[MUSIC]
It was an average day for me and
my mom, I was 11 years old, and
we were at Costco, I was probably
scoping out some free samples when
she got the call from a 212 number.
It was a nice admission's lady from
the prestigious Spence School,
an all girls private school on
the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
We have a spot off the waitlist for
your daughter to join our incoming
sixth grade class.
Thank you very much, but
we cannot afford that,
it was my mom's response.
[LAUGH] We have a substantial
financial aid package for
your daughter.
These ten words changed my life
forever.
I grew up in the South Bronx,
in a neighborhood where over 90% of
the residents are either black
and/or Latino, and about 25% of
families live in poverty,
double the national average.
Studies conducted by a nonprofit
organization called Opportunity
Insights at Harvard University,
have found that rates of upward
mobility vary substantially based
on the neighborhood in which
you grew up.
To put it plainly,
people like me from places like
the Bronx are far less likely to
achieve intergenerational upward
mobility.
But every year that a child spends
in a high mobility environment
increases their earnings and
adulthood.
So although I didn't know it at
the time, gaining access to
the Spence School was like being
hand plucked from my neighborhood,
from my community and
placed on a brand-new trajectory,
one that would propel me to new
heights but would require some
sacrifices along the way.
The journey from there actually
sounds pretty linear.
At Spence, the expectation amongst
my classmates was no longer to just
go to college, it was to,
of course, go to the Ivy League.
When eventually I started at
the University of Pennsylvania, I
internalized this expectation that
I couldn't get any regular job.
I had to make the big bucks
in consulting, or finance, or
technology.
When eventually,
I started my career at Google,
my family was beyond proud.
I came out here to the bay and
I made more money than any of them
ever had.
So naturally, they thought it
was a little off when I decided to
quit, join a startup, and
go back to school.
Which brings me here to the GSB
where we literally talk about
changing the world.
Not bad for a Dominican and
Puerto Rican girl from the boogie
down Bronx, am I right?
>> [APPLAUSE] >> So, then why
do I sometimes feel so shitty?
The truth is, somewhere along this
journey, I internalized this notion
that upward mobility was the goal.
No matter what, against all odds.
And to be honest, it has been hard.
I've had experiences that have
challenged my sense of self,
my sense of home,
my sense of belonging.
And those challenges cannot simply
be offset by any number of gains in
prestige, or status, or wealth.
To give you an example of the first
one, challenges to my sense of
self, let's take it back to Spence.
On my first day of orientation,
it didn't take me long to figure
out that I was a little different.
I was the only non-white Latina in
my class of about 60 Girls,
only a handful of us
commuted from outside of Manhattan.
And upon returning home from
orientation, I naively asked, Mom,
what's the Hampton?
>> [LAUGH] >> I went from being
just one of many black and
brown kids in my public elementary
school to being the only.
And at such a young age, being
the only felt inherently wrong.
There was a right way to do this
whole private school thing, and it
was not to look or to act like me.
Naturally, I did
what I could to blend in.
I chemically and permanently
straightened my beautiful curls so
that I could tone it down.
[LAUGH] And
I toned down my Bronx accent,
also known as code switching.
I mean, because y'all Imagine if
I pulled up to that fancy school on
some of yeah,
y'all are dead as buggin bro like,
>> [LAUGH] >> Absolutely not,
that wasn't going to work.
[LAUGH] It felt like every single
day I was checking parts of my
identity at the door, the most
fundamental parts of who I am.
And I know what some of you
are thinking,
middle school is challenging for
everyone, it's really awkward.
And to that, I say I agree.
In addition to this existential
crisis that I experienced related
to my status and my race,
I also had braces and glasses
in middle school, so I get it.
While yes, school can be a time for
self discovery for all, for
so many underrepresented minorities
at elite,
predominantly white institutions,
yes, like the GSB.
We are implicitly and explicitly
told that our fundamental way of
being, our sense of self,
behavior, appearance is wrong,
inadequate, or inferior.
And that set challenge to our sense
of self can take years to recover.
Now, for my next point,
[LAUGH] how many of you grew up in
the Bay Area?
