0:00:00.000,0:00:04.000
I'm five years old, and I am very proud.

0:00:04.000,0:00:08.000
My father has just built the best outhouse

0:00:08.000,0:00:10.000
in our little village in Ukraine.

0:00:10.000,0:00:14.000
Inside, it's a smelly, gaping hole in the ground,

0:00:14.000,0:00:18.000
but outside, it's pearly white formica

0:00:18.000,0:00:22.000
and it literally gleams in the sun.

0:00:22.000,0:00:25.000
This makes me feel so proud, so important,

0:00:25.000,0:00:28.000
that I appoint myself the leader of my little group of friends

0:00:28.000,0:00:31.000
and I devise missions for us.

0:00:31.000,0:00:33.000
So we prowl from house to house

0:00:33.000,0:00:37.000
looking for flies captured in spider webs

0:00:37.000,0:00:39.000
and we set them free.

0:00:39.000,0:00:41.000
Four years earlier, when I was one,

0:00:41.000,0:00:43.000
after the Chernobyl accident,

0:00:43.000,0:00:45.000
the rain came down black,

0:00:45.000,0:00:47.000
and my sister's hair fell out in clumps,

0:00:47.000,0:00:50.000
and I spent nine months in the hospital.

0:00:50.000,0:00:51.000
There were no visitors allowed,

0:00:51.000,0:00:55.000
so my mother bribed a hospital worker.

0:00:55.000,0:00:58.000
She acquired a nurse's uniform,

0:00:58.000,0:01:03.000
and she snuck in every night to sit by my side.

0:01:03.000,0:01:06.000
Five years later, an unexpected silver lining.

0:01:06.000,0:01:10.000
Thanks to Chernobyl, we get asylum in the U.S.

0:01:10.000,0:01:14.000
I am six years old, and I don't cry when we leave home

0:01:14.000,0:01:15.000
and we come to America,

0:01:15.000,0:01:19.000
because I expect it to be a place filled with rare

0:01:19.000,0:01:23.000
and wonderful things like bananas and chocolate

0:01:23.000,0:01:25.000
and Bazooka bubble gum,

0:01:25.000,0:01:29.000
Bazooka bubble gum with the little cartoon wrappers inside,

0:01:29.000,0:01:33.000
Bazooka that we'd get once a year in Ukraine

0:01:33.000,0:01:37.000
and we'd have to chew one piece for an entire week.

0:01:37.000,0:01:38.000
So the first day we get to New York,

0:01:38.000,0:01:41.000
my grandmother and I find a penny

0:01:41.000,0:01:44.000
in the floor of the homeless shelter that my family's staying in.

0:01:44.000,0:01:46.000
Only, we don't know that it's a homeless shelter.

0:01:46.000,0:01:49.000
We think that it's a hotel, a hotel with lots of rats.

0:01:49.000,0:01:54.000
So we find this penny kind of fossilized in the floor,

0:01:54.000,0:01:57.000
and we think that a very wealthy man must have left it there

0:01:57.000,0:01:59.000
because regular people don't just lose money.

0:01:59.000,0:02:02.000
And I hold this penny in the palm of my hand,

0:02:02.000,0:02:04.000
and it's sticky and rusty,

0:02:04.000,0:02:07.000
but it feels like I'm holding a fortune.

0:02:07.000,0:02:09.000
I decide that I'm going to get my very own piece

0:02:09.000,0:02:11.000
of Bazooka bubble gum.

0:02:11.000,0:02:15.000
And in that moment, I feel like a millionaire.

0:02:15.000,0:02:17.000
About a year later, I get to feel that way again

0:02:17.000,0:02:20.000
when we find a bag full of stuffed animals in the trash,

0:02:20.000,0:02:22.000
and suddenly I have more toys

0:02:22.000,0:02:25.000
than I've ever had in my whole life.

0:02:25.000,0:02:27.000
And again, I get that feeling when we get a knock

0:02:27.000,0:02:29.000
on the door of our apartment in Brooklyn,

0:02:29.000,0:02:32.000
and my sister and I find a deliveryman

0:02:32.000,0:02:34.000
with a box of pizza that we didn't order.

