,862 --> 01:15:34,822
And they were like, "Wow. Qualified."

1473
01:15:35,656 --> 01:15:38,034
You get a free trip
to the international,

1474
01:15:38,117 --> 01:15:40,786
and sometimes
it's in Puerto Rico, Germany.

1475
01:15:41,704 --> 01:15:44,707
I'm like, "I'm going on a trip!"
I was like, "Where's it at?"

1476
01:15:44,790 --> 01:15:46,500
They're like, "Oh, Arizona."

1477
01:15:46,584 --> 01:15:49,336
And I'm like, "Where's Arizona?"

1478
01:15:50,463 --> 01:15:53,215
It was so dry and so hot.

1479
01:15:54,175 --> 01:15:58,345
My internal compass was like,
something's not right.

1480
01:15:58,971 --> 01:16:01,098
I need to figure out
where Hawaii is right now.

1481
01:16:01,182 --> 01:16:04,143
We're walking with chaperones
to this convention center,

1482
01:16:04,226 --> 01:16:07,772
and I just book it, like beeline out
of the crowd, and I start running.

1483
01:16:07,855 --> 01:16:09,273
The chaperones were like,
"We got a runner."

1484
01:16:09,356 --> 01:16:11,025
So I'm sprinting blocks down,

1485
01:16:11,108 --> 01:16:13,778
and I get out past the cities,
and then I get to a clearing,

1486
01:16:13,861 --> 01:16:15,738
and I look all around

1487
01:16:15,821 --> 01:16:19,700
and I just see mountains, 360,

1488
01:16:19,784 --> 01:16:21,619
and the sun is high.

1489
01:16:21,702 --> 01:16:23,454
And then my nose started bleeding.

1490
01:16:23,537 --> 01:16:25,122
And then I'm just like
ready to faint.

1491
01:16:25,206 --> 01:16:27,208
I'm just like, "I'm dying!

1492
01:16:27,291 --> 01:16:29,126
I need to get back to Hawaii!"

1493
01:16:32,505 --> 01:16:34,924
I knew then, I can't go far.

1494
01:16:38,552 --> 01:16:41,263
Growing up, I remember
having to go to school,

1495
01:16:41,347 --> 01:16:42,556
kind of hating it.

1496
01:16:42,640 --> 01:16:45,059
Being indoors,
I'm like, "This sucks."

1497
01:16:45,142 --> 01:16:47,228
As soon as the bell rang,
my dad was there,

1498
01:16:47,311 --> 01:16:49,230
pick us up, straight to the beach.

1499
01:16:49,855 --> 01:16:52,691
That was kind of, I felt,
when learning really started.

1500
01:16:55,402 --> 01:16:58,030
My dad would kind of send us
out on the beach and say,

1501
01:16:58,114 --> 01:17:01,283
"Okay, go grab different
seaweed on the shore."

1502
01:17:01,367 --> 01:17:03,244
And then he'd come back
and he'd tell us,

1503
01:17:03,327 --> 01:17:06,372
"A Hawaiian name of seaweed

1504
01:17:06,455 --> 01:17:08,707
also has a Latin name.

1505
01:17:09,416 --> 01:17:10,709
This is science."

1506
01:17:11,836 --> 01:17:12,962
Same with surfing.

1507
01:17:13,754 --> 01:17:16,674
We'd do a bit of seaweed science,

1508
01:17:16,757 --> 01:17:19,260
then we'd grab the boards
and we'd go out and we'd surf.

1509
01:17:20,177 --> 01:17:22,012
Understanding where the current goes.

1510
01:17:22,096 --> 01:17:24,515
Where is the wind?
How is the sand moving?

1511
01:17:24,598 --> 01:17:25,933
What's the swell? What's the tide?

1512
01:17:26,016 --> 01:17:30,229
There is so much information
around play.

1513
01:17:30,771 --> 01:17:34,233
That kind of gave me
this weird value on science.

1514
01:17:34,316 --> 01:17:38,154
Science was like this magic power

1515
01:17:38,237 --> 01:17:39,822
to communicate to the world.

