WEBVTT - Goddess of Compassion 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:07.360 Family Secrets as a production of I Heart Radio. By 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:10.600 the time I was ten, street name signs had disintegrated 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.080 into a blurry haze of green and white unless I 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:17.200 was almost directly under them. I couldn't read colored words 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:19.600 against the background unless there was enough of a contrast, 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:21.800 and I couldn't read the aisle signs in the supermarket 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.200 unless I squinted. Faces started to look the same to me, 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.920 their features indistinguishable. I became anxious over my inability to 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.479 recognize people as they approached, but I learned to use 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.319 the idiosyncrasies of their gait and the particular way their 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:39.360 bodies occupied space to identify them. And when that failed, 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:41.680 I learned to look down at my feet while I 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:47.640 walked to avoid accidental eye contact with anyone I couldn't recognize. Eventually, 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:50.239 as my sight worsened and my squinting powers failed me, 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.560 I developed a new technique. I would push the bottom 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.160 lid of my eye inward and upward to narrow my 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.040 field of vision until my eyes were almost closed, but 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:03.320 not quite. This technique was more effective than the regular squint, 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:05.880 and for a time it worked. It was almost like 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.960 a super squint. Walking alongside my mother and father. One 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.800 day in a right aid pharmacy, I decided to try 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.039 out my new technique in order to read the signs 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:18.600 hanging above the aisles. My father had walked ahead of us. 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:21.080 I held on to my mother with my left hand 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:23.319 and pushed in the bottom lids of my eyes with 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:27.319 my right, using my thumb and index finger. Suddenly, my 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.160 mother's face was close to mine, her eyes wide as 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.959 she bent down towards me. Gale, what are you doing, 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:38.600 she whispered, harshly, Oh this, I said, nothing, just trying 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.679 to read the signs. Don't let your father see you, 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.120 she said. She pulled my hand down and forced it 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:47.480 against my side. Stop pretending you can't see, or you 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:49.840 really will be blind. You know how your father feels 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:55.000 about that. She glanced nervously towards my father. I'm not pretending, mom, 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.800 I really can't. What is it? My father had started 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.480 to walk back toward us. Nothing, my mother said, quickly, 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.000 straining up. There was something in her eye and we 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:05.560 were trying to get it out. It's out now, though 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:11.720 she squeezed my hand, almost crushing it. That's Lee Tran, 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:16.400 reading from her debut memoir House of Sticks. Le's is 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.880 a story of loyalty, family, tenacity, and a secret she 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.480 kept for a long time, so long it very nearly 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:40.560 destroyed her. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.240 the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:46.880 keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:55.359 What was the landscape of your childhood before you were 0:02:55.400 --> 0:03:03.520 three years old? And then after I was born in 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:10.000 a small town in southern Vietnam. In nine my family 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.680 and I were able to immigrate to the United States 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:18.079 through a program known as the Humanitarian Operation, which helped 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.960 resettle former prisoners of war here in the States. And 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:25.720 my father was a former pow. He's spent almost ten 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.400 years in the re education camps of Vietnam. And you know, 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.800 that was our lucky ticket out. And so we we 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:38.840 came to Ridgewood, Queens in the middle of a blizzard, 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.040 no less, so it was neat, let's just say, very 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:46.480 cold for us of Vietnmee people. And you know it 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.600 was it was really difficult to navigate this foreign country. 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:52.640 None of us spoke the language. I know. I was 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.720 only three and I had three older brothers at the time, 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.520 the oldest of which was just nine years old, and 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.480 so finding a way to make ends meet it was 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:08.960 really difficult. But a family friend introduced us to this 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:14.200 sort of home sweatshop labor and so that's what we did. 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:19.680 And it required us to borrow a sewing machine from 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.599 the company and then we would sort of work to 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.719 pay it off over the years. There will be a 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:30.280 weekly quota and you know, maybe one thousand ties or 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.719 two thousand commer buns, and we had to deliver it 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:38.120 every week. So that was my first job as a toddler, 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.000 which was to to help my family make these ties 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.960 and commer buns. And I separated the materials, gave them 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:49.080 to my father who would then sow the ties, and 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.400 then my brothers and I would take it out from 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.160 underneath the sewing machine and turn it inside out and 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:58.400 it was just this little family assembly line. Yeah. We 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:02.200 we did that all the way up until I was twelve. 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:10.839 Describe your mother for me, Well, my mother, she's a 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.480 very fiercely independent woman, um, and she was sort of 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.279 the main reason that we were able to keep it 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.000 together as a family. My father was incredible as well. