[MUSIC]
Three years ago, I was sitting at what I thought to be the perfect job,
I was making six figures working for a tech company that provided free meals,
unlimited vacation time off and yes, it did have a nap room.
I thought I had reached the apex of the American dream.
The American dream that my parents immigrated from China and
Vietnam to this country for.
And hopes that their child would have a chance at a better life than they did.
But it didn't feel that way, I read and watch the news every day.
Over 38 million Americans are food insecure,
children are being forcibly separated from their families at the border.
Texas school shooting, Florida school shooting, voting rights under attack.
Again, my friends and I would turn to each other in frustration, anger and sadness.
Did you see this, did you hear this often I cried.
Here I was living this picture perfect life, but I knew back home in
Philadelphia and across the country, people were struggling just to survive.
In the neighborhood my parents first immigrated to,
there are still people who can't afford to keep a roof over their heads.
Still people can't afford to put food on the table,
still children are getting asthma from poor air quality just like I did.
Still in this country we call great, people are suffering and
dying from rooted injustices.
The American Dream rang hollow.
So, I quit my tech job,
talking about these problems wasn't going to make them go away.
It wasn't enough to be frustrated, angry or disappointed.
Everything I had, that my parents immigrated to this country for
that little, if there are people still struggling like we once did.
I decided to return home to Philadelphia to do the job I had done many years ago as
a student, community organizing.
To me the most urgent problem our country face was that our democracy was in crisis.
So I joined a national organization working to get out the vote.
In that job I took a 60% pay cut and
had never been pushed to work harder in my life.
We were expected to work on holidays and to quote sleep when we are dead.
It was a far cry from the comfortable Silicon Valley life I was living just
a few months ago.
In that job, I met and rediscovered community
organizers who had been doing this work for decades in Philadelphia.
I first met Tina Marie, two years ago working to get out the vote in Philly.
The work we did was grueling, but it was made even more difficult, by the pandemic.
Not everyone, could vote in person, not everyone had Internet access, and
the people with power and resources didn't seem to care.
Many times I wanted to bang my head against the wall in frustration,
but Tina Marie never gave up?
She showed up to meetings, she even used her personal savings to pay for
her neighbor's internet costs.
Tina Marie is over 60 now, but she has the energy of a teenager.
For over four decades she has been serving her community, she spends her Wednesdays
attending zoning board meetings, which can go on for six hours.
She holds countless meetings for her neighbors to hold developers accountable,
demanding that they invest in home ownership, not just profit off of rent.
Tina Marie does this work around the clock,
she works every day into the evenings and on the weekends to serve her community.
And she does this work for free, yes, you heard that correctly.
Tina Marie doesn't have a job that pays her,
serving her community is a full time role.
Why does she do it, you may ask?
Because she says, if she doesn't do it, no one else will.
Her neighborhood, like many marginalized neighborhoods across
the country have faced the same problems for decades.
Lack of quality housing Education, jobs, imagine living paycheck to paycheck,
sending your kids to schools with asbestos and
being surrounded by vacant lots overfilled with trash.
That's a reality that many Americans in this country still have to face today.
And so you have people like Tina Marie, and 10s of 1000s of others,
fighting for their communities around the clock without pay and with little rests,
despite all they have endured, they're still giving back.
They won't wait why, because they're fighting for something deeper than money,
prestige or power, they're fighting for their home.
When his neighbors didn't know how to vote during the pandemic,
Maurice co-founded the Philly Voter Engagement Network.
He built a team of hundreds of people working to spread the vote about mail and
ballot options and polling place changes.
When not enough was done to educate students about voting Tom co founded pa
youth vote.
He built a coalition of teachers in more than 40 schools to become voter
champions and empower their students to take civic action.
When nothing was done about gun violence in her neighborhood,
Kendra started stand up nice town.
She brought a new resource to our community every week to change
the conversation, like job readiness training and counseling services.
When an outside entity tried to take over her neighborhood public school,
tend to galvanize parents to vote for it to be kept in the public's control.
And it is through community organizing, that she won her seat and
city council I'm still fighting for justice for her home.
Community Organizing is treated as volunteer work, but it shouldn't be.
It's why we have a five day work week, it's why we have paid time off,
it's why everyone in this room has the right to vote.
As we stand here today, because community organizers fought for us.
When this country was founded, there was no concept of overtime pay or
minimum wage child labor was not uncommon.
For people unionized and fought, organizing major strikes to demand better.
Their actions built the momentum for the Fair Labor Standards Act,
banning oppressive child labor and instituting the workweek we have today.
It's time we stop taking community organizing for granted and pay it forward.
I believe in people power I believe that we need more grassroots leaders,
who are from the communities they serve.
People like Tina Marie, Tom, Kendra, and Maurice,
people who won't give up because this is their home.
Community Organizing is often treated as volunteer work, like I said, but
it shouldn't be.
We should really focus on centering these people in the movement for justice.
It's easy to become complacent, to feel like everything is perfect, to do nothing.
But I'm asking you for just a few minutes to think about where you sit
in this world even right now here at Stanford in this very room today.
Take a look around we are sitting in an institution with a $37 billion endowment.
Stanford's highest paid employee makes over $8 million
hugging the western edge of campus is sand hill road,
the epicenter of venture capital and the most expensive street in all of America.
At the same time on El Camino rial, which hugs the north eastern edge of campus,
dozens of Arby's are parked filled with people just trying to get by.
Abigail couldn't afford the $600 increase from her landlord in rent,
so she and her family of 10 moved into an RV.
Tamika and Ivan moved into an RV when the city started cracking down
on people living in cars.
Despite both being employed, they couldn't afford the rent.
What may look perfect from your vantage point,
looks like how to someone who doesn't have that privilege.
We were all raised to believe in the American dream,
but what does the American dream mean?
If we can't all have it what does it mean when the barriers are so
high only a few can access it and what does it mean when
we continue to always leave the same people behind.
Community organizers are fighting for affordable housing, generational
wealth and voting rights because they know that not everyone has access to it.
Living means being a part of the world you live in,
it means taking care of each other, it means standing up for
each other, especially when no one else will.
That is what the American dream should look like.
And so I'm asking you today to care to make it better to advocate for
invested and center the voices of community organizers,
like Tina Marie, Tom, Maurice and Kendra.
It's not about any one of us it's about all of us,
it's about what makes us human.
Caring for each other so let's get to work together.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> [MUSIC]