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Thank you so much.

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I am a journalist.


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My job is to talk to people
from all walks of life,

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all over the world.

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Today, I want to tell you

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why I decided to do this with my life
and what I've learned.

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My story begins in Caracas, Venezuela,

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in South America, where I grew up;

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a place that to me was,
and always will be,

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filled with magic and wonder.

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From a very young age,

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my parents wanted me
to have a wider view of the world.

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I remember one time
when I was around seven years old,

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my dad came up to me and said,

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"Mariana, I'm going to send you
and your little sister..."

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- who was six at the time -

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"...to a place where nobody
speaks Spanish.

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I want you to experience
different cultures."

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He went on and on about the benefits
of spending an entire summer

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in this summer camp in the United States,

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stressing a little phrase

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that I didn't pay 
too much attention to at the time:

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"You never know what the future holds."

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Meanwhile, in my seven-year-old mind,

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I was thinking, we were going
to get to summer camp in Miami.

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(Laughter)

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Maybe it was going to be even better,

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and we were going to go
a little further north, to Orlando,

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where Mickey Mouse lived.

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(Laughter)

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I got really excited.

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My dad, however,
had a slightly different plan.

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From Caracas, he he sent us
to Brainerd, Minnesota.

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(Laughter)

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Mickey Mouse was not up there,

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(Laughter)

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and with no cell phone,
no Snapchat, or Instagram,

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I couldn't look up any information.

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We got there,

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and one of the first things I noticed

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was that the other kids' hair
was several shades of blonde,

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and most of them had blue eyes.

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Meanwhile, this is what we looked like.

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The first night, the camp director
gathered everyone around the campfire

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and said,

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"Kids, we have a very
international camp this year;

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the Atencios are here from Venezuela."

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(Laughter)

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The other kids looked at us
as if we were from another planet.

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They would ask us things like,

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"Do you know what a hamburger is?"

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Or, "Do you go to school
on a donkey or a canoe?"

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(Laughter)

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I would try to answer
in my broken English,

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and they would just laugh.

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I know they were not trying to be mean;

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they were just trying
to understand who we were,

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and make a correlation
with the world they knew.

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We could either be like them,

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or like characters out of a book
filled with adventures,

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like Aladdin or the Jungle Book.

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We certainly didn't look like them,

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we didn't speak their language,

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we were different.

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When you're seven years old, that hurts.

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But I had my little sister
to take care of,

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and she cried every day at summer camp.

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So I decided to put on a brave face,

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and embrace everything I could
about the American way of life.

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We later did what we called
"the summer camp experiment,"

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for eight years in different cities
that many Americans haven't even heard of.

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What I remember most about these moments
was when I finally clicked with someone.

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Making a friend was a special reward.

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Everybody wants to feel
valued and accepted,

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and we think it should happen
spontaneously, but it doesn't.

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When you're different,
you have to work at belonging.

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You have to be either
really helpful, smart, funny,

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anything to be cool for the crowd
you want to hang out with.

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Later on, when I was in high school,

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my dad expanded on his summer plan,

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and from Caracas he sent me
to Wallingford, Connecticut,

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for the senior year of high school.

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This time, I remember
daydreaming on the plane

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about "the American high school
experience" - with a locker.

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It was going to be perfect,

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just like in my favorite TV show:
"Saved by the Bell."

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(Laughter)

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I get there, and they tell me

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that my assigned roommate
is eagerly waiting.

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I opened the door,

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and there she was, sitting on the bed,

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with a headscarf.

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Her name was Fatima,
and she was Muslim from Bahrain,

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and she was not what I expected.

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She probably sensed my disappointment
when I looked at her

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because I didn't do too much to hide it.

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See, as a teenager,
I wanted to fit in even more,

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I wanted to be popular,

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maybe have a boyfriend for prom,

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and I felt that Fatima just got in the way

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with her shyness
and her strict dress code.

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I didn't realize
that I was making her feel

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like the kids at summer camp made me feel.

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This was the high school
equivalent of asking her,

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"Do you know what a hamburger is?"

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I was consumed by my own selfishness

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and unable to put myself in her shoes.

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I have to be honest with you,

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we only lasted a couple
of months together,

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because she was later sent
to live with a counselor

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instead of other students.

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I remember thinking, "Ah, she'll be okay.

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She's just different."

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You see, when we label
someone as different,

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it dehumanizes them in a way.

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They become "the other."

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They're not worthy of our time,
not our problem,

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and in fact, they, "the other,"
are probably the cause of our problems.

