♪ ♪ ANDY VARGAS: I'm in a long distance relationship, I just graduated from college, I'm sharing a room with my 14-year-old brother back at home.

I can't run for office, that's crazy.

KATIE LIESENER: I feel his fingers by my neck and it's starting to sink in that this man is not going to leave me alone.

YVETTE MODESTIN: I hear something in her voice that doesn't feel like home.

I'm speaking to you in Spanish and you're speaking to me in English.

Why?

THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "Stand Up."

ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you.

Thank you.

OKOKON: As a result of living life, we will all eventually be presented with the opportunity to stand up.

Sometimes standing up means you're going to actually stand up and take a stand.

Sometimes it means taking a seat, sometimes it means taking a knee.

It's that moment where that tiny little voice in your head is telling you that maybe it would be safer if you just stayed quiet.

But you are telling yourself that this is not an opportunity where that kind of silence is an option.

♪ VARGAS: My name is Andy Vargas, and I'm serving in my first term as state representative for the city of Haverhill, Massachusetts.

I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and when I was six years old, my parents decided that we had to move up north because we just couldn't afford to live there anymore.

And I remember crying, all the way up I-93 and 495 because, to a kid who's, you know, been in the city for so long, I felt like I was living in the country, now.

I made it my goal to work hard through Haverhill public schools and come back to the city.

And the irony is is that I went to BU, so I was in the city, but then after I graduated, I went straight back home to Haverhill, my hometown.

OKOKON: That's great.

So how would you say that storytelling is playing a role in your life, now, as a politician?

You can connect with people in a different way when you tell a story.

If you can tell them a story that they can identify with, that constituents can see themselves in, that is compelling, and that is moving.

♪ It's the holiday season.

I'm 15 years old, and the Vargas family is at it again, debating at the dinner table.

With the aroma of pernil, rice, beans and chicken in the air, and merengue, Juan Luis Guerra playing in the background, they debate about the economy, gay marriage, foreign policy, especially in Latin America.

My mother has a special trait during these parties.

She always butts in and says, "Yeah, that's an important issue, but what are you going to do about it?

"Did you vote?

All right, then don't complain."

On and on they go, rarely conceding points, until one of my aunts butts in and says, "Ya basta, it's time to eat."

And we were going to do that as one family.

Growing up in that environment meant that I would go on to study political science at Boston University.

And it's my senior year at BU.

My girlfriend at the time, Rikelma, is studying at American University, and she comes up and takes a ten-hour bus ride to Boston to keep the fire burning in our long-distance relationship.

And we're at the library, and we're feeling sort of hopeful, because I'm applying for a bunch of internships in D.C. so that we can be together next semester.

But this one internship, I'm like, no, this is a waste of time.

I tell her, "Riki, how am I going to compete "with the Harvard students, the Yale students, the 4.0s, "to apply for this White House internship?

This is just a waste of time."

She just looks at me, rolls her eyes, reads my application.

And she says, "Andy, this is so basic.

"Everybody's going to talk about their internships "and professional experiences.

"What about that baseball league that you started "for inner-city youth in the city of Haverhill "that couldn't afford to pay for the formal leagues in Haverhill?"

I'd never really thought about including that.

And she was right, but the only problem was it was 11:48 p.m., and it was due at midnight.

(laughter) So I rush and I make my edits, and I submit it, and I'll never forget-- at 11:59 with 57 seconds to go.

Months later, I'm walking into the White House for the first time, in awe, with my jaw open.

Before I know it, there's two weeks left in the internship, I'm about to graduate, and I have no idea where I'm going next.

So I rush home after my internship, and I open up my laptop and I got 27 tabs open.

I got to find something.

I grow frustrated, I close my laptop, I go to bed, I just don't want to deal with it anymore.

I wake up the next day feeling anxious.

I head to the White House to find out that, finally, this is the day that President Obama is going to come talk to his interns.

In comes the president to the East Wing with his swagger, and I'm so excited, and I'm trying to play it cool.

(laughter) And at the end of the speech, one of my peers asks the president the existential question we were all wondering: What's the key to living a fulfilling life?

So he pauses, he leans in and he says, (imitating Obama): "You know, look, uh... (audience laughing) let me be clear."

(laughter) He says, the key to living a fulfilling life is don't think about who you want to be, think about what you want to do.

Because, ever since we were this tall, we were asked, "Do you want to be a lawyer?

Do you want to be a doctor?

Do you want to be a CEO?"

Those are all titles, right?

When, in reality, it should be about are you the CEO that pays a living wage?

Are you the doctor that cures cancer?

Are you the attorney that fights for working people?

