Is there an argument that conservative values can work? Anyone that does not align with its agenda is peripheralized, invisibilized, marginalized. So it's like Biden getting pumped up with vitamins and Adderall and caffeine. What's going on? Some people would say that's naive. What I think is naive is assuming we're going to survive on this planet for another 100 years. It does America need to have some more Asian values? So America needs to be more Buddhist. Is that what you're saying? Well, you know... What's going on, everybody? What you're about to watch is an unedited interview with Mary Ann Williamson. This interview happened the day after Joe Biden clinched the nomination, meaning that Mary Ann cannot win, but she continues her journey. So she has a really cool perspective. I recommend you guys watch the whole thing through. There's some jokes, but also a lot of serious talk. And to answer the question, how come I haven't spoken to any Republican candidates on video? Well, the truth is the Republicans aren't hitting me back. The Dems are down to chat, and it's as simple as that. So anyways, guys, hope you enjoy this. Please hit that like button and let's go. Well, thank you for your time. Thank you for giving me... I know you're a very busy person, and I know that even yesterday, there's a lot of news that we got to talk about and go through, but it's an honor to sit down with you because I always like sitting down with anybody who's very smart, intelligent, and brave, runs for president and wants to make an impact and at the very least get their message out. So I think that's why I'm very glad to sit down with you. Thank you. Glad to be here. Thank you for having me. Oh, yeah. I appreciate your time. I guess immediately, I got a notification last night, 15 hours ago, saying that Biden has clinched the primary. I guess where does that leave you? Is that true and what does that mean for you? The president has clinched the nomination. This was not a primary. The DNC said there would be no primary, that they had already decided it would be the president. So I have lived inside the belly of that beast of the way politics operates for the last year. And I see how the system makes sure that anyone that does not align with its agenda is peripheralized, invisibleized, marginalized, erased, in my case. I think that a primary and a political campaign in general, but particularly a presidential campaign, is the most important platform for a conversation for the American people to have among ourselves. I don't know how this conversation of serious, authentic analysis of what is wrong in this country and what we might do to make it right was suppressed. As long as I have all these ballots, I can still use this as an opportunity to talk about these things. In addition to that, I think that anything less than the conversation I'm having, and the Democrats will not win in 2024. I think that this campaign is much more like 2016 than around 2020, than it is like 2020. I feel that similarly to 2016, the Democratic establishment elite has no clue what's going on in this country. When you have 39% of Americans who are reporting that they're regularly skipping meals in order to pay that rent, or unhappy people who are renting can't afford that rent, when people are living paycheck to paycheck, unable to absorb a thousand dollars unexpected expenditure 70%, that's a majority, and then 70% say that they're living with chronic economic anxiety. This is a country that's about to blow. This is not sustainable. This is going to fall in one direction or the other. It's either going to fall in the direction of greater economic hope and opportunity, justice, economic good and inspiration and motivation for real fundamental change in this country, or it's going to fall in the direction of chaos and authoritarianism. I think everything you said is true. I've been hearing that, that's even the Democrats, which democracy is in the name, is even in a way getting in the way of democracy. I mean, a lot of people blame the Republicans for getting in the way of democracy, but it seems like the Democratic Party, maybe not Democrats, but the Democratic Party kind of got in their own way.  You are not stepping out of the race, you have not suspended, even though you came back, you're on the ballot. Yes, people can go to Marianne2024.com. Please support, please donate so that I can continue to travel. I will be in Chicago this week, Arizona, then Louisiana and New York and Missouri. Yeah, I mean, this week, what the DNC decided this year was that the threat to democracy on the part of Donald Trump is so great, and I don't disagree with them on that, but they feel that they're the genuses who know how to deal with this, and they have decided, in their infinite sense of entitlement, that Joe Biden is the best person to beat Trump. And so they basically suppressed democracy in order to, in their mind, save democracy. This is not the traditional role of the political party. It's the very thing that George Washington and John Adams warned us about. It should be the people deciding how to take on Donald Trump. And I agree. I guess real quick about Biden, and we're going to get into some questions about spirituality.  You wrote a lot of books on that. I want to get into the questions about conspiracy theories, just your opinion on it. But Biden, he gave a... Everybody agrees that he gave a good state of the union, but there's also these conspiracies like, oh, he's on Adderall, so it's like Biden getting pumped up with vitamins and Adderall and caffeine. What's going on? Well, I don't have any inside knowledge, but I have eyes with which to see. I have ears with which to hear. Enough said. All right. Well, we're moving on.  I think that that is... Yeah, that's very noble of you, and I think that goes to show you your heart for the issues and your message. I guess, quick, have you heard of the... I'm sure you're familiar with this term, the fourth turning? Yes. Do you believe America in this Western society that we're in, and it more applies to, I believe, Anglo societies or Western societies? Do you think we're in the fourth turning and it's generally like that's your feeling? Yes. And that's why I think this is such an important moment to grab the wheel of history. So the political... I call it a political media industrial complex because the media is very much a part of it. They like work in partnership. It's very stuck in a 20th century transactional model of politics, which sees that if we allow the real regeneration of human civilization at this time, if we allow for the real regeneration of American politics at this time, their reign is over. All right. And you mentioned industrial complex, that phrase I've heard of the military industrial complex, the food industrial