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.520 You know, he tried really hard to just get us 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.719 through the system. We would spend a lot of days 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:35.000 at the International Rescue Committee, and he would take down notes, 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.080 you know, exactly where he needed to take us to 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.160 get vaccinations, for instance, to get to go to the 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:46.719 food stamp office, and to get my brothers enrolled in school. 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:52.520 Whereas my mother, you know, she was more responsible for 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:58.320 just calculating how much money we would need to put 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.720 food on the table while also keeping us warm. And 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:07.719 she was also part of the reason my father wasn't 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.039 so abusive all the time. You know, she would find 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.200 ways to calm him down whenever she saw his temper 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.800 get out of hand because of the PTSD that he 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:23.320 suffered from. So during that time, she would always ask 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:27.560 us to learn Vietnamese. She would sit us down, tell us, okay, 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:32.440 notebooks out, we're gonna learn Vietnamese, gonna speak only Vietnamese 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:34.559 in the house. Because I don't want you to forget 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:36.839 your roots. I don't want you to forget where you 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:42.000 came from. So I was really diligent. I love language, 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.120 and I think she's the reason I love language. Whereas 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.480 you know, acentimes my brothers would get to go out 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:50.960 and play in the park and say, oh yeah, we'll 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:55.119 learn later. Mom, and she would say, okay, Lee, you stay, 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:57.520 and I would ask, well, why why did they get 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.560 to go off and play? But now I don't regret 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.200 that I stayed because I can speak, read, and write 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.400 in Vietnamese. And it was during that time that I 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.120 heard a lot of stories from her. She told me 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.920 all of these stories about herself in Vietnam, about the 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.440 time that she ran away from a matchmaker because she 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:22.280 did not want to get married um, and about how 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.200 she took on her family's business in Vietnam and was 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:28.560 a merchant and she would ride her motorcycle to all 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.480 these different shops and deliver goods and everyone loved her. 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:35.040 And it was just a really great time for me 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.840 to spend with my mother. But at the same time, 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:42.640 she was also really strict in terms of teaching me 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:45.440 how to be a good at housewife, which was so 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:50.520 sort of antithetical to who she is on the inside. 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.760 But I think after marrying my father and seeing how 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.680 difficult it was to be a wife, and especially in 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:01.240 my father's household where yes five of older sisters who 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.320 were very abusive towards my mother because they felt like 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.640 she wasn't a good enough housewife, she didn't know how 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.360 to cook when she first married into the family, and 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.160 so they would keep her up at night. They would 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:18.120 throw hot water on her just to sort of show her, Okay, 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:22.880 you are now our servant, basically, and she didn't want 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.200 that sort of fate for me, so she said, Okay, 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:27.640 you need to learn how to cook, you need to 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.360 learn how to sweep, how to full clothing properly, and 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.599 you know, you need to learn all of these things 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.280 so that you can have a better future and not 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:42.280 like the future that I had. Buddhism is central to 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.800 the Tran household. One of the first things Lee's father 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.080 does when they settle into their new home and queens 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:50.880 is to build an altar high up on their living 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.920 room wall, one which will eventually cover the entire wall 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.679 from end to end, to honor the Buddha and the bodhisattvas. 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.319 There's a framed picture of the Great Shaki Yamuni Buddha, 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.600 the awakened One, as well as a picture of kwan 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:11.360 Ambo Tat, the Goddess of Compassion. Call out her name 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.360 three times when you need help, Lee's father tells her 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.640 she has a thousand arms. Her arms will reach you, 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:25.160 So I was struck with the significance of the altar 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:30.720 in your family's home, and the deities and the saints 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.040 and the role that they play in daily life, and 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:38.960 in the idea of protection and the idea of fulfillment 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:46.160 of hopes and desires, and how deeply that was internalized 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.640 in you as a child. Sure, yeah, I think it's 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:55.040 different for my father versus it's meaning for my mother. 