Difference between revisions of "Tan Le- My immigration story eng.srt"
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Latest revision as of 11:09, 2 March 2012
1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000 How can I speak in 10 minutes 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,000 about the bonds of women over three generations, 3 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:09,000 about how the astonishing strength of those bonds 4 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:11,000 took hold in the life 5 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:13,000 of a four-year-old girl 6 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:15,000 huddled with her young sister, 7 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:17,000 her mother and her grandmother 8 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:19,000 for five days and nights 9 00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:21,000 in a small boat in the China Sea 10 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:24,000 more than 30 years ago, 11 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:26,000 bonds that took hold in the life of that small girl 12 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:29,000 and never let go -- 13 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:31,000 that small girl now living in San Francisco 14 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:34,000 and speaking to you today? 15 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:37,000 This is not a finished story. 16 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:40,000 It is a jigsaw puzzle still being put together. 17 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:44,000 Let me tell you about some of the pieces. 18 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:46,000 Imagine the first piece: 19 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:49,000 a man burning his life's work. 20 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:52,000 He is a poet, a playwright, 21 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:54,000 a man whose whole life 22 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:56,000 had been balanced on the single hope 23 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:59,000 of his country's unity and freedom. 24 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:02,000 Imagine him as the communists enter Saigon, 25 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:04,000 confronting the fact 26 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:06,000 that his life had been a complete waste. 27 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:09,000 Words, for so long his friends, now mocked him. 28 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:12,000 He retreated into silence. 29 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:16,000 He died broken by history. 30 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:18,000 He is my grandfather. 31 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,000 I never knew him in real life. 32 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:26,000 But our lives are much more than our memories. 33 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:29,000 My grandmother never let me forget his life. 34 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:32,000 My duty was not to allow it to have been in vain, 35 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:34,000 and my lesson was to learn 36 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:37,000 that, yes, history tried to crush us, 37 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:39,000 but we endured. 38 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:41,000 The next piece of the jigsaw 39 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:43,000 is of a boat in the early dawn 40 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,000 slipping silently out to sea. 41 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:48,000 My mother, Mai, was 18 42 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:50,000 when her father died -- 43 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:52,000 already in an arranged marriage, 44 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:55,000 already with two small girls. 45 00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:58,000 For her, life had distilled itself into one task: 46 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,000 the escape of her family 47 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,000 and a new life in Australia. 48 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:05,000 It was inconceivable to her 49 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:07,000 that she would not succeed. 50 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:10,000 So after a four-year saga that defies fiction, 51 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:12,000 a boat slipped out to sea 52 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:15,000 disguised as a fishing vessel. 53 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:18,000 All the adults knew the risks. 54 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:20,000 The greatest fear was of pirates, 55 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:22,000 rape and death. 56 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:24,000 Like most adults on the boat, 57 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:28,000 my mother carried a small bottle of poison. 58 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:31,000 If we were captured, first my sister and I, 59 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:35,000 then she and my grandmother would drink. 60 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:37,000 My first memories are from the boat -- 61 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:39,000 the steady beat of the engine, 62 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,000 the bow dipping into each wave, 63 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:45,000 the vast and empty horizon. 64 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:48,000 I don't remember the pirates who came many times, 65 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:50,000 but were bluffed by the bravado 66 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:52,000 of the men on our boat, 67 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:54,000 or the engine dying 68 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:57,000 and failing to start for six hours. 69 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,000 But I do remember the lights on the oil rig 70 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:01,000 off the Malaysian coast 71 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:04,000 and the young man who collapsed and died, 72 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:07,000 the journey's end too much for him, 73 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:09,000 and the first apple I tasted, 74 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:12,000 given to me by the men on the rig. 75 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:15,000 No apple has ever tasted the same. 76 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:19,000 After three months in a refugee camp, 77 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:21,000 we landed in Melbourne. 78 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:23,000 And the next piece of the jigsaw 79 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,000 is about four women across three generations 80 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:29,000 shaping a new life together. 81 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:31,000 We settled in Footscray, 82 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:33,000 a working-class suburb 83 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:36,000 whose demographic is layers of immigrants. 84 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:38,000 Unlike the settled middle-class suburbs, 85 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:40,000 whose existence I was oblivious of, 86 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:43,000 there was no sense of entitlement in Footscray. 87 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,000 The smells from shop doors were from the rest of the world. 88 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:48,000 And the snippets of halting English 89 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:50,000 were exchanged between people 90 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:52,000 who had one thing in common, 91 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:55,000 they were starting again. 