1516
01:17:43,868 --> 01:17:46,453
There is this weird opportunity
that just presented itself

1517
01:17:46,537 --> 01:17:50,332
to go get a PhD in California,
in chemistry.

1518
01:17:51,417 --> 01:17:53,419
Leave the only thing
I have ever known

1519
01:17:53,502 --> 01:17:55,546
and start something that I don't know

1520
01:17:56,422 --> 01:17:59,466
what it's like or what it's about,
but it's different.

1521
01:18:01,302 --> 01:18:04,430
The first racism for being
a Hawaiian person I felt

1522
01:18:04,513 --> 01:18:05,931
was coming to California.

1523
01:18:07,224 --> 01:18:11,812
I was getting into conflict
with other surfers around

1524
01:18:12,396 --> 01:18:16,108
where I should be surfing,
who I'm surfing around,

1525
01:18:16,192 --> 01:18:18,736
and there's all these rules
that I didn't know existed.

1526
01:18:18,819 --> 01:18:21,488
This surfer was getting close to me

1527
01:18:21,572 --> 01:18:23,240
and he ended up, like, pushing me.

1528
01:18:23,324 --> 01:18:26,493
He said, "Go home
to wherever you come from."

1529
01:18:26,577 --> 01:18:28,204
And I was so upset.

1530
01:18:32,291 --> 01:18:33,834
I was like, "Dude, I wanna go home."

1531
01:18:35,211 --> 01:18:37,129
"Dude, I don't wanna be here.

1532
01:18:37,213 --> 01:18:38,964
I don't have to explain
myself to you."

1533
01:18:39,048 --> 01:18:41,383
I told him. I was like,
"I'm from this ocean.

1534
01:18:42,468 --> 01:18:43,719
Where are you from?

1535
01:18:44,386 --> 01:18:46,096
Do any of you know
where you're from?"

1536
01:18:51,518 --> 01:18:54,647
I feel I came to get this PhD

1537
01:18:54,730 --> 01:18:57,358
as like a responsibility
on my shoulder.

1538
01:18:58,817 --> 01:19:00,986
"The Hawaiian with the PhD,
you're gonna help us."

1539
01:19:01,070 --> 01:19:02,655
It's like, it's all this pressure

1540
01:19:02,738 --> 01:19:05,074
to be, like, somebody.

1541
01:19:06,617 --> 01:19:08,869
I just wanna be in the ocean.

1542
01:19:15,125 --> 01:19:17,127
So I integrated
some of the technology

1543
01:19:17,211 --> 01:19:18,879
we were developing in the lab

1544
01:19:18,963 --> 01:19:21,257
into a science project to try to see,

1545
01:19:21,340 --> 01:19:24,551
are there molecular signatures
in the ocean that we can detect

1546
01:19:24,635 --> 01:19:26,679
that are shared among surfers
across the world,

1547
01:19:26,762 --> 01:19:30,557
a last ditch effort
to stay in school.

1548
01:19:33,644 --> 01:19:37,064
A writer ended up reaching out
to me and I did an interview

1549
01:19:37,147 --> 01:19:39,149
and next thing you know
I'm getting a call

1550
01:19:39,233 --> 01:19:40,859
from The New York Times
at its front page

1551
01:19:40,943 --> 01:19:42,194
of the science section.

1552
01:19:43,737 --> 01:19:47,324
Interviews and calls from like, NBC

1553
01:19:47,408 --> 01:19:50,369
to like, NPR and Nat Geo.

1554
01:19:50,452 --> 01:19:54,415
Like, nerd celebrity
of, like, institution.

1555
01:19:54,498 --> 01:19:56,709
Like I'm rolling
in, like, fancy nerd land.

1556
01:19:56,792 --> 01:19:59,753
That was so important for me

1557
01:20:00,379 --> 01:20:03,841
because getting
that global recognition value,

1558
01:20:04,508 --> 01:20:07,219
I knew that those stories
that they were validating

1559
01:20:07,303 --> 01:20:09,013
weren't mine
and they were my people's.

1560
01:20:11,765 --> 01:20:15,602
That gave me the confidence
to return home.

1561
01:20:19,815 --> 01:20:21,817
My home allows me to be me.