[Music]
so what is it that you want to do when
you grow
up you're probably asking why Brazil and
whyo my husband and I um were offered
and took jobs at the univ Federal oroo
which is in a Charming UNESCO patrimony
City high in the mountains in Minish
ice how that came together is a long and
convoluted story which I'm going to
condense into 10 minutes so bear with me
fasten your seat belts if I could um ask
for some harp music we would probably do
that now because this Story begins long
ago in a time that we now refer to as BG
you know what that is it's before Google
when people actually went to libraries
to find
information in three or
four-year-old encyclopedias and we were
just fine with that I can tell where the
old people are in the
audience so my then son son's mother and
I who um we were offered jobs at the
American School in Guatemala and so I
went to the library and we found
information about oh useful stuff about
coffee and banana production and the
history of the Mayan people and pictures
of of happy Mayan people at festivals
and jungle covered ruins and a story
about the bustling capital city we were
going to be working in so we took the
job well none of that prepared us for
the civil unrest that we were about to
encounter and I can say that two years
later we had become weirdly accustomed
to things like oh minor earthquakes
volcanic eruptions bouts of Amic denter
I was fabulous when I came home um uh
blackouts and uh shootouts and martial
law interesting enough all of that came
in really handy when years later I
bought a house here in
Sacramento and while I was in Guatemala
I began in a very annoying question I
asked children what is it that you want
to do when you grow up the children
would say say no say and they were
coming from a place of I don't know
because they really didn't have any
dreams at that time and seeing how they
had just survived a major earthquake and
numerous attempts at genocide by the
United States supported military
dictatorship I kind of got to understand
where they were coming from but every
once in a while I came in contact with a
noay that came from
contentment and this contentment was
something that was at still very
meaningful to me because people were
absolutely happy to be doing what they
were their fathers and their
grandfathers were doing for hundreds of
years and like many people in this room
I come from a culture of discontentment
you know what I mean we're programmed to
need and want and no more we're talking
about our technology we got to have it
more and faster and all that stuff and
they're okay that's
amazing so after our time in Guatemala
we went back to graduate school in in uh
New Mexico I continued Master's search
in patsun
Matango um was a consultant for Apple
Mexico in Puebla um we divorced I came
out I got a job here at California state
sa University Sacramento which at that
time was called that not Sacramento
State and I retired after 23 years
looking good
huh so my first trip to um Brazil That's
me losing my marbles so um my first trip
to uh Brazil was about 1992
things I noticed were changing in Latin
America and I'm asking the kids what do
you want to do when you grow up and
suddenly I
heard said I want to be a doctor a
lawyer an architect a math professor
well actually I never heard anybody say
that but and maybe that's why I keep
asking it could happen
right so you can see this this gradual
change going
on so I came back Milton um followed me
back back from Brazil he had a he got a
master's and we started to think well
you know this is so expensive to remain
legal and we don't have any rights here
but Brazil does and so we began to make
plans to move back and while I was in um
I I was a visiting professor in oroo and
while I was there about halfway through
the San Juan Unified School District if
there's anybody here from there thank
you very much um offered to sponsor him
for his his permanent Visa well this
changed everything
this changed
everything this gave us time this gave
us time for him to uh work on his
Doctorate and during this time
California had its brief moment of
Enlightenment and what we found out was
that because of this marriage
certificate I should have brought that
um I could immigrate as his husband to
Brazil something that was impossible for
us here how we found that out um when it
kind came time for us to apply for our
positions
in Brazil you have to take all these
certificates to the consul and they have
to stamp everything and so the lady who
was helping him oh I'm so sorry this one
has to go to the Embassy in Washington
this one you have to send to Houston we
can do this one we can do this she got
to the wedding um license she the she
came back in to the room Daniel this
means that you can you can immigrate to
Brazil and all of us were crying it was
just
astonishing interesting enough when I
came back in 2011 to get my permanent
Visa I should show it to you it's pretty
cool it's a big card like this and um
when I picked up my Visa the whole
counselor staff stood up and
applauded that's never going to happen
that's never going to happen in any
United States consult for any bational
gay and lesbian couple at least for the
time being you know I don't even think
that happens for straight couples
actually at this why we have jobs in in
a program called um long-distance
education and this is really I I won't
say it's the whole reason why millions
are in the street but there's two things
that happened about this thing happening
in the streets um one is when President
Obama came to Brazil he signed an accord
with uh president rosev and they began a
huge exchange of students between the
two countries and this has expanded to
other countries just not the United
States so we have thousands of students
going back and forth and the Brazilians
are coming home and saying we want to do
this how can we don't do that okay and
another one is is this long-distance
education program president Lula um
quadrupled the size of the University
system okay um and Brazil is in this
change it's coming out of this terrible
nightmare that had that included amongst
many things a th%
inflation um and the US supported
military dictatorship with all its
stupidities and inequities and it still
Echoes along there but now
um but now there's University education
is is universal and free if you can get
in you have to pass the exams right um
Universal Health Care it's not so good
that's why they're in the streets um
voting is
obligatory everybody has to vote if you
want to apply for the University you
want to stay in the University you want
to teach in the University if you want
to be an employee a a Public Employee a
public teacher even to get a passport
you have to show that you voted in the
last couple of Elections it's tremendous
I think we should do
this and as part of this free education
we've built well I haven't but now I'm
helping build um we have one of the
largest programs in the country we've
got 30 polos in three states polos are
educational centers where people come um
who do not have access to technology so
there's computer labs there's tutorial
help there's a library built being built
um and um there's video conferencing so
I can talk to the students back and
forth and they can send stuff to me and
complaints right so I'm I'm now that
Professor I had with a heavy
accent it's
me they think our accent s sexy which I
find really
weird cuz I think their accents really
damn hot
so they're just P they're just doing
that for their grade but it
works so we're giving access to higher
education to people that have never ever
had access before and it's just amazing
our polos are like I said we have got
well over 30 of them now they are in
Forma kilos which are
are towns or Villages that were formed
by Escape slaves 100 or so years ago
some are on Indian reservations some are
in just rural towns like Grass Valley or
weed you know um others are in suburbs
of sou Pao or or
Salvador and somewhere in favas so we
have this tremendous diversity in it and
and I I don't have a picture of it but
one of our last um recent graduations
near Sal door I asked uh a 9-year-old
girl daughter of one of my students okay
pretend she looked up at me and put her
finger right at my nose she
says I'm gonna be a
doctor
amazing in my
entire career of teaching for 35 years
I've never had the privilege of seeing
the physical difference in my students
and communities and the Echo and and
their children like this it's really
tremendous this is my bus stop I live
behind that church can you believe
that you know they said why don't you
live in in bellan I would leave
Sacramento and not live here are you
nuts you know um so at a recent another
graduation in a town where we have had
um a huge discovery of gas and oil in
fact a couple of my visits I was asking
my students husbands what about about
the fracking going on because there's
all these people in hazmat suits and
cables being L and boom things go like
this oh this is going to be great for
the water um but they made a huge
discovery of gas and oil and normally
when this happens anywhere in the world
you have this huge tsunami of people
that come to a town or from outside who
don't understand what's going on and the
locals are relegated to menial jobs but
I happen to be walking with the mayor
and the um school superintendent from
the graduation to this restaurant look
at that place look at that place look at
that place if it wasn't for oop and long
distance Ed we wouldn't have the
confidence or the tools your students
are opening that restant your students
open that store and that store that
hotel those apartments are your students
or our
students and so it was then that I
realized that I was um I had I had I had
achieved my dream I now knew what I was
doing when I grew
up and so I leave you with this question
what is it that you're going to do when
you grow up thank you very much