WEBVTT

00:00:15.521 --> 00:00:18.350
So, I'm not here to talk about something
that's funny.

00:00:18.350 --> 00:00:21.180
I'm here to talk about something that's
really, really close to my heart.

00:00:21.180 --> 00:00:24.010
In fact, it is so close I cannot escape
it.

00:00:24.990 --> 00:00:29.000
It's because I came to this country as an
immigrant.

00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.490
It's hard for some people to notice when
somebody's an immigrant.

00:00:33.490 --> 00:00:39.840
I do things related to internet culture,
which is very American.

00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:41.010
It is very internet-y.

00:00:41.010 --> 00:00:43.210
You have to be in the zeitgeist.

00:00:43.210 --> 00:00:49.400
It is a class of work that people who are
like me, do not do.

00:00:49.400 --> 00:00:55.910
We run dry cleaners, grocery stores, nail
salons, 7-11's.

00:00:55.910 --> 00:00:59.219
Maybe we get an H-1B visa and we work at
Microsoft.

00:00:59.940 --> 00:01:04.280
But we do not go out and make
entertainment websites.

00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:08.730
Because for that to occur, we must have a
connection

00:01:08.730 --> 00:01:12.190
that is much more deeper than a career or
profession.

00:01:12.190 --> 00:01:16.470
I must understand you, and your
background, and where you grew up.

00:01:17.610 --> 00:01:19.219
But some how I ended up here.

00:01:19.810 --> 00:01:25.370
And because I came here when I was 14, I

00:01:25.370 --> 00:01:30.990
was able to understand what its like to be
a American, yet still be a immigrant.

00:01:30.990 --> 00:01:34.070
If I came here when I was ten or maybe if I
was 21,

00:01:34.070 --> 00:01:35.210
I may have missed that.

00:01:35.210 --> 00:01:37.530
I may have been set in my ways as a

00:01:37.530 --> 00:01:41.280
immigrant, or maybe I would've acted like
a second generation,

00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:43.520
where I didn't remember where I came from.

00:01:44.620 --> 00:01:48.530
But because I was 14, I remember, I
remember all these things.

00:01:48.530 --> 00:01:51.700
I remember living in a one bedroom
apartment with my parents.

00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:53.820
There was a mattress on the living room
floor.

00:01:54.540 --> 00:01:56.710
My parents, I was an only child, my
parents gave me the

00:01:56.710 --> 00:01:59.290
bedroom, and they slept out on the
mattress on the living room floor.

00:01:59.290 --> 00:02:01.630
And I remember their horror.

00:02:01.630 --> 00:02:06.120
And the shame on their face, when I
brought my friends home from school.

00:02:07.420 --> 00:02:10.660
I remember that moment when I walked into
the door with the kids, and

00:02:10.660 --> 00:02:15.550
my parents are like, "You didn't tell me
that you were gonna bring guests."

00:02:15.550 --> 00:02:18.180
And that awkward moment when they were
trying to figure out

00:02:18.180 --> 00:02:20.720
what to do with that mattress in the
living room floor.

00:02:20.720 --> 00:02:24.130
And we had no place for my friends to sit.

00:02:25.510 --> 00:02:28.050
Immigration is a very, very unfair trade.

00:02:29.320 --> 00:02:35.390
I don't know if many of you have immigrant
parents, but they pay for everything.

00:02:35.390 --> 00:02:39.039
They pay the costs, we the children reap
the benefits.

00:02:39.590 --> 00:02:41.530
And as my parents like to joke, the
grandkids

00:02:41.530 --> 00:02:44.545
will forget about it all, and they'll
become useless.

00:02:44.545 --> 00:02:48.400
[LAUGH].

00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:51.510
>> Probably because they spoil them but,
not my fault.

00:02:53.670 --> 00:02:56.080
So, when I look at my immigration
experience.

00:02:56.080 --> 00:02:58.670
I was 14, my parents brought me here.

00:02:58.670 --> 00:03:00.229
We had relatives.

00:03:01.350 --> 00:03:02.400
It isn't poverty.

00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:07.000
Poverty is defined by the whole, by, by
the cold and the hunger of it all.

00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:08.600
It is very Oliver Twist.

00:03:08.600 --> 00:03:11.430
That is what I think of when I think about
poverty.

00:03:11.430 --> 00:03:16.180
Many immigrants live in near, or in
poverty.

00:03:17.130 --> 00:03:19.240
Many immigrants do not.

00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:22.780
It is not a monolithic experience.

