I'm five years old, and I am very proud. My father has just built the best outhouse in our little village in Ukraine. Inside, it's a smelly, gaping hole in the ground, but outside, it's pearly white formica and it literally gleams in the sun. This makes me feel so proud, so important, that I appoint myself the leader of my little group of friends and I devise missions for us. So we prowl from house to house looking for flies captured in spider webs and we set them free. Four years earlier, when I was one, after the Chernobyl accident, the rain came down black, and my sister's hair fell out in clumps, and I spent nine months in the hospital. There were no visitors allowed, so my mother bribed a hospital worker. She acquired a nurse's uniform, and she snuck in every night to sit by my side. Five years later, an unexpected silver lining. Thanks to Chernobyl, we get asylum in the U.S. I am six years old, and I don't cry when we leave home and we come to America, because I expect it to be a place filled with rare and wonderful things like bananas and chocolate and Bazooka bubble gum, Bazooka bubble gum with the little cartoon wrappers inside, Bazooka that we'd get once a year in Ukraine and we'd have to chew one piece for an entire week. So the first day we get to New York, my grandmother and I find a penny in the floor of the homeless shelter that my family's staying in. Only, we don't know that it's a homeless shelter. We think that it's a hotel, a hotel with lots of rats. So we find this penny kind of fossilized in the floor, and we think that a very wealthy man must have left it there because regular people don't just lose money. And I hold this penny in the palm of my hand, and it's sticky and rusty, but it feels like I'm holding a fortune. I decide that I'm going to get my very own piece of Bazooka bubble gum. And in that moment, I feel like a millionaire. About a year later, I get to feel that way again when we find a bag full of stuffed animals in the trash, and suddenly I have more toys than I've ever had in my whole life. And again, I get that feeling when we get a knock on the door of our apartment in Brooklyn, and my sister and I find a deliveryman with a box of pizza that we didn't order. So we take the pizza, our very first pizza, and we devour slice after slice as the deliveryman stands there and stares at us from the doorway. And he tells us to pay, but we don't speak English. My mother comes out, and he asks her for money, but she doesn't have enough. She walks 50 blocks to and from work every day just to avoid spending money on bus fare. Then our neighbor pops her head in, and she turns red with rage when she realizes that those immigrants from downstairs have somehow gotten their hands on her pizza. Everyone's upset. But the pizza is delicious. It doesn't hit me until years later just how little we had. On our 10 year anniversary of being in the U.S., we decided to celebrate by reserving a room at the hotel that we first stayed in when we got to the U.S. The man at the front desk laughs, and he says, "You can't reserve a room here. This is a homeless shelter." And we were shocked. My husband Brian was also homeless as a kid. His family lost everything, and at age 11, he had to live in motels with his dad, motels that would round up all of their food and keep it hostage until they were able to pay the bill. And one time, when he finally got his box of Frosted Flakes back, it was crawling with roaches. But he did have one thing. He had this shoebox that he carried with him everywhere containing nine comic books, two G.I. Joes painted to look like Spider-Man and five Gobots. And this was his treasure. This was his own assembly of heroes that kept him from drugs and gangs and from giving up on his dreams. I'm going to tell you about one more formerly homeless member of our family. This is Scarlett. Once upon a time, Scarlet was used as bait in dog fights. She was tied up and thrown into the ring for other dogs to attack so they'd get more aggressive before the fight. And now, these days, she eats organic food and she sleeps on an orthopedic bed with her name on it, but when we pour water for her in her bowl, she still looks up and she wags her tail in gratitude. Sometimes Brian and I walk through the park with Scarlett, and she rolls through the grass, and we just look at her and then we look at each other and we feel gratitude. We forget about all of our new middle-class frustrations and disappointments, and we feel like millionaires. Thank you. (Applause)
