Tan Le- My immigration story eng.srt

From TED Translators Wiki
Revision as of 11:09, 2 March 2012 by Aoky (talk | contribs) (Created page with "<pre> 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...")
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to: navigation, search
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)