00:03:22.780 --> 00:03:28.800
Yet many immigrants experience poverty in
its own way.

00:03:29.430 --> 00:03:36.810
Yet the reason we believe in the immigrant
experience, is that the poverty is filled.

00:03:36.810 --> 00:03:39.530
The lack of something and it, and it's...

00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:44.580
And it is filled by dreams, it is filled
by hope.

00:03:45.330 --> 00:03:47.740
So that when you are living in a one
bedroom,

00:03:47.740 --> 00:03:50.520
when you can not pay the bills for your
phone...

00:03:51.700 --> 00:03:56.450
We justify it by saying, there's a better
future for the next generation.

00:03:57.350 --> 00:04:00.970
And the strangeness of it all, is that a
century ago,

00:04:00.970 --> 00:04:03.050
immigration was very, very different.

00:04:03.050 --> 00:04:05.700
A century ago immigration was defined by

00:04:05.700 --> 00:04:10.180
something completely different than what
we experience today.

00:04:11.670 --> 00:04:17.140
1912 steam ships, railroads.

00:04:17.140 --> 00:04:18.870
No automobiles for people to criss cross
on

00:04:18.870 --> 00:04:22.799
the high way, no internet, no access to
information.

00:04:24.220 --> 00:04:28.060
The greatest suffering for immigrants was
caused by nature.

00:04:28.060 --> 00:04:31.110
By the world that we live in, the physical
world itself.

00:04:31.110 --> 00:04:35.310
Distance, illness, acts of God.

00:04:36.390 --> 00:04:41.760
Being able to sail around the world to
reach America, was physically challenging.

00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:43.760
Your ship could be ship wrecked.

00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:45.460
You could run out of water.

00:04:46.070 --> 00:04:50.860
You could die of thirst and disease, and
when you got into that train

00:04:50.860 --> 00:04:55.150
to cross America, you had no idea of what
was on the other side.

00:04:55.960 --> 00:05:00.179
But 100 years later, today, it is vastly
different.

00:05:01.650 --> 00:05:04.870
The suffering immigration is caused by
man.

00:05:06.730 --> 00:05:08.250
It is not nature.

00:05:08.250 --> 00:05:11.790
For the most part, we have conquered
nature.

00:05:11.790 --> 00:05:14.830
You can get on a plane right now, and in

00:05:14.830 --> 00:05:18.360
12 hours be on the other side of the
planet.

00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:21.739
Being served drinks and little cocktails
along the way.

00:05:23.060 --> 00:05:25.300
Very different than a steam ship.

00:05:25.300 --> 00:05:29.970
Today, the suffering of an immigrant is man
made by policy.

00:05:31.130 --> 00:05:33.200
It is separation not distance.

00:05:33.200 --> 00:05:37.180
It is, if I leave this country and I'm a
Canadian, let's

00:05:37.180 --> 00:05:40.570
say, I may not be able to get back across
the border.

00:05:40.570 --> 00:05:42.950
I may not be able to visit my friends.

00:05:42.950 --> 00:05:45.110
Because what if they question my
immigration

00:05:45.110 --> 00:05:47.260
status on the border and reject me?

00:05:48.290 --> 00:05:51.930
This happens a lot more than what my
friends, Canadian friends like to admit.

00:05:51.930 --> 00:05:53.340
It is bureaucracy.

00:05:54.030 --> 00:05:57.023
People waiting 20 years to enter the
lottery to

00:05:57.023 --> 00:06:01.020
receive a permit to migrate to the United
States.

00:06:01.020 --> 00:06:03.360
Watching there relatives

00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:07.030
and there nephews grow old and unable to
visit.

00:06:07.030 --> 00:06:10.340
It is prejudice, it is reading about
yourself as

00:06:10.340 --> 00:06:14.290
an immigrant in the papers, and knowing
that's not true.

00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:19.690
It is easier to ship a box of bananas from
India, than

00:06:19.690 --> 00:06:23.569
to reunite a child from there with her
parents in the United States.

00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:27.700
The world has gotten small, though we have

00:06:27.700 --> 00:06:30.830
erected barriers, to keep people
out.

00:06:33.660 --> 00:06:37.650
Yet at the same time, if you ask everyone
in the United States, they

00:06:37.650 --> 00:06:40.450
will almost certainly tell you, that this

00:06:40.450 --> 00:06:43.539
country was built on immigrants and
immigration.

00:06:44.320 --> 00:06:46.710
That we are all a nation of immigrants.