Saya berumur 8 tahun dan saya sangat bangga. Ayah saya telah membina rumah luar terbaik di kampung kami di Ukraine. Di dalam, tanah berbau dan lubang merekah, tapi di luar, ia berfomika putih dan ia berkilat di bawah sinaran matahari. Ini membuat saya berasa sangat bangga dan penting sehingga saya melantik diri sendiri sebagai ketua dalam kalangan kawan-kawan saya dan saya memikirkan misi-misi untuk kami. Kami merayau-rayau dari rumah ke rumah mencari lalat yang tertangkap di sarang labah-labah dan kami membebaskannya. 4 tahun lalu, semasa saya berusia 1 tahun, setelah kejadian Chernobly, air hujan berwarna hitam, setelah kejadian Chernobly, air hujan berwarna hitam, rambut adik saya gugur secara bergumpal, saya berada di hospital selama 9 bulan. Tiada pelawat dibenarkan, jadi mak saya merasuah seorang pekerja hospital. Dia dapat uniform jururawat, dia menyelinap masuk setiap malam dan duduk di sisi saya. 5 tahun kemudian, sesuatu yang tidak terjangka berlaku. Sebab kejadian Chernobyl, kami diberikan perlindungan di A.S. Saya berumur 6 tahun, saya tak menangis semasa kami meninggalkan kampung untuk datang ke Amerika, kerana saya menjangkakannya sebuah tempat yang dipenuhi benda yang jarang ditemui seperti pisang, coklat, dan gam kunyah Bazooka, gam kunyah Bazooka yang ada pembalut kartun di dalam, Bazooka yang kami dapat sekali setahun di Ukraine dan kami mengunyah sekeping selama seminggu. Pada hari pertama kami di New York, nenek saya dan saya terjumpa satu sen di atas lantai di sebuah rumah perlindungan yang keluarga saya diami. Kami tidak tahu ia untuk orang yang tidak berumah. Kami ingat ia sebuah hotel, hotel yang dipenuhi tikus. Satu sen ini seperti telah memfosil di lantai, kami ingat seseorang yang kaya telah meninggalkannya di situ kerana orang biasa tidak akan kehilangan wang begitu saja. Saya meletakkan satu sen ini di tapak tangan saya. Ia melekit dan berkarat, tapi saya berasa sangat kaya. Saya putuskan bahawa saya akan mendapatkan gam kunyah Bazooka untuk diri sendiri. Pada saat itu, saya berasa seperti seorang jutawan. Kira-kira setahun kemudian, saya mempunyai perasaan yang sama apabila kami terjumpa sebuah beg yang dipenuhi patung haiwan di dalam tong sampah. Tiba-tiba, saya mempunyai mainan yang paling banyak sepanjang hidup saya. Saya mempunyai perasaan yang sama lagi apabila pintu rumah kami di Brooklyn diketuk, adik saya dan saya nampak seorang penghantar bersama sekotak piza yang kami tidak pesan. Kami menerima piza itu, piza kami yang pertama. Kami membaham kepingan piza sementara penghantar itu berdiri dan merenung kami di muka pintu. Dia meminta bayaran, tapi kami tidak pandai berbahasa Inggeris. Mak saya keluar, penghantar itu meminta bayaran daripadanya, tapi mak saya tidak mempunyai wang yang cukup. Setiap hari, dia pergi dan balik ke tempat kerja melalui 50 blok bangunan hanya untuk menjimatkan tambang bas. Kemudian, jiran kami datang. Dia marah apabila dia sedar bahawa pendatang di tingkat bawah telah menerima pizanya. Semua orang marah. Tapi, piza itu sedap. Selepas beberapa tahun barulah saya sedar bahawa kami sangat miskin. Pada ulang tahun ke-10 kami di A.S., kami mahu meraikannya dengan menempah sebuah bilik di hotel yang kami diami semasa kami baru tiba di A.S. Lelaki di meja depan ketawa, katanya, "Ini tempat perlindungan untuk orang yang tidak berumah." Kami terkejut. Suami saya, Brian, juga tidak berumah semasa dia masih kecil. Keluarganya kehilangan semuanya. Pada usia 11, dia terpaksa tinggal di motel bersama ayahnya, motel yang tidak akan memberikan makanan sehingga mereka mampu membayar bil. Pada suatu hari, apabila dia mendapat Frosted Flakes, ia dikelilingi lipas. Tapi, dia mempunyai sesuatu. Dia mempunyai kotak kasut yang sentiasa dibawanya yang mengandungi 9 buah komik: 2 G.I. Joes yang dilukis seperti Spider Man dan 5 Gobots. Ia bernilai bagi dia. Itu merupakan koleksi hero yang menjauhkannya daripada dadah dan geng dan tidak berputus asa terhadap impian. Saya akan menceritakan seorang lagi ahli keluarga kami yang dahulunya tidak berumah. Ini Scarlet. Dulu, Scarlet digunakan sebagai umpan dalam pertarungan anjing. Scarlet diikat dan dibuang ke tempat pertarungan untuk diserang anjing-anjing lain agar anjing-anjing ini menjadi lebih agresif sebelum pertarungan. Sekarang, Scarlet makan makanan organik dan tidur di katil ortopedik yang tertera namanya. Apabila kami menuang air ke dalam mangkuknya, Scarlet akan melihat ke atas dan menggoyang-goyangkan ekornya sebagai tanda berterima kasih. Kadangkala, Brian dan saya berjalan-jalan di taman bersama Scarlet. Scarlet bergolek-golek di atas rumput dan kami melihatnya. Kemudian, kami saling memandang dan kami berasa bersyukur. Kami melupakan semuanya tentang kekecewaan baru kelas pertengahan dan kehampaan, kami berasa seperti jutawan. Terima kasih. (Tepukan)