Okay, most of you did not, great,
because I'm talking to you anyway.
[LAUGH] It seems like a lot of you
somewhere along your journey had to
leave home like me.
It seemed like the more I achieved
in life, the further away from home
I really had to go, not just
physically but metaphorically.
As I continued to gain access to
such elite institutions that
were so different from
my neighborhood back home,
I honestly started to feel
disconnected from what home was.
Some of you might relate to this
feeling, whether you came here from
Lebanon, from Peru, from Nigeria.
How does it feel to return home to
a place that you once knew so well
and suddenly feel like an outsider?
How do we stay grounded and
connected to our communities,
to our home?
Now this challenge to my sense of
home is ever evolving, and for now,
I try to bring small pieces of
home with me in whatever space I
enter which brings me here to
the GSB once again.
I stand before you as a second year
student at Stanford GSB,
one of the best and most exclusive
business schools in the world.
I've been navigating predominantly
white institutions as a young woman
of color for almost two decades and
now I can hang.
I mean, I've got the Google logo,
the startup, and the VC experience.
[LAUGH] And I can speak the lingo
without skipping a beat.
Private equity this, golfing,
skiing that.
>> [LAUGH] >> Just kidding y'all,
I really still don't know how
to golf or how to ski, but
that's all right, [LAUGH] we're
making it happen, all right?
Against all odds, I made it,
I can finally say that I belong at
places like the GSP.
And yet, even here at places like
the GSB, there have been
experiences that have challenged
that sense of belonging.
Take last quarter, for example.
I was at a school sponsored
retreat, and
one of my facilitators walked right
by me at breakfast while I was
grabbing an extra yogurt at
the buffet, not once, but twice.
Which was odd because she was
usually very warm and welcoming,
and we knew each other very well.
Finally, she turned to me and said,
hi, can I get a spoon?
Now this was not the first
time that I was mistaken as kitchen
staff in my life, but
still I was shocked, I was frozen.
When she realized the mistake
that she made, she said, I'm so
sorry, Amanda,
I thought you were in uniform.
I looked down at my clothes and
I was wearing the same comfy
clothes that everyone else in my
class was wearing.
What was the implication of this
incident, of this microaggression?
You look more like a member of
the kitchen staff than like
a student at the GSB.
And you know what?
It's actually true.
A McKinsey report on the economic
state of Latinos in the United
States in 2022 found that Latinos
are indeed overrepresented in low
wage jobs and underrepresented in
corporate America.
In fact,
just 1% of Fortune 500 board seats
are held by Latina woman, 1%.
The least of any ethnic or
demographic group in
the United States.
We talk a lot about imposter
syndrome here at the GSB,
I'm sure everyone in this room has
felt it at one point in another.
But what if that impostor syndrome
was validated all the time by
innocent yet frequent
microaggressions, by statistics, or
by simply looking around and
recognizing that success does not
quite look like you?
Now we all know inequalities exist,
we talk about systemic inequity,
the importance of DEI.
But for me, and for so many people
like me, we live it every single
day, and we seldom talk about these
challenges that we experience while
we're moving up the ladder.
So to my allies in the room,
my ask of you is not unlike things
that I've heard, that you've
probably heard, many times before.
Go to the training, be curious,
be inclusive.
And that's great.
I love you all, I really do.
But to be honest,
this talk is not for you.
For my fellow others in the room,
we have come such a long way.
I know how exhausting it can be to
feel like the only, to be the other
to deal with these challenges to
your sense of self, your sense of
home, your sense of belonging.
But man, this distance that we've
traveled, it's taught us about
what's even possible.
It's given us the sense of grit and
resilience that is truly unmatched,
and it gives us a deep sense of
purpose.
And this purpose is what I choose
to lean into.
When I leave the GSB, I'll work for
teams and organizations where I can
step into my power as the other,
the only, and continue to bring
others up as I climb.
If my grandparents can come from
their small Caribbean Islands to
achieve their version of economic
mobility, then this, I got this.
I will continue to rise up so
long as I stay grounded in who I am
and where I come from,
and I hope you can too.
Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
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