00:00:15
so I'm not here to talk about something
00:00:17
that's funny I'm here to talk about
00:00:18
something that's really really close to
00:00:20
my heart in fact it is so close I cannot
00:00:23
Escape it it's because I came to this
00:00:26
country as an
00:00:28
immigrant it's it's hard for some people
00:00:31
to notice when somebody's an immigrant I
00:00:33
do things related to internet culture
00:00:35
which is very
00:00:37
um American it is very internet you have
00:00:41
to be in the zeit guys it is a class of
00:00:45
work that people who are like me do not
00:00:48
do run dry cleaners grocery stores nail
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salons
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711s maybe we get an H1B visa and we
00:00:57
work at
00:00:58
Microsoft but we do not go out and make
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entertainment websites because for that
00:01:05
to occur we must have a connection that
00:01:08
is much more deeper than a career or
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profession I must understand you and
00:01:14
your background and where you grew
00:01:16
up but somehow I ended up here and
00:01:20
because I came here when I was
00:01:24
14 I was able to understand what it's
00:01:27
like to be an American yet still be an
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immigrant imant if I came here if I was
00:01:31
10 maybe if I was 21 I may have missed
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that I may have been set in my ways as a
00:01:37
immigrant or may maybe I would have
00:01:39
acted more like a second generation
00:01:41
where I didn't remember where I came
00:01:43
from but because I was 14 I remember I
00:01:47
remember all these things I remember
00:01:48
living in a one-bedroom apartment with
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my parents there was a mattress on the
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living room
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floor my I was the only child so my
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parents gave me the bedroom and they
00:01:57
slept out on the mattress on the living
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room floor and and I remember their
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horror and the shame on their face when
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I brought my friends home from
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school I remember that moment when I
00:02:09
walked in through the door with the kids
00:02:10
and my parents are like you didn't tell
00:02:12
me that you were going to bring guests
00:02:15
and that awkward moment when they were
00:02:17
trying to figure out what to do with
00:02:18
that mattress on the living room floor
00:02:21
and we had no place for my friends to
00:02:24
sit immigration is a very very unfair
00:02:28
trade I don't know if many of you have
00:02:31
immigrant parents but they pay for
00:02:34
everything they pay the costs we the
00:02:37
children reap the benefits and as my
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parents like to joke the grandkids will
00:02:41
forget about it all and they'll become
00:02:47
useless probably because they spoil them
00:02:49
but not my
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fault so when I look at my immigration
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experience I was 14 my parents uh
00:02:57
brought me here we had relatives
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it isn't poverty poverty is defined by
00:03:03
the whole by the cold and the hunger of
00:03:06
it all it is very all over twist that is
00:03:08
what I think of when I think about
00:03:10
poverty many immigrants live in near or
00:03:14
in
00:03:16
poverty many immigrants do not it is not
00:03:19
a monolithic
00:03:21
experience yet many immigrants
00:03:25
experience poverty in its own way yet
00:03:29
the reason we believe in the Immigrant
00:03:33
experience is that the poverty is filled
00:03:36
the lack of something in it and
00:03:39
it's and it is filled by dreams it is
00:03:43
filled by hope so that when you are
00:03:45
living in a one-bedroom when you cannot
00:03:48
pay the bills for your
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phone we justify it by saying there's a
00:03:53
better future for the next
00:03:56
generation and the strangeness of it all
00:03:59
is that essenti ago immigration was very
00:04:02
very different a century ago immigration
00:04:04
was defined by something completely
00:04:07
different than what we experience
00:04:10
today
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1912
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steamships
00:04:15
railroads no automobiles for people to
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crisscross on the highway no internet no
00:04:21
access to
00:04:23
information the greatest suffering for
00:04:25
immigrants was caused by Nature by the
00:04:28
world that we live in the phys physical
00:04:30
world itself
00:04:31
distance illness acts of
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God being able to sail around the world
00:04:38
to reach America was physically
00:04:40
challenging your ship could be
00:04:42
Shipwrecked you could run out of water
00:04:45
you could die of thirst and disease and
00:04:48
when you got into that train to cross
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America you had no idea of what was on
00:04:54
the other side but a 100 years later
00:04:57
today it is vastly different
00:05:01
the suffering immigration is caused by
00:05:05
man it is not nature for the most part
00:05:09
we have conquered nature you can get on
00:05:12
a plane right now and in 12 hours be on
00:05:16
the other side of the planet being
00:05:18
served drinks and little cocktails along
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the
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way very different than a
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steamship today the suffering of an
00:05:26
immigrant is man-made by policy
00:05:30
it is separation not distance it is if I
00:05:34
leave this country and I'm a Canadian
00:05:36
let's say I may not be able to get back
00:05:39
across the border I may not be able to
00:05:41
visit my friends because what if they
00:05:43
question my immigration status on the
00:05:45
border and reject
00:05:47
me this happens a lot more than my
00:05:49
Canadian friends like to admit it is
00:05:52
bureaucracy people waiting 20 years to
00:05:56
enter the lottery to receive a permit to
00:05:58
migrate to the United States States
00:06:00
watching their relatives and their
00:06:03
nephews grow old and unable to visit it
00:06:06
is Prejudice it is reading about
00:06:09
yourself as an immigrant in the papers
00:06:12
and knowing that's not
00:06:15
true it is easier to ship a box of
00:06:17
bananas from India than to reunite a
00:06:20
child from there with our parents in the
00:06:22
United
00:06:24
States the world has gotten small but we
00:06:27
have erected barriers to to keep people
00:06:32
out yet at the same time if you ask
00:06:36
everyone in the United States that will
00:06:37
almost certainly tell you that this
00:06:40
country was built on immigrants and
00:06:43
immigration that we are all a nation of
00:06:46
immigrants yet for some reason we are
00:06:49
uncomfortable with the idea of letting
00:06:52
people
00:06:53
in that while we recognize the value and
00:06:56
have erected a statue that says give me
00:06:59
your tired you're poor you huddled
00:07:01
masses yearning to breathe
00:07:05
free we don't like to see the people
00:07:08
outside our
00:07:09
borders as
00:07:12
people I'm not sure what drives this
00:07:16
fear most people aren't really afraid of
00:07:18
me I post cat pictures on the
00:07:24
internet maybe it's because they believe
00:07:26
that there's a finite number of jobs in
00:07:28
the United States that there are three
00:07:29
00 and some million people and there's
00:07:31
probably 150 million jobs and if
00:07:34
somebody takes my job I'll never get
00:07:36
that job
00:07:39
back maybe we believe that the that in
00:07:43
order for the economy to grow that only
00:07:45
those people with
00:07:47
skilled intellectuals or laborers who
00:07:51
can do special things should be leted
00:07:54
in I came here as a 14-year-old my only
00:07:57
skill set was annoying the shut out of
00:07:59
my parents
00:08:03
maybe and this starts to get a little
00:08:05
bit more
00:08:07
uncomfortable maybe we believe that only
00:08:10
certain people that look like me should
00:08:13
be led into this country maybe we
00:08:16
believe that only certain people who
00:08:18
come from countries where we had
00:08:20
historical immigration should be led
00:08:22
into the
00:08:23
country
00:08:25
strangely our elected politicians do not
00:08:28
ask you what you believe in
00:08:30
they set immigration policy and we just
00:08:33
go
00:08:34
along immigration is usually debated in
00:08:36
tight political Circles of people who
00:08:38
are in the know who have experience yet
00:08:41
we all claim to be descendants of
00:08:45
immigrants sadly our view of immigration
00:08:48
has always been affected by
00:08:51
race Chinese Exclusion Act there's a
00:08:54
reason why almost every Asian American
00:08:57
that you see in the street has been here
00:09:00
no no before the
00:09:02
1960s that before the 1960s this country
00:09:05
outlawed people who look like me I'm
00:09:08
Korean by the way so I don't take really
00:09:10
offense to that
00:09:11
but I'm
00:09:17
kidding National Origins quota system
00:09:21
fancy words for saying we don't want
00:09:23
Eastern European immigrants back in the
00:09:26
1800s Arizona State Bill 1070
00:09:30
if you're Brown we stop you and ask you
00:09:33
if you really belong
00:09:34
here these are actual laws of this
00:09:37
country has
00:09:38
passed that is about immigration about
00:09:42
PE keeping people out and figuring out
00:09:44
who to let in whatever label you put on
00:09:47
them whatever fancy acronym you can put
00:09:50
on them it doesn't hide the fact that we
00:09:54
have very
00:09:57
very outdated
00:10:00
views on immigration versus what we
00:10:03
actually believe in this room we don't
00:10:05
want to be racist but somehow we keep
00:10:09
letting our politicians pass these
00:10:13
bills and it turns out as I looked more
00:10:16
and more into this the conclusion that I
00:10:18
drew was not that immigration itself is
00:10:21
controversial in fact one of the reasons
00:10:23
why the United States has a growing
00:10:25
economy and a growing population while
00:10:27
rest of the developed world has a a
00:10:29
birth rate that is declining and
00:10:30
declining to a point where they are
00:10:32
unable to sustain their own social
00:10:35
safety nets and tax base the reason this
00:10:38
country continues to
00:10:40
have a population that is thriving that