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.720 But I know for my father when he was in 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.520 the re education camps or even just before that, serving 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.480 as a soldier in the war, and not knowing, you know, 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:06.920 if he was going to live one day or die 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.880 the next, having a faith to hold on too, and 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:15.880 just believing that there is someone, some Buddhisatta or Buddha 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.120 out there watching over him, which was so powerful. And 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.640 at some point in the re education camp he sees 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.200 that one of his fellow prisoners had had caught a 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:30.520 turtle in his trap, and coming from a Buddhist background, 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.040 he felt sorry for the turtle and couldn't bear to 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.800 see his his fellow prisoner kill it. And he said 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:39.760 he asked if he could trade scallions for the turtle, 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.000 and the prisoner said, short, you know, I don't know 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.920 what to do with this thing anyway, And my father 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.680 put a splint on the turtle's broken leg and set 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.720 it free. And this was a story that he would 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.320 tell us when we were younger. Say, when I released 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.800 this turtle, it took a few steps and turned around 0:10:57.880 --> 0:10:59.880 to look at me, and then it nodded at me 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.360 three times, and three days later I was released from prison. 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.640 And just this story is something that has stuck with 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:12.080 me throughout my entire life. And it's such a a 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:16.360 symbol of the faith that my father had in Buddhism 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:20.080 and these spirits that protected him because he thought this 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.920 turtle was some sort of incarnation of the Goddess of 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:28.680 compassion and the turtle was sent to save him. You know, 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.040 in those conditions, I wouldn't blame a person to hold 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.640 on to something like that. And for my mother, you know, 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.600 when we were in Vietnam, actually all of us, at 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:42.280 one point or another, we would get severely ill, especially 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.840 coming from such a rural place in Vietnam where there 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:50.280 were shamans and witch doctors and not really medicine that 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:54.720 was too modern at the time, and so she would 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.559 often pray. But the power of prayer also gave her 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.040 the strength to take her children from place to place 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:06.080 and and just pray that, you know, some miracle would arrive. 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.679 And oftentimes a miracle did somehow arrive, and we all 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:18.800 endured through our illnesses and survived. Lee's father was one 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.439 of almost two and a half million South Vietnamese soldiers 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.560 who were captured and then forced into backbreaking and often 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:30.840 dangerous labor sweeping mine fields, digging wells and trains, cutting 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:35.240 down trees. He served a ten year sentence. He rarely 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.120 spoke of his time in the camps, with the exception 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:43.120 of the story of the turtle. Could you talk a 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:47.000 little bit more about your father's both his temper and 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:51.680 his strictness. It was difficult for me. I remember one 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:55.920 time I was going home from somewhere and I was 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:58.960 walking with my father, and he went into the store 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:01.360 and bought me a possible which was such a surprise 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:04.520 for me because at the time we were so poor 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.559 that asking for treats, asking for snacks, which most of 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:10.480 the time just out of the question, and the fact 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:11.800 that he just went to the store and bought me 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.040 a popsicle, I was so so happy and excited. No 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:18.040 skipping um and I looked up at my father. I 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.240 remember a moment of such deep love for this man 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.000 who gave me this popsicle, and he remember him looking 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.160 at me and considering me, and then just out of nowhere, 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:32.079 smacking me. He says, don't look at me like that. 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.600 And I was so shocked. I didn't I didn't know 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:37.880 what had happened. My possicle fell out of my hand. 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:42.320 And that moment was not a rare one. And it 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:44.480 wasn't just me, you know, my my three older brothers, 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:49.080 we also sort of suffered through these tempests of my father's. Yeah, 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:51.600 it was really it was tough. It was tough to 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.959 to navigate such a difficult relationship while at the same 0:13:56.000 --> 0:14:01.520 time loving him and fear him. You know that it 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:08.160 was difficult to reconcile those two emotions. And there it 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:12.160 seems like there was also an understanding that he had 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:17.320 really been through something and that the ten years that 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:21.440 he spent as a pow were at the root cause 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:26.040 of his rage and his tyrannical behavior, That there was 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:31.640 a reason for this that was embedded into the family 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:36.320 culture as well. Yeah, I think this is something that 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.280 would be uncovered as time went on, you know, because 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.840 when I was a child, I didn't. I sort of 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:47.280 just accepted it. I accepted his outbursts. But as I 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.120 grew older, I began to question it. And I remember 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:53.000 an episode in which he was yelling at my mother, 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:55.800 and I thought, why, why is he doing that? At 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.800 the time, I was split between my loyalty towards my father, 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.560 my life. He towards my mother, and that's when I 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.400 started to think, that's not okay. You know, he can't 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:11.239 treat my mother that way. And out of that questioning, 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.000 I started to think about his past, which he he 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.760 doesn't really talk about much, you know, I would only 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.480 see it through snippets of conversation, or once in a while, 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:22.320 when he was in the mood, he would just offer 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.520 up like a glimpse of what his past was like. 