Those are things you do with those positions.

And that resonated with me.

I went home and I took a break from the job search and the grad school search and just scrolled down Facebook, like us millennials do sometimes.

And I find out that in the city of Haverhill, teachers are organizing because they're some of the lowest paid in the entire state of Massachusetts.

I keep going and I see that a friend has lost a loved one due to the opioid crisis back home in Haverhill.

And they're raising awareness to the fact that we're sixth in the commonwealth in overdose death rates.

Those were things that I cared about, things I wanted to do and address.

So I grew okay with the fact that I didn't know what I was going to do two weeks from now.

I graduated from BU, I went back home to Haverhill, and I jump in my busted Honda Civic and I drive around town.

And I realize that not much has changed.

And I think about what my mother said at the dinner table during those debates-- sure, it's great to talk about the issues, but what are you going to do?

And I think about the wise words that President Obama shared with his interns.

And I think about the fact that it was a tough time growing up in Haverhill, that I was the only Latino in my AP and honors classes.

And I started doing some more digging, and I realized that despite having 20% of the population being Latino, and 33% of our students being Latino, we didn't have one Latino elected official in any elected office in the city of Haverhill.

School committee, city council, mayor, dog catcher, you name it.

But I'm 21 years old, I can't run for office, that's crazy.

I'm in a long distance relationship, I just graduated from college, I'm sharing a room with my 14-year-old brother back at home.

(laughter) And all I have is a few internships under my belt.

Nonetheless, two weeks later, I show up to city hall with the Dominican parade.

(laughter) I swear, we had like a guira y tambora and everything.

(laughter and applause) And I pull papers to run for city council.

Going around town, we'd hear the, "It's so nice to see young people running for office, "you won't get in this time, but the second or third time, you keep going," you know.

(laughter) And I respond with patience and a smile, that I'm here to fight for the city of Haverhill, for all of us.

And we realize that we don't have all the money in the world to run this campaign.

We actually had very little money.

And we ran it out of a glorious campaign headquarters called "my mother's dining room."

We didn't have money for signs, for ads, for mailers-- this stuff is expensive, man.

And so, my aunts and uncles, conservatives and liberals, come together, and we build our own signs.

My aunt creates a stencil, my uncle, who's more conservative than her, brings the spray paint, and we create our own signs in my backyard.

So all around Haverhill, you see these handmade signs of this random Andy Vargas kid that no one has ever heard of before.

There's nine city councilors, they're all at-large.

18 candidates in the race.

Eight of them are incumbents.

And five additional more were previously on the council trying to get back on.

So, plenty of name recognition to go around, except for myself.

And I'm praying to God, "God, I just want to come "in ninth or eighth, because it's an all at-large council, "I can come in ninth, I don't care, or eighth, as long as it's top nine."

On election night, we gather at the Vargas campaign headquarters, which has now spilled out of the dining room... (laughter) Into the living room, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, and... And we're waiting for the results.

And my campaign manager, Dan, is at city hall, and I wait at home with my family.

Dan calls my aunt, who, of course, is yelling and says, "Quiet, quiet, everyone, "shut up, shut up, shut up.

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Why won't you tell me?"

He wanted to speak to me first.

He handed me the phone, I didn't know what the results would be.

So I ran upstairs to that bedroom I was sharing with my brother.

And I'm ready for the call, and my dad's leaning in.

And Dan says, "You ready, man?"

And I said, "Yeah, just give it to me.

Eighth or ninth, I'm hoping for it."

He said, "You came in third."

(cheers and applause) And he says, "Congratulations, Councilor Vargas, "you're first Latino elected official in Haverhill history, and hopefully many more to come."

So we walk downstairs, we tell that family that always used to gather around the dinner table to debate, that we did it.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ OKOKON: I understand that you've been telling stories for about ten years.

What is it that got you hooked on it?

I think for me, because I used to be a journalist.

I was used to putting all this effort into stories that I would write down and then send out into the world, and then I never had any idea if they made any sort of impact or anything.

It just kind of went out into the ether.

Right.

But with storytelling, when I'm standing there, live in front of people, I can get immediate feedback.

It's just like a direct circuit of, you know, I can see people reacting in real time to the things that I'm saying.

And with the ten years of experience that you have in storytelling, what do you find is most challenging in it now for you?

So I spent a very long time trying to get "good" at storytelling, (Theresa laughing) which basically just involved going to a lot of storytelling shows, figuring out which stories I enjoyed and why, which ones I didn't and why.

But now, at this point, I'm trying to figure out how I can experiment with that more and do something different.

♪ I am from the American Midwest.

This means that I am painfully nonconfrontational.