complex. You just mentioned the political industrial complex. These are things that now common regular folks that are not political at all. They didn't take policy side. They're not even into politics. They're not in these secret rooms or anything. People are throwing out these terms. It's kind of like when everybody started trading stocks three years ago and everybody's talking about all these stocks and they don't know what they're talking about. But these industrial complex phrases, how is it true? Are these real things and how as regular Americans are you supposed to have any hope when these industrial complexes exist and feels like there's nothing you can do? Well, you've got to stop farming out your own best critical thinking. You know, when it comes to our personal lives, Americans tend to get very deep and authentic and psychologically perspicacious and we think things through. We don't stand for toxic relationships or abusive relationships and we set boundaries and psychology, all of that. But when it comes to politics, we've been trained to think and act like sixth graders. We've like farmed out our best thinking and so it makes us very easy to play. So we have surrendered, we have acquiesced to this political, like there's some set of geniuses over there, this political class, the ones who are experienced, the ones who are qualified. Look what they've brought us. They've brought us six inches from the cliff in terms of the state of the environment, in terms of the state of our economy, in terms of the state of our democracy, in terms of the state of our bodies, in terms of the state of the world. And these forces, just listen, whether you're talking about slavery, you're talking about institutional suppression of women, talking about the gilded age, talking about segregation, those forces of injustice were repudiated by generations which rose up and said, no, no, no, no, that's undemocratic and that's not what we're doing here. Today, the problem is not one particular institutional reality, so much as it's an economic paradigm. The idea that short-term profits for huge corporate forces should be our bottom line, rather than the safety, health, and the well-being of the American people. It has become our governing principle. And that's your governing principle, democracy is not. You can't have a thriving democracy when you don't have a thriving middle class. And this system has made the middle class and America collapse. You have a tiny portion of Americans who own some half of all the wealth in this country. Right, that's not a democracy. That's not a democracy. You know, we're an oligarchy. We are ruled and we are governed. So this political system, it's pretending you have this great democracy here, but they're telling you who your candidates can be. And I think your candidate suppression is a form of voter suppression. So America's only been around for a few hundred years. Really, it's a really young country in the scheme of things and really a young country considering how powerful it has been, right? How do we even know democracy actually works? Like, is America just one big science experiment? And like, we're kind of coming to the end of the experiment. Like, I don't, that's how it feels. Oh, no, no, no, no. No, I don't see the story that way at all. Let's go back to the beginning, okay? Let's go back to 1776. In 1776, some very brave men, 56 of them as a matter of fact, signed the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence is our mission statement. It's our North Star. And it includes the principles on which we purport to stand. They were radical in 1776, and they're radical today. And every generation in the Jewish religion, it says every generation must rediscover God for itself. Every generation of Americans need to rediscover the real meaning of the Declaration of Independence for us. And if we don't, then those principles lose their moral and emotional force. And we become easy to play, and we've been played. That's exactly what's happened. So when we revisit them, we see their radicalism. They're all made of created equal, that everyone is created with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which means self-actualization in today's terms. You can do whatever you want to do, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. That government's role, government is instituted, it says, to secure those rights, not for those rights or undercut those rights or diminish those rights, but to secure those rights. And it gets even more radical, where it says that if the government's not doing that job, it is the right of the people to alter it or to abolish it. Now, that's where it started, with these ideas that literally changed the world. But that moment of beginning is also where you see how gnarly it gets as well. Because out of the 56 signers, 41 of them were slave owners. Now, that's the American story. That is the story, the struggle, and the dichotomy, which is iterated in every generation, even ours, between forces of unbelievable political, social, and even economic enlightenment, versus forces who, for their own ideological and or financial purposes, have no intention whatsoever of seeing those principles made manifest. And every generation reiterates it, some more dramatically than others. Now, in terms of the question you asked, if you look at the arc of American history, there's a lot to be impressed by the abolitionist movement, responded to abolition, the women's suffragists movement, responded to institutionalized suppression, the early labor organizing, responded to the gilded age, and the civil rights movement, responded to segregation. It's simply our turn. We need to see that what we're going through is no different than what other generations have gone through. Let's just not be the first one to wimp out on doing what it takes to... Don't wimp out. I like that. I like the message. So that's what we're doing right now. If you give all your power to a political elite, you are completely surrendering your democracy. All right. No, I'm with you.  