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.160 Or other times, whenever he would beat us, my mother 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.800 would say, you know, stop that crying, don't be mad. 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.760 One day, you'll understand. Sometimes she would explain a little bit, 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:41.000 but nothing too in depth, perhaps because she didn't think 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.560 that we would be able to understand at such young ages. 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:47.800 But definitely when I got older, I wasn't quite able 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:52.320 to forgive him yet, but understanding where he was coming 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.600 from that he was this prisoner of war and that 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:00.200 re education camps really dealt a blow to his is 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:06.040 psyche and just traumatized him in such a horrendous way 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.400 that you know, he's still to this day has nightmares 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.560 about it. And those nightmares were a part of your 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:17.080 childhood hearing him, you know, having nightmares, right, yes, absolutely, 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:18.960 I would, you know, wake up in the middle of 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.280 the night, you know, this man is this screaming and 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.040 my mother is struggling to hold him down and to 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:26.440 wake him up. Sometimes you would walk in his sleep 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:28.720 and run from one corner of the house to the other, 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.760 telling her we have to go. You have to grab 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.000 the children there after us, and she's saying, what hoo 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:38.080 are you talking about? Calmed down? You know, and so yeah, 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:40.880 she she really had to be strong for us as 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.360 well in terms of getting him to calm down while 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.600 trying to shield us from what he was going through. 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:50.680 And that was that was hard. You know, as children, 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:52.280 we didn't we didn't let on that we knew what 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.720 was going on, probably because we were really just afraid 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.640 to see our father like this. But we knew that 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:07.679 come morning time everything would be okay again. We'll be 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:24.160 right back when we starts school. She has very little 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.680 grasp of the English language, unlike her brothers, who went 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.880 straight into the school system when they emigrated. She's been 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.320 home with her mother for a couple of years, speaking 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:40.280 Vietnamese and listening to her mother's stories. So Lee is 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.840 placed at first in English as a second language. She's 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.320 socially awkward, kind of doesn't know how to be. She 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.440 hasn't learned any social cues, so she's a bit of 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:55.560 a loner and academically challenged. But it isn't until the 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.160 third grade that a teacher notices that Lee is having 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.600 trouble seeing blackboard, and she sends Lee home with a 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:07.560 note to her parents letting them know that Lee needs eyeglasses. Yeah, 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:11.119 in the third grade, you know, they had like kids 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.160 line up to take the Snell and I chart, which 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:15.720 you know everyone knows is the one with the big 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.440 E on it. And I got a letter then to 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:23.240 him that said, hey, your daughter has a stigmatism and 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:28.400 she might need glasses. And my father just completely freaked out. 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:31.480 I had no idea what was happening. He took the note, 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.000 ripped it up, and told me never to speak of 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.760 it again. And he was cursing at me, and I 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:42.080 didn't want to do the wrong thing. To me. It 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.199 was a homework assignment that I had to do, you know. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:46.240 So I was like, oh, my goodness, but I need 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:48.240 to sign. I don't know what to do. So I 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.119 tried again to ask him, and he smacked me, and 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.199 I was just so furious. He told me that the 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.639 government was after me and how could I be so 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.280 stupid as to give in to the government wanting to 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.760 take away my eye sight? Because he thought that eyeglasses 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:06.920 were a government conspiracy and if I ever wore glasses, 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.959 my sight would worsen, and it was just deployed by 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.719 the government to get me to be dependent on eyeglasses. Um, 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:17.320 so the more my eyes I would worsen, I would 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:19.800 have to buy more glasses. And he explained the whole 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.119 thing and so and that was the end of the discussion, 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.080 and I thought, Okay, I guess he has a point. 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:31.040 You know. I mean, I was eight, So you proceed 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:35.960 through elementary school and middle school and you need glasses 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:38.760 and you don't have them, And what's that like, Like, 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:42.040 what was your experience actually of the world around you 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:44.840 that you could see or that you couldn't see. What 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.000 was it actually like sort of being you during those years. 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.720 It's so funny because I don't even remember the moment 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.920 in which I realized that I needed glasses. It was 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.920 such a gradual process. Even during the snow and chart 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.520 I thought, Oh, I can't see those letters, but they're 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:04.960 so far away. Why would I need to see those letters? 