92 00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:57,000 My mother worked on farms, 93 00:03:57,000 --> 00:03:59,000 then on a car assembly line, 94 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:01,000 working six days, double shifts. 95 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:04,000 Somehow she found time to study English 96 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:06,000 and gain IT qualifications. 97 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:08,000 We were poor. 98 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:10,000 All the dollars were allocated 99 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:12,000 and extra tuition in English and mathematics 100 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:14,000 was budgeted for 101 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:17,000 regardless of what missed out, 102 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:19,000 which was usually new clothes; 103 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:21,000 they were always secondhand. 104 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:24,000 Two pairs of stockings for school, 105 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:26,000 each to hide the holes in the other. 106 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:28,000 A school uniform down to the ankles, 107 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:32,000 because it had to last for six years. 108 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:34,000 And there were rare but searing chants 109 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:36,000 of "slit-eye" 110 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:38,000 and the occasional graffiti: 111 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:40,000 "Asian, go home." 112 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:42,000 Go home to where? 113 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:45,000 Something stiffened inside me. 114 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:47,000 There was a gathering of resolve 115 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:51,000 and a quiet voice saying, "I will bypass you." 116 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:53,000 My mother, my sister and I 117 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:56,000 slept in the same bed. 118 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:58,000 My mother was exhausted each night, 119 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:00,000 but we told one another about our day 120 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:02,000 and listened to the movements 121 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:04,000 of my grandmother around the house. 122 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:06,000 My mother suffered from nightmares 123 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:09,000 all about the boat. 124 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:12,000 And my job was to stay awake until her nightmares came 125 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:15,000 so I could wake her. 126 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:17,000 She opened a computer store 127 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:19,000 then studied to be a beautician 128 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:21,000 and opened another business. 129 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:23,000 And the women came with their stories 130 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:25,000 about men who could not make the transition, 131 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:27,000 angry and inflexible, 132 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,000 and troubled children caught between two worlds. 133 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:33,000 Grants and sponsors were sought. 134 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:35,000 Centers were established. 135 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:37,000 I lived in parallel worlds. 136 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:41,000 In one, I was the classic Asian student, 137 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:44,000 relentless in the demands that I made on myself. 138 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:47,000 In the other, I was enmeshed in lives that were precarious, 139 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:49,000 tragically scarred by violence, 140 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:52,000 drug abuse and isolation. 141 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:54,000 But so many over the years were helped. 142 00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:57,000 And for that work, when I was a final year law student, 143 00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:00,000 I was chosen as the young Australian of the year. 144 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:02,000 And I was catapulted 145 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:04,000 from one piece of the jigsaw to another, 146 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:06,000 and their edges didn't fit. 147 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:08,000 Tan Le, anonymous Footscray resident, 148 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:12,000 was now Tan Le, refugee and social activist, 149 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:15,000 invited to speak in venues she had never heard of 150 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:17,000 and into homes whose existence 151 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:19,000 she could never have imagined. 152 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:21,000 I didn't know the protocols. 153 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,000 I didn't know how to use the cutlery. 154 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:27,000 I didn't know how to talk about wine. 155 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:31,000 I didn't know how to talk about anything. 156 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:34,000 I wanted to retreat to the routines and comfort 157 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:37,000 of life in an unsung suburb -- 158 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:40,000 a grandmother, a mother and two daughters 159 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:43,000 ending each day as they had for almost 20 years, 160 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:45,000 telling one another the story of their day 161 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:47,000 and falling asleep, 162 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:51,000 the three of us still in the same bed. 163 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:55,000 I told my mother I couldn't do it. 164 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:58,000 She reminded me that I was now the same age she had been 165 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,000 when we boarded the boat. 166 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:04,000 No had never been an option. 167 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:06,000 "Just do it," she said, 168 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:09,000 "and don't be what you're not." 169 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:12,000 So I spoke out on youth unemployment and education 170 00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:15,000 and the neglect of the marginalized and the disenfranchised. 171 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:17,000 And the more candidly I spoke, 172 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:20,000 the more I was asked to speak. 173 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:23,000 I met people from all walks of life, 174 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:25,000 so many of them doing the thing they loved, 175 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:28,000 living on the frontiers of possibility. 176 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:31,000 And even though I finished my degree, 177 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:34,000 I realized I could not settle into a career in law. 178 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:37,000 There had to be another piece of the jigsaw. 