If my friends ask where I want to go out to eat, my deep, cultural, auto-instinct is, "Wherever you want."

I don't why, it's just engrained.

Well, my background came into play a few years ago, when I decided that I was going to travel alone in Vietnam.

And I had no qualms about it, because, one, Vietnam is a far safer place than the U.S.-- sorry.

And, two, I'd read that Vietnamese culture is exceedingly polite, so I was like, "Yes!

I'm with my people."

(laughter) Well, about a week into my trip in Vietnam, I'm at the Dong Hoi station boarding a train, and it's just a metal boxcar, wooden benches.

The windows are the colors of, like, old scotch tape with chicken wire over them.

And my fellow passengers have brought everything but the chickens.

Like, heavy sacks of rice, these huge Styrofoam packing containers, all these tantalizing clues to lives that I can't know the first thing about because I don't speak the language.

I find my seat on a bench beside this tiny old man sitting by the window.

I smile, he smiles.

And we're off.

(imitates locomotive) I take out my notebook to do some writing, and before long, I notice, down the aisle, that there is a man in a bowl haircut, mustache, and shark tooth necklace.

He is staggering from, like, bench to bench, pointing at people, demanding their attention in this voice that sou... it just sounds like he eats cigarettes for breakfast.

And everyone's kind of smiling as he's slurring his words and his steps.

This guy is a stock character worldwide: drunk man on public transit.

Perhaps you've met him.

(laughter) But, you know, I know what to do.

If you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone.

Well, Shark Tooth gets to my bench, and he does an exaggerated double-take.

I am the only Westerner on the train.

He leans over and... (aggressively): says something in my face!

I give a perfunctory nod and return to my writing.

But my notebook jostles away from my pen, and to my shock, he's shaking it.

I pull it back I just flash a warning with my face, and look straight ahead.

But I can feel his presence next to me in the aisle.

Then I feel his fingers in my hair, by my neck.

"Stop."

He laughs and laughs.

I'm looking around the train, it's packed.

There's nowhere else I can go, and it's starting to sink in that this man is not going to leave me alone.

I can't even tell him to stop in a language that he knows, and anyone who could is studiously looking out their respective windows.

Shark Tooth nudges the person across from me to get him to scoot down, which the man does.

Now Shark Tooth is sitting directly across from me, saying things at me.

I don't respond.

The men around us laugh nervously.

Shark Tooth shouts louder!

I look down into my lap.

When I do, into my field of view comes his finger, picking at a Band-Aid on my knee.

Before I can react, there was this flurry of footsteps up the aisle, and out of nowhere, now here is standing a chubby teenage boy.

The boy gets Shark Tooth to scoot over, and now the boy is sitting across from me.

"Hello, I speak English, I talk to you?"

I've never seen this kid before in my life, but I'm like, "Hello!

"Yes!

"Yes, thank you.

"Will you stay with me?"

He's like, "Oh, yes, I am so sorry for this man, his mind is not good."

I'm like, "I agree."

And the boy tells me his name is Huang.

I say my name's Katie.

We shake hands.

And right away, he's like, "Oh, I am so sorry, "my hands are wet.

"I am nervous, my English is not so good."

I'm like, "No, no, no, Huang, you're my hero!"

Huang doesn't look so sure.

Meanwhile, Shark Tooth keeps smacking Huang, trying to get him to translate something so crude that poor Huang just crinkles up his nose like, (forced chuckling): "Oh, you are so silly."

So to shake the man, Huang and I act super engrossed in our conversation, which is tough, because I don't speak Vietnamese, and Huang has limited English.

But Huang and I just sweat it out like we are in the three-hour version of The $10,000 Pyramid show.

Me guessing what he's saying, him guessing what I'm saying, but through the process, I learn that Huang is 18.

This is his first time on a train.

His first time away from home.

He's moving to Saigon to look for a job.

And to audition for Vietnam Idol.

(laughter) I went, "What?

You sing?"

And he's like, "Oh, yes."

And to help fill the time, because Shark Tooth has wandered off, but he keeps circling back, Huang starts to sing.

I don't know what I expected, but it's not what comes out of his mouth-- this gorgeous falsetto in a minor key.

He's singing a traditional Vietnamese song called "Beo Dat May Troi."

When he does, the little old man next to me comes to life.

He's like, enrapt, mouthing along the words, and then the old man reaches into his bag, pulls out a bamboo flute.

The man is playing, Huang is singing, and my vocal cords are in a twist, because I came so close to crying a moment ago.

In just mere hours, my most distressing day in Vietnam turned into my most beautiful, because of Huang.