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So, how do we recognize our blind spots?

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It begins by understanding
what makes you different,

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by embracing those traits.

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Only then can you begin to appreciate
what makes others special.

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I remember when this hit me.

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It was a couple months after that.

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I had found that boyfriend for prom,

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made a group of friends,

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and practically forgotten about Fatima,

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until everybody signed on to participate
in this talent show for charity.

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You needed to offer a talent for auction.

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It seemed like everybody
had something special to offer.

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Some kids were going to play the violin,

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others were going to recite
a theater monologue,

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and I remember thinking,

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"We don't practice talents
like these back home."

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But I was determined
to find something of value.

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The day of the talent show comes,

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and I get up on stage
with my little boom box,

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and put it on the side and press "Play,"

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and a song by my favorite
emerging artist, Shakira, comes up.

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And I go, "Whenever, wherever,
we're meant to be together,"

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and I said, "My name is Mariana,
and I'm going to auction a dance class."

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It seemed like the whole school
raised their hand to bid.

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My dance class really stood out

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from, like, the 10th violin class
offered that day.

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Going back to my dorm room,
I didn't feel different.

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I felt really special.

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That's when I started
thinking about Fatima,

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a person that I had failed to see
as special, when I first met her.

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She was from the Middle East,

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just like Shakira's family
was from the Middle East.

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She could have probably taught me
a thing or two about belly dancing,

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had I been open to it.

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Now, I want you all to take that sticker

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that was given to you 
at the beginning of our session today,

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where you wrote down
what makes you special,

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and I want you to look at it.

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If you're watching at home,
take a piece of paper,

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and write down what makes you different.

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You may feel guarded when you look at it,

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maybe even a little ashamed,
maybe even proud.

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But you need to begin to embrace it.

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Remember, it is the first step
in appreciating what makes others special.

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When I went back home to Venezuela,

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I began to understand
how these experiences were changing me.

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Being able to speak different languages,


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to navigate all these
different people and places,

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it gave me a unique sensibility.

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I was finally beginning to understand

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the importance of putting myself
in other people's shoes.

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That is a big part of the reason
why I decided to become a journalist.

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Especially being from a part of the world
that is often labeled "the backyard,"

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"the illegal aliens,"
"third-world," "the others,"

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I wanted to do something to change that.

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It was right around the time, however,

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when the Venezuelan government shut down

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the biggest television station
in our country.

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Censorship was growing,

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and my dad came up to me
once again and said,

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"How are you going to be
a journalist here?

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You have to leave."

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That's when it hit me.

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That's what he had been preparing me for.

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That is what the future held for me.

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So in 2008, I packed my bags,
and I came to the United States,

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without a return ticket this time.

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I was painfully aware
that, at 24 years old,

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I was becoming a refugee of sorts,
an immigrant, the other,

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once again, and now for good.

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I was able to come on a scholarship
to study journalism.

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I remember when they gave me
my first assignment

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to cover the historic election
of President Barack Obama.

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I felt so lucky, so hopeful.

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I was, like, "Yes, this is it.

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I've come to post-racial America,

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where the notion of us and them
is being eroded,

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and will probably
be eradicated in my lifetime."

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Boy, was I wrong, right?

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Why didn't Barack Obama's presidency
alleviate racial tensions in our country?

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Why do some people still feel threatened

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by immigrants, LGBTQ, and minority groups

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who are just trying to find a space

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in this United States
that should be for all of us?

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I didn't have the answers back then,

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but on November 8th, 2016,

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when Donald Trump became
our president, it became clear

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that a large part of the electorate
sees them as "the others."

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Some see people coming to take their jobs,

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or potential terrorists
who speak a different language.

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Meanwhile, minority groups oftentimes
just see hatred, intolerance,

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and narrow-mindedness on the other side.

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It's like we're stuck in these bubbles
that nobody wants to burst.

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The only way to do it,
the only way to get out of it

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is to realize that being different
also means thinking differently.

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It takes courage to show respect.

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In the words of Voltaire:

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"I may not agree
with what you have to say,

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but I will fight to the death
to defend your right to say it."

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Failing to see anything good
on the other side

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makes a dialogue impossible.

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Without a dialogue, we will keep
repeating the same mistakes,

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because we will not learn anything new.

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I covered the 2016 election for NBC News.

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It was my first big assignment
in this mainstream network,

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where I had crossed over
from Spanish television.

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And I wanted to do something different.

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I watched election results
with undocumented families.

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Few thought of sharing that moment
with people who weren't citizens,

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but actually stood
the most to lose that night.