00:06:47.530 --> 00:06:53.220
Yet for some reason, we are uncomfortable
with the idea of letting people in.

00:06:54.340 --> 00:06:59.110
That while we recognize the value and have
erected a statue that says,

00:06:59.110 --> 00:07:03.539
"Give me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:11.880
We don't like to see the people outside
our boarders as people.

00:07:13.650 --> 00:07:15.640
I'm not sure what drives this fear.

00:07:17.470 --> 00:07:18.990
Most people aren't really afraid of me.

00:07:19.710 --> 00:07:21.579
I post cat pictures on the internet.

00:07:21.579 --> 00:07:22.960
[LAUGH].

00:07:25.160 --> 00:07:26.820
>> Maybe it's because they believe that
there's

00:07:26.820 --> 00:07:28.860
a finite number of jobs in the United
States.

00:07:28.860 --> 00:07:30.710
That there 300 and something million

00:07:30.710 --> 00:07:33.830
people and there's probably 150 million
jobs.

00:07:33.830 --> 00:07:37.580
And if somebody takes my job, I'll never
get that job back.

00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:46.060
Maybe we believe that the, that in order
for the economy to grow, that only

00:07:46.060 --> 00:07:51.550
those people with skilled, intellectuals,
or laborers who

00:07:51.550 --> 00:07:54.260
can do special things should be let in.

00:07:55.580 --> 00:07:57.480
I came here as a 14 year old.

00:07:57.480 --> 00:07:59.795
My only skill set, was annoying the shit
out of my parents.

00:07:59.795 --> 00:08:02.330
[LAUGH].

00:08:02.330 --> 00:08:03.250
>> Maybe,

00:08:05.050 --> 00:08:07.010
and this starts to get a little bit more
uncomfortable....

00:08:08.220 --> 00:08:11.970
Maybe we believe, that only a certain
people, that

00:08:11.970 --> 00:08:15.450
look like me, should be let into this
country.

00:08:15.450 --> 00:08:20.080
Maybe we believe, that only certain people
who come from countries

00:08:20.080 --> 00:08:23.509
where we have historical immigration,
should be let into the country.

00:08:24.680 --> 00:08:29.840
Strangely, our elected politicians do not
ask you what you believe in.

00:08:31.070 --> 00:08:33.850
They set immigration policy, and we just
go along.

00:08:35.270 --> 00:08:39.080
Immigration is usually debated in tight
political circles of people who are in

00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:44.088
the know, who have experience, yet we all
claim to be descendents of immigrants.

00:08:46.070 --> 00:08:50.540
Sadly, our view of immigration has always
been affected by race.

00:08:52.280 --> 00:08:57.470
Chinese exclusion act, there's a reason
why almost every Asian

00:08:57.470 --> 00:09:02.790
American that you see in the street has
been no, no before the 1960's.

00:09:03.790 --> 00:09:08.470
That before the 1960s this country
outlawed people who looked like me.

00:09:08.470 --> 00:09:09.490
I am Korean, by the way.

00:09:09.490 --> 00:09:11.208
So, I don't take, really, 
offense to that.

00:09:11.208 --> 00:09:14.305
[LAUGH]
>> But, I'm kidding.

00:09:14.305 --> 00:09:17.360
[LAUGH]


00:09:18.270 --> 00:09:20.665
>> National Origins quota system.

00:09:21.025 --> 00:09:23.470
Fancy words for saying we don't want

00:09:23.470 --> 00:09:26.820
Eastern European immigrants back in the
1800s.

00:09:27.650 --> 00:09:29.930
Arizona state bill 1070.

00:09:30.710 --> 00:09:34.760
If you're brown, we stop you, and ask you
if you really belong here.

00:09:35.910 --> 00:09:38.629
These are actual laws that this country
has passed

00:09:39.950 --> 00:09:42.300
that is about immigration.

00:09:42.300 --> 00:09:46.230
About keeping people out, and figuring out
who to let in.

00:09:46.230 --> 00:09:51.740
Whatever label you put on them, whatever
fancy acronym you can put on them,

00:09:51.740 --> 00:09:56.659
it doesn't hide the fact that we have
very, very

00:09:59.100 --> 00:10:04.970
outdated views on immigration versus what
we actually believe in this room.

00:10:05.930 --> 00:10:08.940
We don't wanna be racist, but somehow,

00:10:08.940 --> 00:10:12.890
we keep letting our politicians pass these
bills.

