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Do you know of any children

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who can speak English
and another language fluently?

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These children may have moved
with their families

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from or to another country.

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Or their parents
may be an international couple.

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These children grow up with exposure
to multiple languages and cultures

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at the same time.

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And while this kind of childhood
is getting very common,

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if you actually ask one of these children,

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"Hey, are you enjoying the experience?"

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he or she might tell you,

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"No, it's actually very tough,
and I'm struggling.

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And my parents are struggling with me."

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Twenty years ago,
I was one of these children,

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and as I was being back and forth
between the United States and Japan,

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I have to tell you
that, back then, I hated my life.

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Each move was traumatizing,

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and I fell way, way behind academically.

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But today, now that I'm an adult,

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the same experiences have become
a gift that helps me in many ways.

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So, what is it that makes
an international childhood so hard?

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My family gave me their full support
throughout the journey,

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and I was very lucky to have them.

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But now that I reflect on it,

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I kind of think that it was way too hard

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for all of us.

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So, as soon as I got
to Harvard Business School

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as a Fulbright scholar,

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I started working on an idea
that later became my startup.

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It's an educational service
that supports international children

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through their unique challenges,
both academic and psychological.

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So what is it that makes
an international childhood so hard,

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but later, rewarding?

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The first thing is language.

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Do you know how they say that,

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"Oh, young children,
they can pick up a language so quickly.

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He or she will be speaking in no time."

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You've heard that before?

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Yeah, so that's true if the question is:

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"Can they communicate in that language?"

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But if the question is:

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"Can they think and learn
in that language?"

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the answer is that it actually
takes a lot longer.

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Research tells us that it can take
five to seven years for a person

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to reach this level of proficiency.

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Now, one of our students,

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he's been in an English
environment for six years.

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His English is so fluent,

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you won't believe
this is not his native tongue.

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And he has straight A's
in all of his English subjects.

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But when it comes to math and physics,

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he still prefers
that we teach him in Japanese.

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According to him,
"Oh, it's just faster that way.

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You know, it's easier to learn
these, like, hard conceptual ideas.

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They're easier to manipulate in my head

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when they are in Japanese."

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So, in short, it's easier to think.

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So if you are a child
learning in a language

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that you are not completely
comfortable with yet,

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that can limit your cognition,
your ability to learn.

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So, for any multilingual
student growing up,

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it's essential that they catch up
with the school language

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as fast as possible

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so that they can learn
what they should be learning

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at that grade level.

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Meantime, they also need to maintain
their native tongue at the grade level,

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and that is very hard.

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It's not something
that just happens on its own either.

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It requires commitment
and planning and investment,

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not just from the child,
but also from the family.

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A child going through this stage
needs help, deserves help.

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And it's either the family provides it,

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or professionals can help them provide it.

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And I remember

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that going through the stage,
it was very confusing.

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It almost felt as if
that it was a personal problem.

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Like, "Maybe I'm not smart enough

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because I'm spending so much time working,

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but I'm not good enough in either."

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Language barriers can also be very hard

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on a child's social life
at school as well.

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Do you ever feel like
there are aspects of your personality

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that you can't really fully express
in your second language?

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You know, maybe you can't be as funny,

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or seem as intelligent,

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or be as interesting as you really are

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because language limits you.

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Now, imagine you are a teenager,
and you need to do that five days a week.

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Yikes!

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So, learning a language
is a long and hard journey.

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The gift, of course, is access.

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Once you've mastered two languages,

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you can go to school or work
in two different countries.

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You can access information
and knowledge created in two languages.

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And you can build relationships
with two very different groups of people.

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There's so much richness
in the bilingual world.

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It's almost like you're living
two lives at the same time.

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The second challenge is culture.

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So one day, a little girl in Michigan
walks into her classroom in the morning,

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and her teacher welcomes her
with a big warm hug,

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just like any other morning.

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The next week, she moves to Japan,

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where hugging is not really a thing,

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and we express affection
through different means.

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After one big, awkward social attempt,

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she notices that you can't really
hug people in Japan

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without making them feel
completely uncomfortable

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and also winning the title
of "complete social weirdo."

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(Laughter)

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So she stops hugging people,

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but knowing isn't feeling.

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She still wants to hug people,
and she misses it.

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But she knows that she needs
to follow the cultural norm

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in order to be accepted
as a decent member of the community,

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and failure to do so would mean
that she would be the outcast

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who can't follow the rules.