Yeah, and I get what you're saying because it just feels like a lot of the people are... I guess I would use the word moderate. I identify kind of as a moderate. Like, I almost... I could have gone either way if there was a Republican candidate that I thought was legitimate. I wouldn't have been afraid to vote for that just because that's kind of like where I'm at. And I guess this is a kind of a question about, I guess, Democrats, because it seems like I'm Asian and a lot of Asian-Americans are actually leaving the Democratic Party. Not that it's not yet 50-50 between the Asian-American voters, but there's quite a few that have moved over to the Republican side, actually statistically in the past eight years. So I guess what is wrong with the Democrats in the past eight, 10 years that have made people leave? Like, let's be honest. Like, is it the crime? Is it they have a reputation? Like, they don't care about crime. They have the reputation that they're focusing on the wrong issues. Like, is there any truth to that? The problem with the Democratic Party is that they have dropped their Rooseveltian unequivocal advocacy for the working people of the United States. If they were continuing to hold to unequivocal advocacy for the working people of the United States, we would have Medicare for All, which they have in every other advanced democracy. We would have tuition-free college and tech school, a system which we had in place until the 1970s. We would have a guaranteed living wage. We would have the things that actually help people economically thrive who are actually part of the majority of Americans. Once again, let's look at the larger context. When I was growing up, more than not, not completely, but more than not, the Republican Party was dominated by the high-minded conservative principles and the Democratic Party was dominated by the high-minded liberal principles. And that's why Eisenhower could say the American mind at his best is both liberal and conservative. At this point, the Republican Party has become completely dominated by this corporatist element to the point where you are talking about a neo-fascist perspective because it's such a deep marriage of corporate power and governmental power, which by the way is personified by Donald Trump. The Democratic Party is trying to have it both ways. And this has been true ever since the Democratic Leadership Council where they want to help people. But they, and this is exactly what President Biden is as the corporatist Democrat most empowered, they do want to help people. But they won't go any further once they get to the point where to go further would undercut the bottom line of their corporate donors. So what you have is the Democratic Party split into two parts, between the establishment corporatists and the progressives. But what is disappointing to me in this campaign is to see how even the progressives fall totally in line with the DNC. When it comes to something like a presidential election. So there's something that happens people once they get in there. They're very good entrepreneurs. So they'll totally show up as major progressives on Twitter. On your website, I was reading because crime is a big concern for a lot of people, not just Asians, but particularly Asians. A statistic just came out in New York City that 78% of Asian surveyed were fearing for some part of their, safety was a huge concern for them, was the number one concern in the city. It says regarding crime education and culture are the strongest preventative medicines. What is the culture that you're referring to? I guess, is it the media culture? The gun culture? Is it the video games? Is it the music? Is it the movies? What I guess I'm just curious because that's culture is a very big words. It can mean a lot of things. We have a multi-dimensional breakdown here. We have an all systems breakdown and it's going to need an all systems response. You could look at something like guns, for instance. The conversation used to be, is it the guns or is it the culture? Clearly, in a sophisticated look at that today, it's both. Obviously, it's the fact that we have such lax gun safety laws, by the way, contrary to the expressed will of the majority of Republicans as well as Democrats, including gun owners. But it's also the glorification of violence. It's all of the above. When you look at how many billions of dollars are made on violent video games, millions of billions of dollars made on products that are sold to children that are violent, billions of dollars that are made on violent movies and gratuitous violence. I'm not talking about violence used for genuinely artistic purposes, like someone like a Martin Scorsese. I'm talking about cheap, gratuitous stuff, including a lot of violence against women, by the way. That is nothing other than getting more clicks and making more sales. And of course, it's poisoning the air. We're not going to be able to deal with the violence in our society until we also make a commitment among ourselves to being a nonviolent society. How do we do that? I feel like violence is built into the American ethos. It's almost like we're a rebel. And this is my opinion. It feels like a rebel country. Go get it at any cost. Defend yourself. Someone steps on your yard, punch him or shoot him. Like, you know what I mean? It wasn't always this bad at all. There were even some ethical rules in the wild, wild West. Even in the wild, wild West, when they came into a town, they had to surrender their guns while they were there. This is what's happening now. There is a complete ethical breakdown. This is what unfettered soulless capitalism has done to us. It's just get what you want at all costs. Look at Twitter. Twitter's a violent, violent place. Where people lie. Lying about someone is violence. We all need to read a little Buddhism here about violence of speech, right speech, right thought. So America needs to be more Buddhist, is that what you're saying? Well, Buddhism, I believe in the universal spiritual principles and all the great religions and spiritual teachings of the world. Yes, we have to be more humble. We have to be more merciful. We have to be more loving. What are you doing so casually insulting people, lying about people, smearing people, all those things of violence? So it has to start in our own hearts, seeking to be more harmless people. All of us have to make ethical decisions all the time in our careers. It does feel like that. I'm sorry to interrupt. It does America need to have some more Asian values? I know Asian values, that's a big term, but it's kind of hard to think about it. Well, Judaism and Christianity came up with love one another and walk humbly with thy God, act mercy, and do justice to others. So all the great religious traditions extend into the world the highest principles. That's a good point. And I was just obviously, it'd be funny if you said be more Asian, but I know that's not actually the accurate answer. And you know, jubus, when I was younger, I remember having a conversation. And we called them, when I was growing up, we call my generation of like college time, there were often people called jubus, all these Jews who were Buddhist monasteries. Oh, that's hilarious. So I guess, man, the values in America need to change. Now what, now that statement, the values of America needs to change. Now I'm just saying in that statement that we both agree, but there's even different perspectives on that, right? Because a lot of the conservatives or the traditional conservatives or the people