00:10:14.030 --> 00:10:16.160
And it turns out,

00:10:16.160 --> 00:10:18.570
as I looked more and more into this, the
conclusion

00:10:18.570 --> 00:10:23.000
that I drew, was not that immigration
itself is controversial.

00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:24.530
In fact, one of the reasons why the United

00:10:24.530 --> 00:10:27.580
States has a growing economy and a growing
population,

00:10:27.580 --> 00:10:29.620
while the rest of the developed world has
a

00:10:29.620 --> 00:10:32.120
birth rate that is declining and declining
to a point

00:10:32.120 --> 00:10:37.390
where they're unable to sustain their own
social safety nets and tax base.

00:10:37.390 --> 00:10:42.750
The reason this country continues to have
a population

00:10:42.750 --> 00:10:46.370
that is thriving, that is diverse, is due
to immigration.

00:10:47.310 --> 00:10:50.280
Most people, most generations who've been
in this country for more than three or

00:10:50.280 --> 00:10:53.260
more generations no longer create babies
at

00:10:53.260 --> 00:10:55.560
a rate that actually makes this economy
sustainable.

00:10:55.560 --> 00:10:58.770
In fact, most of our population growth has
come from Hispanic migration.

00:10:58.770 --> 00:11:05.070
If it weren't for them we'd have more
houses than you could fill people with,

00:11:05.890 --> 00:11:08.760
more dollars and more retirees to
support,

00:11:08.760 --> 00:11:11.554
that our working folks can actually
provide for.

00:11:12.450 --> 00:11:14.110
The system is fragile.

00:11:15.630 --> 00:11:19.180
Yet people wanna keep everybody else out,
without recognizing that the

00:11:19.180 --> 00:11:25.010
system relies on immigration to continue
to grow and support itself.

00:11:25.010 --> 00:11:26.590
So it led me to believe that it's

00:11:26.590 --> 00:11:29.780
only certain kinds of people that it's
actually controversial.

00:11:29.780 --> 00:11:31.350
Maybe it's not just race.

00:11:31.350 --> 00:11:32.670
Maybe it has to do with origin.

00:11:32.670 --> 00:11:34.010
Maybe it has to do with religion.

00:11:35.850 --> 00:11:39.113
When I planned this talk with the Tedx
Portland folks,

00:11:39.113 --> 00:11:41.470
immigration was kinda on the radar.

00:11:42.608 --> 00:11:48.010
And if, and a week ago, two immigrants
det, detonated a bomb in Boston.

00:11:52.330 --> 00:11:54.650
What was their race, what was their
religion?

00:11:54.650 --> 00:11:55.580
Does it matter?

00:11:57.310 --> 00:11:58.050
I don't know.

00:12:00.930 --> 00:12:04.880
After coming to the United States, my father and
I worked as a janitor in office.

00:12:04.880 --> 00:12:06.230
We were not skilled laborers.

00:12:06.230 --> 00:12:08.700
There were plenty of Asians to go around.

00:12:08.700 --> 00:12:10.320
We worked as a janitor.

00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:13.080
And our suffering of working as an
immigrant making $2,000

00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:17.720
a month as an entire family, was actually
made harder.

00:12:20.010 --> 00:12:23.390
We were cleaning out trashcans.

00:12:23.390 --> 00:12:25.740
The people who, in the office, that when
you

00:12:25.740 --> 00:12:27.770
work late come in and empty out the trash.

00:12:27.770 --> 00:12:28.660
That was us.

00:12:29.730 --> 00:12:33.100
I remember collecting all the empty soda
cans that were in the trash.

00:12:33.100 --> 00:12:36.390
It was, oh my god, it stunk to high
heaven.

00:12:36.390 --> 00:12:38.440
But I remember putting that in a black
plastic bag

00:12:38.440 --> 00:12:41.220
in the balcony of our, of our one bedroom
apartment.

00:12:42.290 --> 00:12:44.190
And we had collected enough to like,
literally

00:12:44.190 --> 00:12:46.020
I, we couldn't go out on the balcony
anymore.

00:12:46.020 --> 00:12:47.330
And I remember trading that in.

00:12:47.330 --> 00:12:48.989
It was like my allowance.

00:12:49.590 --> 00:12:50.700
Empty soda cans.

00:12:50.700 --> 00:12:54.590
We traded them in, and got $150. It was
amazing.

00:12:54.590 --> 00:12:57.780
It was hard labor. I earned it.

00:12:57.780 --> 00:13:00.370
I still remember the smell, that rotting soda.