00:10:43
is diverse is due to
00:10:46
immigration most people uh most
00:10:48
Generations who've been in this country
00:10:49
for more than three or more Generations
00:10:51
uh no longer create babies at a rate
00:10:53
that actually makes this economy
00:10:54
sustainable in fact most of our
00:10:56
population growth has come from Hispanic
00:10:58
migration if it weren't for them we'd
00:11:01
have more houses than we could fill
00:11:04
people with more dollars and more uh
00:11:07
retirees to support that our working
00:11:09
folks can actually uh provide for this
00:11:12
system is
00:11:14
fragile yet people want to keep
00:11:16
everybody else out without recognizing
00:11:18
that the system
00:11:20
relies on immigration to continue to
00:11:22
grow and support itself so it led me to
00:11:25
believe that it's only certain kinds of
00:11:27
people that is actually controversial
00:11:29
maybe it's not just race maybe it has to
00:11:31
do with origin maybe it has to do with
00:11:34
religion when I planned this talk with
00:11:37
the tedex uh Portland folks immigration
00:11:40
was kind of on the
00:11:41
radar and a and a week ago two
00:11:45
immigrants that detonated a bomb in
00:11:51
Boston what was their race what was a
00:11:53
religion does it
00:11:56
matter I don't know
00:12:01
after coming to the United States my
00:12:02
father and I worked as a janitor in
00:12:04
office we were not skilled laborers
00:12:06
there were plenty of agents to go around
00:12:08
we worked as a janitor and our suffering
00:12:11
of working as an immigrant making $2,000
00:12:13
a month as an entire
00:12:15
family was actually made
00:12:18
harder we
00:12:20
were cleaning out trash cans the people
00:12:23
who in the office that when you work
00:12:25
late come in and empty out the trash
00:12:27
that was us
00:12:29
I remember collecting all the empty soda
00:12:31
cans that were in the trash it was oh my
00:12:34
God stunk to high heaven but I remember
00:12:36
putting that in a black plastic bag in
00:12:38
the balcony of our of our one-bedroom
00:12:41
apartment and we had collected enough to
00:12:43
like literally like we couldn't go out
00:12:44
on the balcony anymore I remember
00:12:46
trading that in it was like my allowance
00:12:49
empty soda cans we traded it in and got
00:12:51
$150 it was amazing like it was hard
00:12:55
labor I earned it I still remember the
00:12:58
smell of that rotting
00:13:01
soda it was $120 apparently
00:13:06
um The Immigrant owners of the
00:13:08
janitorial business Steed us a month of
00:13:11
work my mother my father and myself on
00:13:14
all we had to show for was
00:13:16
$120 it's not that all immigrants are
00:13:19
good I'm not saying that some of us are
00:13:21
good some of us are bad in fact we're
00:13:23
probably more of a reflection of of
00:13:25
America as it is today than most people
00:13:28
are willing to admit
00:13:32
but in some
00:13:34
cases in one generation between my
00:13:37
parents and myself we can go from babies
00:13:40
that were born in post Korean War where
00:13:43
they had no electricity no
00:13:45
infrastructure my father graduated from
00:13:48
middle school and didn't go back my
00:13:50
mother has a high school degree we came
00:13:52
to the United States and I built an
00:13:54
internet technology business in
00:13:57
Seattle I don't if there's causation I
00:14:00
don't know even if there's correlation I
00:14:02
don't know what drives that it feels
00:14:06
random but it happens over and over
00:14:09
again more than a third of all American
00:14:13
Technology startups have at least one
00:14:15
immigrant
00:14:16
co-founder I don't know why that
00:14:19
is but what I want to understand
00:14:24
is as the number of
00:14:27
people who start to look at immigration
00:14:29
rise as we get closer to debating this
00:14:31
bill they will recognize that my story
00:14:34
is not unique they may also recognize
00:14:37
that there may be more
00:14:39
terrorists in the immigration population
00:14:42
than they had recognized
00:14:43
before that the good May outweigh the
00:14:46
bad that we do not actually know
00:14:49
holistically who these immigrants are
00:14:51
that all these people collectively when
00:14:53
they show up on our borders we may not
00:14:56
be able to judge the character of these
00:14:58
people
00:15:00
by the passports that they
00:15:03
bring so then the question
00:15:06
becomes who do we let in somebody at
00:15:09
dinner asked me last night so who do we
00:15:11
let in what is the
00:15:14
answer I don't know that it's important
00:15:16
for me to tell you my answer because it
00:15:19
doesn't really matter at the end of the
00:15:21
day I am one voter one naturalized
00:15:24
American
00:15:26
citizen but it it makes me
00:15:35
we're
00:15:37
missing an opportunity to have an
00:15:40
intelligent discussion about what we the
00:15:43
people
00:15:46
want we
00:15:52
are we are letting other people decide
00:15:56
who we led into this country
00:16:03
this is the second time I've teared out
00:16:05
of a tedes talk I don't know what's up
00:16:06
with
00:16:14
that do not let this opportunity
00:16:18
pass it doesn't matter whether you agree
00:16:20
with me or
00:16:22
not it only matters that we actually
00:16:26
talk about who do we believe we should
00:16:28
should let in and that we tell people
00:16:31
who are in the office to make these
00:16:33
decisions and let them know that we
00:16:36
believe in something that we will not
00:16:38
let them make that decision for us thank
00:16:41
you