who are considered conservative nowadays are gonna say, the values of America need to change. We need to change back. Sorry, that's not how all conservatives talk, but you know, I'm in a comical way. So I guess the point is what I'm saying is that is there an argument that conservative values can work or can work for certain people or like we can all exist together? Why is there an argument whether your family is being conservative and having traditional values? And that's outdated or oh, that these progressive ideas are not gonna work and they're happy go lucky and no one's gonna, it's too complex. Like, you know what, do you get my question? I think I understand what you're saying, but I think we all need to come out of our silos right now. And some of these labels actually limit rather than expand the conversation. There are values of righteousness, which is just the things that you and I were talking about before that we love one another. Now, where progressivism comes in is that we would argue that those principles of righteousness should guide our public policy as well. But when it comes to personal behavior, I see as much smug, arrogant self-righteousness on the left as I see on the right. And this projection onto other people that because of a political position they take that they have no values, that they don't care. So I think that a lot of it, we need to go back to neutral here. Just each and every one of us trying to be a better person, caring less, we were not sent to this earth to monitor other people. We were sent to this earth to try to be better ourselves. Martin Luther King said, you have very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt. So when we go into any situation, people can subconsciously feel it when we're looking down on them. So whether we're on the left or on the right, we all have to remember no one has a monopoly on truth. No one has a monopoly on this country. We all get to own it, guys. And number three, nobody owes it to you to agree with you. The issue is not trying to get other people to agree with you, but we're finding that sweet spot, that sort of namaste consciousness, before you even open your mouth and with which you listen to people. And then there's a yin and a yang. Like I said, nobody has a monopoly on truth here. And when we stop learning from one another, and then you talk about the meanness of this time, we're living at a time now where it's not only that you disagree with me, but because you disagree with me, you are wrong.  Now, all of that's violence and we all have to take responsibility for the part in ourselves that would go there. And I agree that we're kind of in violent times and there's a lot of aggression right now. I guess one criticism to that or to back that up is that a lot of people are going to say, well, America needs to be a strong country. America has to be strong and you can't be strong without being aggressive and muscular and buff and have a bunch of guns and weapons ready. Is that true? Because we still live in a time when there's still enemies and rivals in this world, countries that don't care about America or care less about America, that America needs to stand strong in an aggressive manner. How can America be strong if America takes a more, I guess like empathetic, like kind of like internal, you know, whatever we're talking about? Well, you know, there's the yin and the yang, the masculine and the feminine. So you just presented a view of really not even masculine, but this kind of toxic masculine that's just about aggression. That's that's there's nothing high-minded about that description of things. Love is the greatest strength. If you really want to exercise strength, take better care of your children, take better care, create more economic opportunities, create, you know, I want a department of peace and within because we need to have an army of peace builders as much as we haven't have an army of military personnel. And there are four factors within peace building, which statistically indicate that if these things are present, you'll have a higher incident of peace and a lower incidence of violence, greater economic opportunities for women, greater educational opportunities for children, a reduction of violence against women, and an amelioration of unnecessary human despair. Those things are strength. If you do not exercise that more yin strength, feminine strength, right? And that's not just man, woman, it's masculine feminine aspects of character. Then you will need all that aggression. Then you will think you need all that brute force in the form of prisons and bombs. It's not working. It's not sustainable ever ending conflict. And at this point, it's a threat to to the space event of the earth itself. That's a great answer. I want to talk about real. I don't know if we can talk about this real quick, but I guess the migrant in the border issue is a really that. And I would say Israel, Palestine are like divide. Those are like deciding issues in this. Or at least they were before we just got the two old guys back. So I guess like what is what's your I guess opinion on what's going on in Gaza right now? And then also I want to talk about the border real quick and then to a few other things. And then that's it. Well, what's going on in Gaza right now is unconscionable. And the United States should not be supporting it. And we have to say no to BB Netanyahu. We need a two state solution. Neither of those people are going anywhere. The Palestinian people are not Hamas. The Israeli people are not Benjamin Netanyahu. The United States should display robust and equal commitment to the peace and the security and the sovereignty of both people. We need a ceasefire. We also need release of those hostages. And we need that path to a two state solution. It's not going to be easy. People have certainly tried. Bill Clinton tried. Do you think Biden or Trump could could I don't know about solve the issue, but at least well. Trump is being very shrewd right now. He's not saying a word. Very shrewd. Very shrewd. He's yeah. Oh, sorry. Continue. Finish that. He did not display in his presidency. I remember Jared Kushner, who was his Mideast liaison, saying that the problem of the Palestinians was nothing other than the words he used to describe. It was a real estate dispute. That was the level of his understanding and of moral discernment. So, you know, when when when President Trump moved the moved the embassy to Jerusalem, it was a stick in the eye. He came up with the Arab with the Abraham Accords, but within the Abraham Accords, the rights of the Palestinians was given short shrift, which was one of, I think, the motivating factors for Hamas to, you know, take advantage of this period of time, along with the conversations that Israel was having with Saudi