179 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:40,000 And I realized at the same time 180 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:42,000 that it is okay to be an outsider, 181 00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:44,000 a recent arrival, 182 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:46,000 new on the scene -- 183 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,000 and not just okay, 184 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:50,000 but something to be thankful for, 185 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:53,000 perhaps a gift from the boat. 186 00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:55,000 Because being an insider 187 00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:57,000 can so easily mean collapsing the horizons, 188 00:07:57,000 --> 00:07:59,000 can so easily mean 189 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:02,000 accepting the presumptions of your province. 190 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:05,000 I have stepped outside my comfort zone enough now 191 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:07,000 to know that, yes, the world does fall apart, 192 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:10,000 but not in the way that you fear. 193 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:12,000 Possibilities that would not have been allowed 194 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:14,000 were outrageously encouraged. 195 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:16,000 There was an energy there, 196 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:18,000 an implacable optimism, 197 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:21,000 a strange mixture of humility and daring. 198 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:23,000 So I followed my hunches. 199 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:26,000 I gathered around me a small team of people 200 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:28,000 for whom the label "It can't be done" 201 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:31,000 was an irresistible challenge. 202 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:33,000 For a year we were penniless. 203 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:35,000 At the end of each day, I made a huge pot of soup 204 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:37,000 which we all shared. 205 00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:40,000 We worked well into each night. 206 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:42,000 Most of our ideas were crazy, 207 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:44,000 but a few were brilliant, 208 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:47,000 and we broke through. 209 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:49,000 I made the decision to move to the U.S. 210 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:51,000 after only one trip. 211 00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:53,000 My hunches again. 212 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:55,000 Three months later I had relocated, 213 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:58,000 and the adventure has continued. 214 00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:00,000 Before I close though, 215 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:03,000 let me tell you about my grandmother. 216 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:05,000 She grew up at a time 217 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:07,000 when Confucianism was the social norm 218 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:10,000 and the local Mandarin was the person who mattered. 219 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:13,000 Life hadn't changed for centuries. 220 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:17,000 Her father died soon after she was born. 221 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:20,000 Her mother raised her alone. 222 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:23,000 At 17 she became the second wife 223 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:26,000 of a Mandarin whose mother beat her. 224 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:28,000 With no support from her husband, 225 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:31,000 she caused a sensation by taking him to court 226 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:33,000 and prosecuting her own case, 227 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:36,000 and a far greater sensation when she won. 228 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:38,000 (Laughter) 229 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:42,000 (Applause) 230 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:46,000 "It can't be done" was shown to be wrong. 231 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:51,000 I was taking a shower in a hotel room in Sydney 232 00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:53,000 the moment she died 233 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:56,000 600 miles away in Melbourne. 234 00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:58,000 I looked through the shower screen 235 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:01,000 and saw her standing on the other side. 236 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:03,000 I knew she had come to say goodbye. 237 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:06,000 My mother phoned minutes later. 238 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:08,000 A few days later, 239 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:10,000 we went to a Buddhist temple in Footscray 240 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:12,000 and sat around her casket. 241 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:14,000 We told her stories 242 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:17,000 and assured her that we were still with her. 243 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:20,000 At midnight the monk came 244 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:23,000 and told us he had to close the casket. 245 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:26,000 My mother asked us to feel her hand. 246 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:28,000 She asked the monk, 247 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:30,000 "Why is it that her hand is so warm 248 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:33,000 and the rest of her is so cold?" 249 00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:37,000 "Because you have been holding it since this morning," he said. 250 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:40,000 "You have not let it go." 251 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:44,000 If there is a sinew in our family, 252 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:46,000 it runs through the women. 253 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:49,000 Given who we were and how life had shaped us, 254 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:51,000 we can now see 255 00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:53,000 that the men who might have come into our lives 256 00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:55,000 would have thwarted us. 257 00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:58,000 Defeat would have come too easily. 258 00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:00,000 Now I would like to have my own children, 259 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:03,000 and I wonder about the boat. 260 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:06,000 Who could ever wish it on their own? 261 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:08,000 Yet I am afraid of privilege, 262 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:10,000 of ease, 263 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:12,000 of entitlement. 264 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:14,000 Can I give them a bow in their lives, 265 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,000 dipping bravely into each wave, 266 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:20,000 the unperturbed and steady beat of the engine, 267 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:22,000 the vast horizon 268 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:24,000 that guarantees nothing? 269 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,000 I don't know. 270 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:28,000 But if I could give it 271 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:30,000 and still see them safely through, 272 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:33,000 I would. 273 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:45,000 (Applause) 274 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:48,000 Trevor Neilson: And also, Tan's mother is here today 275 00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:51,000 in the fourth or fifth row. 276 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:55,000 (Applause)