WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 I'm five years old, and I am very proud. 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:08.000 My father has just built the best outhouse 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:10.000 in our little village in Ukraine. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:14.000 Inside, it's a smelly, gaping hole in the ground, 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:18.000 but outside, it's pearly white formica 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.000 and it literally gleams in the sun. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.000 This makes me feel so proud, so important, 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:28.000 that I appoint myself the leader of my little group of friends 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:31.000 and I devise missions for us. 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:33.000 So we prowl from house to house 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:37.000 looking for flies captured in spider webs 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:39.000 and we set them free. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:41.000 Four years earlier, when I was one, 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:43.000 after the Chernobyl accident, 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:45.000 the rain came down black, 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.000 and my sister's hair fell out in clumps, 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:50.000 and I spent nine months in the hospital. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:51.000 There were no visitors allowed, 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:55.000 so my mother bribed a hospital worker. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:58.000 She acquired a nurse's uniform, 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:03.000 and she snuck in every night to sit by my side. 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:06.000 Five years later, an unexpected silver lining. 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:10.000 Thanks to Chernobyl, we get asylum in the U.S. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.000 I am six years old, and I don't cry when we leave home 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:15.000 and we come to America, 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.000 because I expect it to be a place filled with rare 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:23.000 and wonderful things like bananas and chocolate 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:25.000 and Bazooka bubble gum, 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:29.000 Bazooka bubble gum with the little cartoon wrappers inside, 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:33.000 Bazooka that we'd get once a year in Ukraine 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:37.000 and we'd have to chew one piece for an entire week. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:38.000 So the first day we get to New York, 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:41.000 my grandmother and I find a penny 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:44.000 in the floor of the homeless shelter that my family's staying in. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:46.000 Only, we don't know that it's a homeless shelter. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:49.000 We think that it's a hotel, a hotel with lots of rats. 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:54.000 So we find this penny kind of fossilized in the floor, 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:57.000 and we think that a very wealthy man must have left it there 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.000 because regular people don't just lose money. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:02.000 And I hold this penny in the palm of my hand, 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.000 and it's sticky and rusty, 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:07.000 but it feels like I'm holding a fortune. 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.000 I decide that I'm going to get my very own piece 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:11.000 of Bazooka bubble gum. 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:15.000 And in that moment, I feel like a millionaire. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:17.000 About a year later, I get to feel that way again 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:20.000 when we find a bag full of stuffed animals in the trash, 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:22.000 and suddenly I have more toys 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:25.000 than I've ever had in my whole life. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:27.000 And again, I get that feeling when we get a knock 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:29.000 on the door of our apartment in Brooklyn, 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:32.000 and my sister and I find a deliveryman 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:34.000 with a box of pizza that we didn't order. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:37.000 So we take the pizza, our very first pizza, 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:40.000 and we devour slice after slice 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:44.000 as the deliveryman stands there and stares at us from the doorway. 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.000 And he tells us to pay, but we don't speak English. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.000 My mother comes out, and he asks her for money, 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:50.000 but she doesn't have enough. 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:54.000 She walks 50 blocks to and from work every day 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:56.000 just to avoid spending money on bus fare. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:58.000 Then our neighbor pops her head in, 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.000 and she turns red with rage when she realizes 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:03.000 that those immigrants from downstairs 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:07.000 have somehow gotten their hands on her pizza. 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.000 Everyone's upset. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:13.000 But the pizza is delicious. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:19.000 It doesn't hit me until years later just how little we had. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:21.000 On our 10 year anniversary of being in the U.S., 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:23.000 we decided to celebrate by reserving a room 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:26.000 at the hotel that we first stayed in when we got to the U.S. 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:28.000 The man at the front desk laughs, and he says, 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:31.000 "You can't reserve a room here. This is a homeless shelter." 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:33.000 And we were shocked. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:37.000 My husband Brian was also homeless as a kid. 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:40.000 His family lost everything, and at age 11, 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:43.000 he had to live in motels with his dad, 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:46.000 motels that would round up all of their food 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:50.000 and keep it hostage until they were able to pay the bill. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:52.000 And one time, when he finally got his box 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.000 of Frosted Flakes back, it was crawling with roaches. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.000 But he did have one thing. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:00.000 He had this shoebox that he carried with him everywhere 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:03.000 containing nine comic books, 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:06.000 two G.I. Joes painted to look like Spider-Man 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:09.000 and five Gobots. And this was his treasure. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:12.000 This was his own assembly of heroes 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:14.000 that kept him from drugs and gangs 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:17.000 and from giving up on his dreams. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:18.000 I'm going to tell you about one more 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 formerly homeless member of our family. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:22.000 This is Scarlett. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:25.000 Once upon a time, Scarlet was used as bait in dog fights. 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:28.000 She was tied up and thrown into the ring 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:32.000 for other dogs to attack so they'd get more aggressive before the fight. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:36.000 And now, these days, she eats organic food 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:39.000 and she sleeps on an orthopedic bed with her name on it, 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:43.000 but when we pour water for her in her bowl, 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:47.000 she still looks up and she wags her tail in gratitude. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:50.000 Sometimes Brian and I walk through the park with Scarlett, 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:53.000 and she rolls through the grass, 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:55.000 and we just look at her 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:57.000 and then we look at each other 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:01.000 and we feel gratitude. 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:05.000 We forget about all of our new middle-class frustrations 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:06.000 and disappointments, 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:09.000 and we feel like millionaires. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:10.000 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:14.000 (Applause)