Arabia. So, at this point, the United States, our highest ally, must be humanity itself, and not afford to support any policy which transgresses our own, at least the human values on which we purport to stand. That is true. We killed a million people in Iraq, so. Yeah, that's definitely on our on our history. I, as far as, yeah, 10 minutes left, because I only have the regular Zoom subscription, so I have the free one. When it comes to migrants at the border, I think what is, I think most people agree that the border needs to be secure, right? That's just logical from a country perspective. I guess what do you do with the people now that have made it in? Not I'm not saying they're all bad. A lot of them are working hard. There's probably some bad apples. And it's just like the influx of people is just hard to deal with. I guess what, what, how should people view this from, from your perspective? Well, a lot of people might not realize that Ronald Reagan gave millions of people amnesty. So there are a lot of people who have been waiting for years and they're, and they are forced to live in the shadows. A lot of undocumented people should not have to be undocumented. Like you said, they work hard. They raise families. They contribute to the society and they are forced to live in the shadows. And there should be a system by which they can become citizens more easily. And of course, that includes the DACA kids. In terms of what's actually happening at the border, a lot of this is based on the failure of Congress over decades. And the infrastructure. Remember, the Democrats and the Republicans had come up with a bill not long ago, billions of dollars. It was going to be spent, it's been at the border creating what we need, the proper infrastructure, the judges, the adjudicators, people who know how to interrogate, who are professionals to establish where there is and there is not credible fear. Giving someone a valid claim of asylum, creating a situation so that they are then led to integration into American society. The others led back. And it was Donald Trump who then told the Republican leaders to kill that bill, to not vote for it. Why? Because it would have worked. And he didn't want to give Biden a win during an election campaign season. Now, no matter what we do, however, no matter what infrastructure we create, no matter how many walls, no matter how many surveillance systems, you're going to have to address root cause, which is central to my entire campaign. The old fashioned transactional politics only talks about symptoms. We have to talk about root cause. You know, you can't just talk about October 7th. You also have to talk about the settlements, the illegality of the settlements and the West Bank occupation and so forth. Okay. When it comes to the immigration from Latin America, there are two main categories that drive people to immigrate so desperately that someone would actually walk across the Darien Gap, one of the least hospitable pieces of land on the planet, with children no less, okay? Economic despair and fear of the violence is being perpetrated by the drug cartels. Now, in both cases, America can do something. A lot of the economic destabilization of these Latin American countries has America's fingerprints on it. If you look at American foreign policy in Latin America over the last 50 years, we should be willing to help restabilize some of these economies that clearly we help destabilize. By the way, we're moving the sanctions from Venezuela. On the level of the drug cartels, one of my core issues is we need to end America's war on drugs. One of the things it does is it feeds our prison industrial complex because almost half of our federal prisoners are nonviolent drug offenders. And number two, it creates the black market that gives the market to the drug cartels. So, as we end America's drug war and instead make it a sobriety system and treat drugs like a health issue, rather than a criminal issue like they do in places like Portugal, although we will not completely solve the problem with the drug cartels, we'll put a big dent in it. Yeah, I think when people feel like it would just be safer to have a bunch more police out on the streets due to the crime or whether it's the drugs or all that stuff, I guess how do you respond to the people who just feel safer when there's just more police force and they're coming down on drug dealers more? And because as a regular citizen, you kind of like, I guess like to see that because you're like, yeah, like someone's laid down the law, how do you balance it? Ask a black person if they agree with that. Yeah, that's true. That's some of my friends. Real quick, China. As a Chinese American with roots in China, I think that obviously how China is viewed in the media and it's going to affect the way a lot of Chinese people are treated. I'm already hearing about Yale grad students who can't come back to America after visiting family. You hear about Chinese migrants of military age and men that are coming over the border and people are very scared of that. I guess is China something to be concerned about and how do we deal with that relationship? Well, first of all, there's a big difference between the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party. It's just like there's a big difference between the Iranian people and Ayatollah Khomeini. I mean, we have to even or Palestinians and Amos versus Israelis and Netanyahu. We've got to change our thinking here. We've got to all stand back and the idea of separating ourselves into all these silos. People say we need more unity. The separation begins in our heads and we don't just need more unity within our country. We need more unity on our planet. We are going to have to. If you take AI, if you take the environment and you take nuclear energy, we are going to have to forge a more collaborative relationship with China, with India, with Russia, with Brazil. All of the nations of the world in this century, we're going to have to move into a more collaborative relationship. So when you hear about the spies here and there or people that, I mean, there are some spies, right? Absolutely, as we have them, too. But listen, I don't think any of us should be naive about the shenanigans of the Chinese Communist Party. However, when you hear people stoking the bear, when you hear people talking in a way, and that's what happened with Ukraine, we spoke the bear. There's almost like new Cold War conversation going on. After what we have been through in Iraq, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, after seeing what's going on in Ukraine, seeing what's happening in Gaza, we've got to check ourselves. There are people in Washington who actually they're kind of frothing at the mouth at the thought that, ooh, we might have a war