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And because culture is not
just about the foods we eat

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and the holidays we celebrate,

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but it's this all-encompassing
thought process

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that highlights different
aspects of the world

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and attributes different meaning
to these aspects

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and hence creates completely
different experiences

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from the same world,

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this kind of difference can exist
in anything and everything

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from, let's say,
how to be popular at school

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to how to sound credible
at a job interview,

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all the way up to how to tell
somebody that you like them

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and how you determine the relationship
after a couple of dates with your crush.

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And because there is no convenient
textbook for all these cultural norms,

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you basically need to learn
through trying and making

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lots and lots of embarrassing mistakes.

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The pain is worsened

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because you start to take it personally.

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You start to think, at one point,

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"Hey, oh, I need to watch out
for my behavior.

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I need to constantly check
if I'm not being weird,"

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just to be accepted.

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The gift in being brought up
in two cultures

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is this revelation that cultural norms

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are a social construct.

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You know, people can believe
in wildly different things

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based on where they were born
or how they were brought up.

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And what seems to be common sense
or even the truth in one culture

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may not be that way somewhere else.

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And although each culture
is this complete, beautiful,

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and functional and different
approach to life,

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none of them is universal truth.

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Knowing this can give you two freedoms.

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The first freedom is to choose
which rules you want to follow

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at important junctions of your life.

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My choice to go to Harvard Business School

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and become a female entrepreneur

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does not necessarily fit
the typical female gender role in Japan.

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But I can choose
to feel feminine if I want to

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because I know that femininity
can mean different things

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in different places.

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The second freedom is awareness.

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The tricky thing about culture
is that when you are part of a culture,

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it's very hard to be aware of it.

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You know, they say

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that it's the air we breathe
and the water we swim in,

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but once you are fully immersed
in two or more cultures,

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the contrast suddenly
makes it easier for you

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to become aware
of how they are influencing you.

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And if you are more aware

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of the cultural biases
and the stereotypes we have,

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that makes you so much better

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at connecting with somebody
from a different culture.

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You know, in today's world
of divide and borders,

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we need more people who are good at this.

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The final component is identity.

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An American girl, who had been living
in Shanghai for eight years,

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moves back to DC.

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And her new friends there
jokingly tell her,

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"Ah, go back to China
where you came from."

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That day, later on, she told me,

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"Well, I don't belong
there either, you know?

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It looks like I don't belong
anywhere now."

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And this sense of being uprooted
and rootless can really eat away at you.

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I admit that, even to this day,

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I sometimes struggle with the question:

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"Wait, who am I really,
and where do I belong?"

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because I feel a deep
connection with Japan,

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and I feel a deep connection with the US,

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but I don't fully belong in either.

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I'm a mixture.

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And being that makes me
a minority in Japan, where I am from.

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And that can be very hard,
especially for a child

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because you want to be able
to clearly define who you are

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and have this safe place in the world
where you can just be yourself,

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and be accepted,

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and not have to try so hard all the time.

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The gift in all this confusion

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is that the confusion
is actually an open invitation

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for us to find a time and place
where we can feel belonging.

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To define what are
the meaningful relationships

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that help you belong in a space,

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what is it that we can do

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to give our rather complicated lives
purpose and meaning?

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Sometimes, all it takes for you
to feel like "Ah, I belong here"

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is a couple of really close friends,

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friends that just get you,
you know, both sides of you.

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Sometimes, it's a mission
or a vision you want to pursue.

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It's something that you want
to give back to that environment

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that connects you to that place.

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And because concepts
like identity and nationality

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are actually a lot not as concrete
and as definite as you would think,

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there is space for reinterpretation.

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There is plasticity

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for you to recreate a sense of belonging
that you could have once lost.

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So the invitation in this identity crisis

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is an invitation to choose
who you want to be

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and what you want
to make out of your life.

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So if there are any of these
international children around you,

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I ask you today, please be kind to them.

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Just because they can't speak
intelligently yet,

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don't assume they're not intelligent.

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Please try not to judge them,

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to see them through stereotypes,
to tokenize them.

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Instead, please help me encourage them,

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to tell them to hang in there,

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to aim higher.

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And join me in embracing these children

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and celebrating the potential they have

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and bringing us so much closer together.

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And if you are one of these children,
today, oh my God, I have to tell you

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that you are doing something
that's extremely hard for anyone.

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You are not alone.

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You deserve help.

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And if you want it,
don't be shy to ask for it.

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The world is counting on you
to make it through.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)