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When it became apparent
that Donald Trump was winning,

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this eight-year-old girl named Angelina
rushed up to me in tears.

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She sobbed, and she asked me
if her mom was going to be deported now.

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I hugged her back and I said,
"It's going to be okay,"

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but I really didn't know.

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This was the photo we took that night,
forever ingrained in my heart.

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Here was this little girl

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who was around the same age I was
when I went to camp in Brainerd.

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She already knows she is "the other."

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She walks home from school
in fear, every day,

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that her mom can be taken away.

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So, how do we put ourselves
in Angelina's shoes?

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How do we make her
understand she is special,

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and not simply unworthy
of having her family together?

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By giving camera time to her
and families like hers,

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I tried to make people see them
as human beings,

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and not simply "illegal aliens."

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Yes, they broke a law, 
and they should pay a penalty for it,

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but they've also given
everything for this country,

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like many other immigrants
before them have.

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I've already told you how my path
to personal growth started.

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To end, I want to tell you how I hit
the worst bump in the road yet,

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one that shook me to my very core.

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The day, April 10th, 2014,

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I was driving to the studio,
and I got a call from my parents.

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"Are you on the air?" they asked.

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I immediately knew something was wrong.

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"What happened?" I said.

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"It's your sister;
she's been in a car accident."

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It was as if my heart stopped.

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My hands gripped the steering wheel,

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and I remember hearing the words:

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"It is unlikely she will ever walk again."

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They say your life can change
in a split second.

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Mine did at that moment.

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My sister went from being
my successful other half,

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only a year apart in age,

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to not being able to move her legs,

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sit up, or get dressed by herself.

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This wasn't like summer camp,
where I could magically make it better.

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This was terrifying.

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Throughout the course of two years,
my sister underwent 15 surgeries,

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and she spent the most
of that time in a wheelchair.

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But that wasn't even the worst of it.

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The worst was something so painful,
it's hard to put into words, even now.

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It was the way people looked at her,

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looked at us, changed.

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People were unable to see
a successful lawyer

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or a millennial with a sharp wit
and a kind heart.

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Everywhere we went,

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I realized that people just saw
a poor girl in a wheelchair.

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They were unable to see
anything beyond that.

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After fighting like a warrior,

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I can thankfully tell you
that today my sister is walking,

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and has recovered
beyond anyone's expectations.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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But during that traumatic ordeal,

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I learned there are differences
that simply suck,

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and it's hard to find positive in them.

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My sister's not better off
because of what happened.

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But she taught me: you can't let
those differences define you.

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Being able to reimagine yourself
beyond what other people see,

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that is the toughest task of all,

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but it's also the most beautiful.

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You see, we all come
to this world in a body.

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People with physical
or neurological difficulties,

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00:15:41,250 --> 00:15:46,490
environmentally impacted communities,
immigrants, boys, girls,

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00:15:47,049 --> 00:15:50,110
boys who want to dress as girls,
girls with veils,

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00:15:50,790 --> 00:15:52,730
women who have been sexually assaulted,

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00:15:52,730 --> 00:15:55,500
athletes who bend
their knee as a sign of protest,

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00:15:55,930 --> 00:16:01,530
black, white, Asian, Native American,
my sister, you, or me.

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We all want what everyone wants:
to dream and to achieve.

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But sometimes, society tells us,
and we tell ourselves,

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we don't fit the mold.

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Well, if you look at my story,

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from being born somewhere different,
to belly dancing in high school,

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to telling stories
you wouldn't normally see on TV,

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what makes me different

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is what has made me
stand out and be successful.

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I have traveled the world,

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and talked to people
from all walks of life.

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You know what I've learned?

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The single thing every one of us
has in common is being human.

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So take a stand to defend
your race, the human race.

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Let's appeal to it.

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00:16:53,140 --> 00:16:57,170
Let's be humanists,
before and after everything else.

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00:16:58,079 --> 00:17:01,330
To end, I want you to take that sticker,
that piece of paper

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where you wrote down
what makes you different,

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and I want you to celebrate it
today and every day,

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shout it from the rooftops.

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I also encourage you
to be curious and ask,

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"What is on other people's
pieces of paper?"

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"What makes them different?"

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Let's celebrate those imperfections
that make us special.

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I hope that it teaches you that nobody
has a claim on the word "normal."

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We are all different.

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We are all quirky, and unique,

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and that is what makes us
wonderfully human.

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Thank you so much.

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00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:40,669
(Applause)