00:13:02.530 --> 00:13:04.340
It was $120 apparently.

00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:10.089
The immigrant owners of the janitorial
business stiffed us.

00:13:11.120 --> 00:13:13.480
A month of work, my mother and my father
and

00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:17.490
myself, and all we had to show for was a
$120.

00:13:17.490 --> 00:13:19.920
It's not that all immigrants are good.

00:13:19.920 --> 00:13:21.070
I'm not saying that.

00:13:21.070 --> 00:13:23.050
Some of us are good, some of us are bad.

00:13:23.050 --> 00:13:25.890
In fact, we are probably more 
of a reflection of the America

00:13:25.890 --> 00:13:29.580
as it is today, than most people are
willing to admit.

00:13:32.880 --> 00:13:39.580
But in some cases, in one generation,
between my parents and myself, we can go

00:13:39.580 --> 00:13:42.620
from babies that were born in post-Korean

00:13:42.620 --> 00:13:46.820
War, where they had no electricity, no
infrastructure.

00:13:46.820 --> 00:13:50.250
My father graduated from middle school,
and didn't go back.

00:13:50.250 --> 00:13:52.190
My mother has a high school degree.

00:13:52.190 --> 00:13:57.664
We came to the United States, and I built
a internet technology business in Seattle.

00:13:59.104 --> 00:14:00.450
I don't know if there's causation.

00:14:00.450 --> 00:14:02.450
I don't know even if there's correlation.

00:14:02.550 --> 00:14:04.660
I don't know
what drives that.

00:14:04.700 --> 00:14:10.239
It feels random, but it happens over and
over again.

00:14:10.770 --> 00:14:13.530
More than a third of all American

00:14:13.530 --> 00:14:17.450
technology startups have at least one
immigrant cofounder.

00:14:18.180 --> 00:14:19.684
I don't know why that is.

00:14:21.064 --> 00:14:27.180
But what I wanna understand is, as the
number of people

00:14:28.420 --> 00:14:32.770
who start to look at immigration rise as
we get closer to debating this bill.

00:14:32.770 --> 00:14:35.570
They'll recognize that my story is not
unique.

00:14:36.100 --> 00:14:39.080
They may also recognize, that there may be
more

00:14:39.080 --> 00:14:44.040
terrorists in the immigration population
than they had recognized before.

00:14:44.950 --> 00:14:47.560
That the good may outweigh the bad, that
we

00:14:47.560 --> 00:14:51.330
do not actually know holistically who
these immigrants are.

00:14:51.330 --> 00:14:55.930
That all these people, collectively, when
they show up on our borders,

00:14:55.930 --> 00:14:58.490
we may not be able to judge the character

00:14:58.490 --> 00:15:02.730
of these people by the passports that
they bring.

00:15:05.040 --> 00:15:08.590
So then the question becomes, who do we
let in?

00:15:08.590 --> 00:15:12.110
Somebody at dinner asked me last night, so
who do we let in?

00:15:12.110 --> 00:15:13.309
What is the answer?

00:15:15.180 --> 00:15:17.850
I don't know that it's important for me to

00:15:17.850 --> 00:15:21.340
tell you my answer, because it doesn't
really matter.

00:15:21.340 --> 00:15:26.250
At the end of the day I am one voter. One
naturalized American citizen.

00:15:27.980 --> 00:15:29.710
But it's, it makes me...

00:15:36.100 --> 00:15:40.820
We're missing an opportunity to have an

00:15:40.820 --> 00:15:44.630
intelligent discussion about what we the
people want.

00:15:47.910 --> 00:15:49.000
We are

00:15:53.250 --> 00:15:58.810
We are letting other people, decide who we
let into this country.

00:16:03.860 --> 00:16:06.030
This is the second time I've teared up at
the Tedx talk.

00:16:06.030 --> 00:16:07.570
I don't know what's up with that.

00:16:07.570 --> 00:16:08.481
[LAUGH]

00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:17.810
>> Do not let this opportunity pass.

00:16:19.550 --> 00:16:21.940
It doesn' matter whether you agree with me
or not.

00:16:23.530 --> 00:16:30.009
It only matters that we actually talk
about who do we believe we should let in.

00:16:30.650 --> 00:16:33.310
And that we tell people who are in the
office to

00:16:33.310 --> 00:16:37.550
make these decisions and let them know,
that we believe in something.

00:16:37.550 --> 00:16:41.149
That we will not let them make that
decision for us.

00:16:41.219 --> 00:16:42.563
Thank you.