Now, if this had been an American action movie, maybe Huang the hero would have come in and been like, "Leave that woman alone!"

and maybe punched out the bad guy.

And in a world full of bullies, sometimes I wish I were more like that kind of person, but, really, all it takes to make a difference is being the one person unwilling to look away.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ MODESTIN: I am born and raised in the Republic of Panama, of Caribbean grandparents from Martinique, Jamaica, and Barbados.

I come from folks that told wonderful stories that allowed me to learn about myself through those stories, but also learn about my people and my community.

So, Yvette, I understand that you have spoken with quite a list of impressive people, including presidents, and members of the UN.

- Yes.

And I was told that you are feeling nervous (laughing) about telling a story tonight.

What is it that's making you nervous about this particular venture tonight?

Talking about identity formation, what it means to be an African Latina, what it means to be from the African diaspora, of being from Panama, comes with a lot of feelings, and comes with a lot of pain it has not been an easy journey.

And I realize, in preparing for this, that the pain was still very much there.

"I'm not African "because I was born in Africa.

I'm African because Africa was born in me."

That quote by Kwame Nkrumah is a guiding force for many of us who look beyond borders.

That quote became a guiding force for me to be able to say, "I'm your brother, I'm your sister."

I come from the Gold Coast, the smell of coconut in the air.

Black women walking, sashaying... (snapping fingers) With some spirit.

I come from sweetness, from love, from black men with colognes that smelled like a basket of roses.

I come from the Africa in Central America.

I come from Colón, República de Panamá.

And then I got on the plane to come as a college student, here in Boston, and I thought I was ahead of the game, because I grew up in the American section in Panama, where I knew segregation and black and whiteness.

But I wasn't ready for what I was about to face.

I quickly became invisible, from a child who was very visible.

That cold in Boston, you know, the cold that we've been having recently?

That you don't want to eat all the good healthy stuff, you want to eat comfort food.

You know, you want to eat the bad stuff.

In my freshman year, I was like, I need some habichuelas and some yucca and some platanos.

So I went to my RA, and she says, "Oh, you have to go to Jamaica Plain."

So I get on the bus, 30 minutes from campus, and I'm all excited, I'm like, I need to smell home, I need to see home, I need to hear home.

And I see the tienda, but there's so many in Jamaica Plain.

So I choose one and I walk in, and I say to the... (speaking Spanish) "I'm fine."

Tiene yucca y platano y arroz y habichuelas?

"You have yucca, you have plantains, you have beans?"

"Aisle one and aisle four."

I gather up my stuff and I get to the counter, and I say to her, (speaking Spanish) "I'm so happy to find this store."

"Oh, I'm happy you found this store."

I pause, because I hear something in her voice that doesn't feel like home.

I say to her, "I'm speaking to you in Spanish, "and you're speaking to me in English.

Why?"

Yo no se.

"I don't know."

And I say-- (speaking Spanish) And she says, "I thought you were one of them.

"You're not black.

"I thought you were one of them."

"One of who?"

"One of them."

And that statement became the changing statement of my life.

I got on the bus back to campus, and I began to question everything I was told.

I began to question my pride in my blackness, my pride in being Panamanian, my pride in my Caribbean-ness.

I realized that my Latino classmates did not speak to me in Spanish, and I never knew that until this tienda incident.

And that my African American classmates treated me as a different kind of black.

I would hear, "Yvette, you're a different kind of black."

I became "the black tennis player," not just the tennis player.

I became the black tennis player.

I fell into this deep depression, and a deep sadness that I never experienced as a child.

But then, these moments that became daily moments, weekly moments, became-- felt like someone was pounding on me.

They were violent to me.

The racism, the rejection, the denial felt violent to me.

My body felt it.

I had an eating disorder in the midst of all of this.

And then I decided to search.

I went on a search.

I was doing my schoolwork, and I would stay up and read the autobiography of Malcolm X. I would do my other schoolwork, and I read the autobiography of Assata Shakur.

I started to go to every conference, every place that I could be at so I could say, "I'm black and I'm proud, and I'm Panamanian."

(speaking Spanish) Because I wanted folks to understand that we were all connected.

I chose not to be that black Latina that said, (speaking Spanish) I am black, and I am Panamanian.

And I founded the organization Encuentro Diaspora Afro, because I wanted folks to have a place to come and be themselves, be in their full self.

I found Loretta, who gave me books.

I found Tony and Askia and Jemedari, who took me along with them everywhere they went.

And I finally found Ifa, and my Ori, my spiritual head, open the road to many good things, and I stand here tonight with you, proud to be black, proud to be African, proud to be Panamanian, in my birth-given light.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪ ♪