0:02:34.000,0:02:37.000
So we take the pizza, our very first pizza,

0:02:37.000,0:02:40.000
and we devour slice after slice

0:02:40.000,0:02:44.000
as the deliveryman stands there and stares at us from the doorway.

0:02:44.000,0:02:47.000
And he tells us to pay, but we don't speak English.

0:02:47.000,0:02:49.000
My mother comes out, and he asks her for money,

0:02:49.000,0:02:50.000
but she doesn't have enough.

0:02:50.000,0:02:54.000
She walks 50 blocks to and from work every day

0:02:54.000,0:02:56.000
just to avoid spending money on bus fare.

0:02:56.000,0:02:58.000
Then our neighbor pops her head in,

0:02:58.000,0:03:01.000
and she turns red with rage when she realizes

0:03:01.000,0:03:03.000
that those immigrants from downstairs

0:03:03.000,0:03:07.000
have somehow gotten their hands on her pizza.

0:03:07.000,0:03:09.000
Everyone's upset.

0:03:09.000,0:03:13.000
But the pizza is delicious.

0:03:13.000,0:03:19.000
It doesn't hit me until years later just how little we had.

0:03:19.000,0:03:21.000
On our 10 year anniversary of being in the U.S.,

0:03:21.000,0:03:23.000
we decided to celebrate by reserving a room

0:03:23.000,0:03:26.000
at the hotel that we first stayed in when we got to the U.S.

0:03:26.000,0:03:28.000
The man at the front desk laughs, and he says,

0:03:28.000,0:03:31.000
"You can't reserve a room here. This is a homeless shelter."

0:03:31.000,0:03:33.000
And we were shocked.

0:03:33.000,0:03:37.000
My husband Brian was also homeless as a kid.

0:03:37.000,0:03:40.000
His family lost everything, and at age 11,

0:03:40.000,0:03:43.000
he had to live in motels with his dad,

0:03:43.000,0:03:46.000
motels that would round up all of their food

0:03:46.000,0:03:50.000
and keep it hostage until they were able to pay the bill.

0:03:50.000,0:03:52.000
And one time, when he finally got his box

0:03:52.000,0:03:56.000
of Frosted Flakes back, it was crawling with roaches.

0:03:56.000,0:03:58.000
But he did have one thing.

0:03:58.000,0:04:00.000
He had this shoebox that he carried with him everywhere

0:04:00.000,0:04:03.000
containing nine comic books,

0:04:03.000,0:04:06.000
two G.I. Joes painted to look like Spider-Man

0:04:06.000,0:04:09.000
and five Gobots. And this was his treasure.

0:04:09.000,0:04:12.000
This was his own assembly of heroes

0:04:12.000,0:04:14.000
that kept him from drugs and gangs

0:04:14.000,0:04:17.000
and from giving up on his dreams.

0:04:17.000,0:04:18.000
I'm going to tell you about one more

0:04:18.000,0:04:21.000
formerly homeless member of our family.

0:04:21.000,0:04:22.000
This is Scarlett.

0:04:22.000,0:04:25.000
Once upon a time, Scarlet was used as bait in dog fights.

0:04:25.000,0:04:28.000
She was tied up and thrown into the ring

0:04:28.000,0:04:32.000
for other dogs to attack so they'd get more aggressive before the fight.

0:04:32.000,0:04:36.000
And now, these days, she eats organic food

0:04:36.000,0:04:39.000
and she sleeps on an orthopedic bed with her name on it,

0:04:39.000,0:04:43.000
but when we pour water for her in her bowl,

0:04:43.000,0:04:47.000
she still looks up and she wags her tail in gratitude.

0:04:47.000,0:04:50.000
Sometimes Brian and I walk through the park with Scarlett,

0:04:50.000,0:04:53.000
and she rolls through the grass,

0:04:53.000,0:04:55.000
and we just look at her

0:04:55.000,0:04:57.000
and then we look at each other

0:04:57.000,0:05:01.000
and we feel gratitude.

0:05:01.000,0:05:05.000
We forget about all of our new middle-class frustrations

0:05:05.000,0:05:06.000
and disappointments,

0:05:06.000,0:05:09.000
and we feel like millionaires.

0:05:09.000,0:05:10.000
Thank you.

0:05:10.000,0:05:14.000
(Applause)