with China. No, no, no. I think that would be a terrible idea. A terrible idea doesn't even begin to cover it. Doesn't even begin to cover it. We have to imagine a planet without war 100 years from now and reverse engineer from there. That's an interesting way to put it. Yeah, that's why we need a department of peace. And we need to talk about far more ways that we can actually collaborate with China on the areas that we need to collaborate and have healthy competition on the areas where healthy competition is called for. Yeah, I agree. I don't know. Maybe we need some precognition technology and maybe Apple Vision or the AI can help predict what the, how to not have wars in the future. Hold on. I'd like to speak to that because you just said something really interesting. One of the things that I talked about and talked about in the department of peace, right now they play war games. We need to play peace games. Interesting. And we should do exactly what you just said. We need to do exactly instead of spending all of our resources planning for the next war, figuring out the next war, we should be planning for an era in which humanity has a greater guarantee to survive. Some people would say that's naive. What I think is naive is assuming we're going to survive on this planet for another 100 years if we don't at least try. I like it. One minute left. What can you say to Gen Z or Concern Millennials just about what they should be doing right now? What can we be doing? I guess voting for people like you or voting, like what can we just do as people that will give us some power, go. I see you doing it. Just I think everybody, no matter what our age right now, most people, I think the majority of people recognize the depth of problem and are feeling a yearning to step up. I just think we all, if anything, just need to look at each other and say, how can I help you step up more? Ask your friend, ask your neighbor, ask a community member, how do you step up? I've listened. The time's going to run out and it's probably going to click out. Mary Ann, thank you so much for your time and thank you for being a bold person with positive ideas. Yeah, I hope you enjoy the rest of your leg and whatever you continue to do. So I thank you. Thank you so much. It was good chatting with you. All right. Until next time, everybody, with the Hot Pop Boys, we out. Peace.


Alright, to get things off, which group would like to go first? Sure, I can talk about our project. So we did a video together about how the world is actually getting better. This project was based off of the book called Factfulness by Hans Rosling. I read it for a different class and it really made an impact on me. It was about why we think things are going so much worse than they are when if you look at the world in just numbers things are better now than they ever have been before. So we actually took to the streets and we asked people what they thought and we can show you a clip of that video now. We're out here on Church Street for our Dimensions of Self in Society class asking people if they think the world is getting better or worse. And so far we've had some surprising answers. I think it's getting better and worse. I believe it's getting worse more in the way that it's getting better. But because it's getting worse I think people are also becoming more aware which is really cool, like especially politics. I don't know a lot about politics but I know that people are definitely wanting to vote more and all that. So with every negative. It's both, right? Like you have good things and bad things you have. But it's always been like that, isn't it? Like Yin and Yang? Yeah, so I think it's actually the same. Yeah, over the last 20-25 years I feel like we've gradually been getting better but right now we're kind of at a turning point where we can go either way. Yeah, it's kind of getting the world better if they like back people doing the right things that they supposed to do. We will be getting the right, but if there is any hate or race then the world is not going to get better. Yeah everyone, romance is getting better. It's a good place to stay and it's a safe place. I think it's getting better and hopefully burning can lead us somewhere. So we came out here with a few facts to tell you that it is getting better and things can be getting better and still be bad at the same time. Yeah, that's awesome. Good for Vermont. Yeah, no doubt. I'm a visitor. So yeah, it's foreign to me but that's nice. And where are you from? I'm coming from Long Island. Does that make you think that things could be getting even better? Yeah, it could be better for that. But I didn't look that much homeless but it could be better. Do you think that that's going to continue to improve? I think it's like you guys trying to do positive stuff. If everyone just did that, it's going to work out. So what were your thoughts on our video? Honestly, I was somewhat surprised. There was a good variety. We got people from out of state, people from in-state. Most people actually thought that we were somewhat getting better. We're kind of at this dividing point now. Some people think kind of negatively. Some people think positively. But we got a lot of people saying that we're making steps forward, which is really cool to hear because people are kind of all over the spectrum right now. So that was some good evidence for it. Yeah, just seeing the video you guys did, Dana and I obviously weren't a part of the making of that video, but I was really impressed by how positive people were in general when you were asking them, is the world getting better? I don't know. It was interesting to me for sure. Yeah, it's kind of surprising. Most people think that with the way it's going, it might be at a turning point, but we're making a lot of changes for the good whether we know it or not. And even putting awareness to these things is a step forward from where we were when we weren't putting awareness to them. I think my favorite takeaway from the entire project was that things can be bad and also be getting better at the same time. It's not just black and white, it's a spectrum and you're allowed to have both. And I definitely think that news and reporters and stuff likes to highlight the bad things because that's what most people like to see. It's more entertaining, I guess. Honestly, it was very intelligently designed by just going out there and asking positive questions and getting people to look at things in a more positive lens rather than a negative news type. Definitely. I might shift it over. We had a really similar topic, but I focused more on what we're dealing with our trash right now. And a lot of people, the world is kind of, it's sort of melting. Not physically, but the way we're acting towards it and the trash that we're putting out and the plastics that we're providing for people. It's the consumption for it. We've just had so much of it. So it's gotten so much easier to just grab trash bags, throw away lids, but we're not giving back. We're taking, we're taking, we're taking and we're not giving back to a point where it's actually helping us. But on a positive note, Burlington, Vermont is actually one of the first states or in-city states to pass the four plastic ban rule in one bill. So we're banning all four plastics, styrofoam, plastic lids, straws and plastic bags all in one bill, which is really impressive. It's a movement forward. Some people see it as our contributions. They're so small, they don't make a difference, but it's really each contribution that makes a whole movement happen. It's all the little parts that make the whole. So that's what I found. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Did you want to try to share your poster? Yeah, I made a little poster. It's more of, I don't know, I got some things going on here. It's what we can do to actually help the situation and we're using bags, we're using lids. That's a really good step forward. This is kind of a little bloop. It's a little dramatic, but this is where we are headed, people. This is where we are headed. Yeah, the growing rate right now of plastic is up 4% each year. It's just growing and growing and growing and we're not doing anything to help that. But putting awareness to this is the important part. That's what I found. The world is getting better. Small steps matter. The fact that we're having this conversation now is a step forward. Yeah, for sure. And how about you two? Did you guys want to talk about your video a little bit? Okay, sure. So for our interview we did. We just went around and we asked people if they were weird because we were curious if people would be open about that, what they thought about it and things like that. And most everyone was very excited and happy to answer and had some weird responses, I guess. But I've collected from it all that weird is the new normal. That might just be a Vermont thing because Vermont's pretty sheltered and weird, but I think that's spreading around, which is really cool. Definitely. Yeah, no, it was a lot of fun for sure. We met a lot of really interesting people. They were willing to do a lot more on camera than we had expected. Like we had people dancing. We met some lovely dogs. It was just very nice, a pleasurable experience for sure. Did you find that going into the talking process with these people once you had asked the question, do you think you're weird? Do you think they opened up a little bit, even just being asked that question? It looks like it really took half of the interview until they finally opened up a bit. More often than not when we were going around asking people, are they weird? The first thing that people really did was take a step back.  So that was funny. But yeah, overall once you kept pestering them a little bit, getting them to open up more, they became much more comfortable and more willing to share what they do. Cool, yeah. And we'd also, the final question we would ask is if they're open about it, which we realized was a really dumb question to put at the end. It's because obviously they are, they just recorded themselves sharing about how weird they were. But yeah, it was fun. Maybe that surprised them like, didn't realize I was actually that open. Now I am. Yeah, and if you're curious, our video is super cool. If you want to watch it now, go ahead. Here's a clip. Yeah, here's a clip. Hey, how are you doing? Can I ask you some questions? This is normal. Like, what do you consider normal? I don't think that... I don't think they're really, it's a normal, I guess. I think normal is what you want to have created around you and what makes you feel like you belong. Being myself, is what I would say. I mean, for everybody, it depends, it varies, right? Yeah. And for you, it might be something different. But me, as long as I'm myself, I'm alright. I'm normal. That's great. You're normal, I don't know. Being yourself, being yourself is a good normal. I don't think there should be any normative unless you're hurting yourself or other people and then maybe that should not be a normative value. But beyond that, I don't think we should try so hard to define what is normal because people come in all sorts of flavors and that's a beautiful thing. I totally agree with you. Something regular, expected. Maybe something that doesn't surprise me. Something that I can understand without having to strain myself too much. Okay. Okay, next question. Do you think you're normal? I hope not. No, I don't think. No, I've never tried to be. I don't think I could pass as normal if I wanted to. No, no thank you. Normal is an average. And who is average? And how many people are normal.  I agree with that. Okay, it's hard to read. No, absolutely not. I think everyone's normal, I guess, which goes against what I just said about normal being standard or average. Yeah, I think that being human is normal. Okay, yeah. Yeah. By not worrying about what others are going to think about you, by really fully committing to being yourself and showing people that not only can you enjoy a life where you are fully committed to being yourself and not trying to live a life that pleases others or out of obligation, and also by doing that, I think you demonstrate to other people who might be afraid to take those risks. You can show them that other people really will love you, even if you don't walk the same path as everyone else or what you were told to do. That's wonderful. Okay, sorry. She wrote these questions. It's a struggle. That's fine, that's fine. I like it too. Not entirely. I feel like there are things that are a little different about me, but I don't know. How are you weird? How am I weird? I feel like I'm into a little weirder stuff. I like dark stuff and morbid stuff. That's considered normal, but... How are you weird? I don't know, that's a good question. I guess I'm just thinking of the ways that I'm not as average. I sleep a lot on weekends, more so than other folks. I won't wake up. That's not really weird, but that's not as standard as other folks. I don't know, is that an okay example? Yeah, that's perfect. How do you live an alternative lifestyle to others? I think we're all in our little Vermont bubble, so everyone here lives an alternative lifestyle to others. Yeah, I guess I really make an effort to know where my food comes from and how much to do so. I know that a lot of folks just in the U.S. don't have the literacy or background knowledge to and don't have the access to do that. I would say that's kind of what was the question, unusual lifestyle? Or was it an alternative lifestyle? I would say that's a little bit alternative lifestyle for me. Are you open about your alternative lifestyle or weirdness? Yeah, for sure. Yes, definitely open about it and also open to hearing other people's lifestyle differences and differences to me. Well, thank you. Absolutely, good luck. I hope you have a wonderful day. I dress like a preschooler because I'm a preschool teacher and I don't make any apologies for it. I sing to myself all the time and I'm in a band and even when I was, you know, one month pregnant. We ran to a rave. We do all sorts of music. We don't even try to just do one. I make all sorts of art.  