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.840 You know? I just remember, Yeah, around the fifth grade 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.720 is when I'm walking in the street and I realized 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.920 I can't even see the street signs anymore. And it 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:20.719 felt like just my perception of the world was just 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.280 getting narrower and narrower, and it felt like I was 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:28.159 looking at the world to this foggy window. But no 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.240 matter how much I tried to rub this window, it 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:36.959 just wouldn't unfuged. And so it was hard. But I 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:41.360 think my father was very successful in sort of convincing 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:45.800 me that, no, this is how everybody's eyes work, and 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.919 you know, you're it'll be fine. You also had an 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.760 older brother who had eyesight that wasn't excellent, and it 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:57.760 had managed to excel academically even with his poor eyesight, 0:20:57.800 --> 0:20:59.800 and even with no glasses, so you should be able 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:02.440 to do the same thing, right exactly. Yeah, my brother 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:04.960 Long I think he also had the same note sent 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:07.520 home in the third grade. I don't know if he 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.199 went through the same exact experience in terms of my 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:12.720 father ripping up his note, but I don't even know 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.560 if he even gave the note to my father. But 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.600 he was able to do well in school because his 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:22.400 prescription just wasn't as high as mine, and so even 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:23.960 if he sat at the back of the class whom 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:27.000 he was still able to see the board, whereas my 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.840 vision just deteriorated as the years went on, and the 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.360 more that I wasn't able to see, the more headaches 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:38.520 I got and the more stressed I became. And so 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:43.000 for my father it was so clear it was just, well, 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.719 you're a girl. That's why you're not doing well in school. 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.439 That it was as easy as that. For him, it 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:53.880 was just a simple matter of gender differences in terms 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:57.159 of intelligence. He felt like, well, boys are just smarter 0:21:57.240 --> 0:21:59.360 than girls, and then that's why my brother was able 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.160 to do well. And he said, you know, it's okay, 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:04.880 you don't have to do well if you you don't 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:07.399 get it. I mean, he just chalked it up to 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.560 a lack of intelligence as opposed to just seeing that 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:17.840 his daughter needed glasses dearly. When Lee's in the eighth grade, 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.480 she takes the standardized test that will determine where she'll 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:24.320 go to high school. The best public high school in 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:26.520 New York City is the Bronx High School of Science. 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:29.560 This is one of those tests where you fill in 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:33.840 little bubbles, but Lee runs out of time. Her inability 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.360 to see has greatly affected her ability to master advanced math, 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:42.040 so she quickly and randomly fills in the remaining bubbles 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:45.280 just to be clear. This is a test that many 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:50.000 more privileged students spend years preparing for with hired tutors 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:55.919 and special courses, but perhaps the Goddess of Compassion is 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:59.000 looking out for her. Lee is admitted to Bronx Science. 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:02.800 At this point, her parents sweatshop labor has come to 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.600 an end, and Lee's mother takes a course to learn 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:08.920 how to be a manicurist. She teaches Lee as well, 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:13.480 the two of them practicing on orange peels and fake nails. 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:16.320 Her mom works at a series of nail salons until 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:19.439 she ends up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, at a salon she 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:24.080 eventually buys. Lee's parents dream of being business owners in 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:29.480 America comes true. So now Lee's in ninth grade, attending 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:32.840 Bronx Science and working part time in her parents salon, 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:37.359 where she often witnesses clients being rude berating her mother 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:41.720 for her limited English. Lee swallows her anger and keeps 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:44.760 her head down. At school, she keeps her head down 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:48.199 for a different reason. She doesn't want anyone to notice 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:53.240 how much she's struggling. It's a lot to endure. So 0:23:53.320 --> 0:23:57.439 now you're at Bronx High School Science, and you know, 0:23:57.640 --> 0:23:59.600 one of the things that strikes me in your story, Lee, 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:05.520 is the the appearance from time to time, at really 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:11.280 important times of angels, you know, of of just people 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:14.440 who I mean, it's the thing I found most moving 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:18.200 really about your story is that there were these people, 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:24.399 these adults who responded to you, who saw something in you, 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:29.240 who went above and beyond, and there was this kind 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:35.520 of ongoing compassionate intervention even as there was so much 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:38.880 else that was so incredibly difficult. And one of the 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:42.680 first of those was this very kind professor when you're 0:24:42.680 --> 0:24:46.560 in ninth grade who offers to get you a pair 0:24:46.560 --> 0:24:51.479 of glasses. Yeah. Yeah, this is in the ninth grade, 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:54.840 and I hadn't had the courage to really tell anybody 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:58.879 yet that I was really suffering and couldn't see. I 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:00.840 just kept asking to choose if I could sit in 0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:04.080 the front of the classroom. I did tell him that 0:25:04.119 --> 0:25:06.639 I couldn't see, but that I was waiting for medicaid. 0:25:06.840 --> 0:25:08.920