[MUSIC]
The rain was pouring hard that day in Brooklyn.
It was my first day at PS 203, teaching extra curricular courses.
200 loud and rambunctious kiddies run into the cafeteria and
I tried to settle them down.
But they were too excited to begin the new year.
But one little girl named Alicia didn't look
excited at all, in fact, she was in tears.
I walked over to Alicia and I asked her what was wrong,
can't you see it, she answered sobbing, it's so obvious.
It wasn't obvious to me, so I asked her again.
My hair, Ms. Oladoyin, it's my hair.
This morning it was nice and straight when my mom fixed it, and
as soon as I got outside in that rain, poof, my afro came right back.
And now all the boys are making fun of me for it.
I told Alicia her hair was beautiful, but it didn't work.
He dismissed me with a yeah, whatever.
It's your job to say that.
I write multicultural children's books.
And when I first decided to write these books, I did it for girls like Alicia.
I wanted them to have books I didn't have, growing up.
Books that highlight girls who look like her, and
have hair like hers, because representation matters.
But in the process of creating these books, I learned something profound.
It is a beautiful thing when we can see ourselves in
the stories of people like us.
But it is a powerful thing when we can see ourselves in
the stories of people unlike us.
Now I know many of us in this room would probably consider ourselves just
a little bit older than my target readership.
>> [LAUGH] >> But I've learned by that by exploring
diverse narratives such as the ones I write about, we get that powerful thing.
The unique ability to unravel the similarities that can bridge all
of our differences.
It all started in the exploratory phase of my creative writing process.
I did extensive research on all the cultures I wanted to write about.
I watched very long educational documentaries.
I read very dense informative texts on the tenets of culturally
relevant pedagogy, but it wasn't enough.
Something was missing.
Writing for children is a funny experience, you see.
I went to PS 203 so I could learn how they learn.
I wanted to observe how they would engage with this kind of content.
I wanted to teach them about people and places so
that they could be curious about our diverse planet.
What I discovered was this.
Although I knew it was very important for
them to grow up understanding these concepts, they didn't know that.
And they didn't have to know that.
Because when you're five, six, seven years old,
all you want when you pick up a book is a real good story.
And that was it.
At the core of my multicultural educational exposure mission,
I needed to harness the power of the story.
So I picked up my research process again.
This time, I interviewed as many people as I could find from those cultures and
those countries.
And I just listened to their stories.
I took note of every little detail they shared,
especially the ones their faces lit up about.
Like when I was creating Chizelle, my girl character from Trinidad and Tobago.
I interviewed a family of Trinidadian immigrants and they told me about the tree
that they had in their backyard when they were growing up in the countryside.
Which is different from the kind of tree that you would see if you
only visit the city with all the rest of the tourists.
And they chuckled about how they would play with their siblings underneath that
tree and shake it til all the coconuts fell down.
A seemingly insignificant detail at first glance, maybe, but it is in those
details that I instantly felt connected to someone I thought was so different.
I may not have grown up in Trinidad, but growing up in a suburban part of Brooklyn,
also with an immigrant family,
I knew all about playing with my siblings underneath big trees.
And it is upon those little details and
those little connections, that I built an entire book.
And for every book I wrote, I listened to dozens more of these stories.
And from India to Colombia, I found myself in each of their narratives.
This enabled my writing to go beyond any fact, or
any figure, that I could find online or in a textbook or
even in my own personal travel experiences to those countries.
Most of all it gave me that skill that can be applied to anyone in this room.
I learned how to relate with people who do not look like me,
to hear them, to understand them, to work with them.
Maybe you're not planning on writing or
reading multi-cultural children's books any time soon.
How can you harness the power of the story to build your own empathy bridge?
You can start by reading a book, any book, fact or
fiction about someone from another part of the world.
Enter their journey as though it were yours.
See just how different or similar the world is from their eyes.
What I love about the power of the story is that it's not just on the pages of
a book, it's everywhere.
We just have to recognize and appreciate when we see it.
So maybe that means you'll finally sit down with that classmate or
that coworker that you pass by everyday.
You exchange a routine hi, how are you doing?
I'm fine.
>> [LAUGH] >> You see them, sure,
but do you know their story?
Or it could be something as simple as watching a film from a foreign
country in another language and see how it resonates with you.
My personal favorite, Korean dramas.
I love Korean dramas. I'm not ashamed.
>> [LAUGH] >> Perhaps none of these concepts
are new to you.
It's no surprise in the polarized world we live in today that there is
indeed an empathy gap across our communities that we need to bridge.
Why aren't we bridging it?
Fear, we are afraid to move away from what is familiar.
Think about the people you surround yourself with all the time.
Do you constantly find yourself in the comfort zone of a homogeneous creed,
class, color, fill in the blank.
These safe spaces are important,
but the problem is it's often where the least growth happens.
But if we can embrace the vulnerability that comes with sharing our stories, and
the courage needed to seek out the stories of others, we can build empathy for
our peers.
We can shatter misconceptions, one by one.
We can better understand each other, better understand how to serve each other.
We can heighten our awareness of those that are right around us that
we ignore every single day.
Halfway through that extra-curricular course at PS 203,
I laid out the final character development of my premier collection of children's
books before my esteemed panel of fourth graders.
One of them being Alicia.
I like her.
Alicia pointed to Akua my Ghanaian girl character.
And she pointed emphatically.
So I was intrigued.
I asked Alisha what she liked most about Akua.
I like her hair, Alicia responded.
It's foxy.
>> [LAUGH] >> I laughed, trying to remind Alicia of
the crying incident that happened just a few weeks earlier.
But Alicia said she had no recollection whatsoever.
>> [LAUGH] >> She had just finished all about
Akua's journey from Cape Coast to Accra and
felt especially connected to the book's references on art and friendship.
But when I asked Alicia why she loved Akua so much, she said something very simple.
It's because I am she and she is me.
I pressed, arguing that she had never even heard of Ghana prior to that day.
>> [LAUGH] >> And many of the cultural references in
that book were brand new to her.
But she insisted, it doesn't matter Ms. Oladoyin.
I am she and she is me.
So whenever I get tempted to revert to what is comfortable,
to those who are familiar, I remember the words of Alicia.
I restate them to myself back to the world, that I am they and they are me.
Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC]