WEBVTT

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I'm five years old, and I am very proud.

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My father has just built the best outhouse

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in our little village in Ukraine.

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Inside, it's a smelly,
gaping hole in the ground,

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but outside, it's pearly white formica

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and it literally gleams in the sun.

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This makes me feel so proud, so important,

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that I appoint myself the leader
of my little group of friends

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and I devise missions for us.

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So we prowl from house to house

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looking for flies captured in spider webs

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and we set them free.

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Four years earlier, when I was one,

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after the Chernobyl accident,

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the rain came down black,

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and my sister's hair fell out in clumps,

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and I spent nine months in the hospital.

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There were no visitors allowed,

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so my mother bribed a hospital worker.

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She acquired a nurse's uniform,

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and she snuck in every night
to sit by my side.

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Five years later,
an unexpected silver lining.

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Thanks to Chernobyl,
we get asylum in the U.S.

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I am six years old, and I don't
cry when we leave home

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and we come to America,

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because I expect it to be
a place filled with rare

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and wonderful things
like bananas and chocolate

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and Bazooka bubble gum,

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Bazooka bubble gum
with the little cartoon wrappers inside,

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Bazooka that we'd get
once a year in Ukraine

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and we'd have to chew
one piece for an entire week.

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So the first day we get to New York,

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my grandmother and I find a penny

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in the floor of the homeless shelter
that my family's staying in.

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Only, we don't know
that it's a homeless shelter.

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We think that it's a hotel,
a hotel with lots of rats.

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So we find this penny kind
of fossilized in the floor,

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and we think that a very wealthy
man must have left it there

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because regular people
don't just lose money.

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And I hold this penny
in the palm of my hand,

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and it's sticky and rusty,

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but it feels like I'm holding a fortune.

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I decide that I'm going
to get my very own piece

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of Bazooka bubble gum.

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And in that moment, I feel
like a millionaire.

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About a year later, I get
to feel that way again

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when we find a bag full
of stuffed animals in the trash,

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and suddenly I have more toys

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than I've ever had in my whole life.

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And again, I get that feeling
when we get a knock

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on the door of our apartment in Brooklyn,

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and my sister and I find a deliveryman

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with a box of pizza that we didn't order.

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So we take the pizza,
our very first pizza,

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and we devour slice after slice

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as the deliveryman stands there
and stares at us from the doorway.

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And he tells us to pay,
but we don't speak English.

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My mother comes out,
and he asks her for money,

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but she doesn't have enough.

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She walks 50 blocks
to and from work every day

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just to avoid spending money on bus fare.

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Then our neighbor pops her head in,

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and she turns red with rage
when she realizes

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that those immigrants from downstairs

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have somehow gotten
their hands on her pizza.

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Everyone's upset.

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But the pizza is delicious.

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It doesn't hit me until years
later just how little we had.

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On our 10 year anniversary
of being in the U.S.,

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we decided to celebrate
by reserving a room

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at the hotel that we first stayed
in when we got to the U.S.

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The man at the front desk
laughs, and he says,

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"You can't reserve a room here.
This is a homeless shelter."

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And we were shocked.

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My husband Brian was also
homeless as a kid.

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His family lost everything, and at age 11,

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he had to live in motels with his dad,

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motels
that would round up all of their food

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and keep it hostage until they were
able to pay the bill.

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And one time, when he finally got his box

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of Frosted Flakes back, it
was crawling with roaches.

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But he did have one thing.

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He had this shoebox that he carried
with him everywhere

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containing nine comic books,

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two G.I. Joes painted
to look like Spider-Man

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and five Gobots. And
this was his treasure.

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This was his own assembly of heroes

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that kept him from drugs and gangs

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and from giving up on his dreams.

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I'm going to tell you about one more

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formerly homeless member of our family.

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This is Scarlett.

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Once upon a time, Scarlet
was used as bait in dog fights.

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She was tied up and thrown into the ring

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for other dogs to attack so they'd get
more aggressive before the fight.

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And now, these days, she eats organic food

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and she sleeps on an orthopedic
bed with her name on it,

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but when we pour water
for her in her bowl,

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she still looks up and she wags
her tail in gratitude.

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Sometimes Brian and I walk
through the park with Scarlett,

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and she rolls through the grass,

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and we just look at her

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and then we look at each other

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and we feel gratitude.

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We forget about all of our new
middle-class frustrations

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and disappointments,

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and we feel like millionaires.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)