I have another follow-up question on that. I heard you say you were ten months pregnant. Well, yes. I had three children who were overdue. One who was a plan cesarean, but three of my children were overdue by a month and even then I would wear lycra and get on stage and sing punk rock songs. I did sit down once. That is true. That's true. I did one time. How are you weird? Oh, wow. Well, that's a great question. I wish I had a really great answer for that. I think there's a lot of things that I might do that's weird, but I think the thing that makes me weird is that I love to dance everywhere. Some people might think that's weird, but like our normals, like I think weird is normal. How do you define an alternative? Can I ask that? Get laid out, go to work.  Is that what you mean? I guess so. So because that's so I think that's the question is what's the regular lifestyle? Do you know what I mean? That's a hard question to answer because to some alternative might be, oh, I'm gay. Alternative might be, I don't have kids. Alternative might be that I shave my head once. You know, like, I don't know. Alternative might be that I have a tattoo. What is that for you? I don't, so that's so hard because I don't know what alternative is. Alternative is different than me, but I think alternative is great. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay, cool. 100% I think it makes it, I think that helps others bring out their weirdness. Yeah. Of course. Oh my god, what kind of dancing on camera? I just got back from like a 12 hour trip.  Pump it up. I'll do whatever you want. Oh, sorry. I'm pulling that mic.  Like, that's not too weird? Weird. Not too something. I dance to the music in my own head like constantly all the time. I mean, depending on what it is, it's going to change it. You can do a little ballroom if you want. You know, like, just weird dancing. Yeah, I don't know, whatever it is. I am, I am very open about it. Even in my workplace, which and I work with children and I'm very open about it because I just think it sets the stage for other people being open and then it normalizes not being so normal and yeah, I hope it encourages other people to just be themselves. You've encouraged me. So thank you very much. An alternative lifestyle. As far as like appearance wise, I feel like I've kind of like modified myself outside of the norm. Like I've like stretched my ears and I've tattooed and stuff like that. Like, I feel like that's not an everyday thing. So that would probably be as far as I go. I don't really like to live by one specific way like to mix it up. Um, and well actually this is kind of obvious, but are you open about your alternative lifestyle and being weird? I think so. I think it's fun. Well, thank you. Yeah. Are we interviewing him now? Would you like to be interviewed? That's my last question. Hey, thank you. Nice to meet you ladies. The important thing is make sure you're being normal. Okay, I'll try. I'm Dana. This is Professor Williamson. Jamie. Nice to meet you. Jamie, my best friend of many, many years. Thank you guys very much. Have a good night. You too. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to try to get in the frame here kind of. All right. First question. What is normal to you? Is it recording? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that was what we did. Did you want to talk about your personal project a little bit? Oh, sure. So for my personal manifesto, um, okay. Um, I tried to just depict in a painting. Wait, this one? Okay, this one. Um, just pretty much like love and compassion. And I tried to portray the emotion that like it's dark. Somebody's sad. I don't know. Just give somebody a hug every now and then just be nice. It's all about love, man. Can't hurt. It really can't hurt to be nice. Even in the smallest ways. Yeah. Um, we had a talk a couple weeks ago. We were able to talk to Ali Dang. He came into our class and he discussed with us where he started his career in helping out in his community and where he ended it and where he was now and what steps he was taking. And I can say what I took away was that even just starting so small, you don't have to start big. Just start small acts like we're doing now. We're just sitting here talking to the community. It doesn't matter how big it is because if that's what you're interested in, if you actually have something you want to put forth, it'll start to grow and you'll be able to get more of a feel of what you want to do. It doesn't have to you don't have to just jump all in. You can just get a feel for what you like. And yeah, you just grow from there. So that was really cool being able to talk to him because he's on the city council and he has a lot to say for just helping out and starting small and growing big. So that was really cool. And did you want to talk about your channel? I do not have it with me. No, that's fine. Okay, did you want to though? Oh, mine's not pretty similar to our video. I ended up doing some focus on why media was so negative. And I actually found out that media is as negative as it is because that's what people are consuming. And I was able to delve a little bit deeper into the negativity bias which is our more innate desire to consume negative media, which is something that I didn't really know about and it seems like a lot of people don't. There was an experiment done where people were asked what type of media they like to consume. And for the most part they said, I like to consume positive media. I like good things, but when they're given an array of options, they always chose the more negative, the violent, the war, the disaster. Interesting, yeah. Yeah, and I wanted originally when I went in this paper I wanted to blame someone and I wanted why is media doing this to us? Why is Facebook doing this to us? And it's really, it's because it's what we want. Even if it's not what we think we want, it's still what we're innately looking for. And I actually found the solution to that is just understanding that we have that negativity bias in us and that's the first step to overcoming it is now that you know that maybe that's part of you and maybe that's something next time you're looking at articles you can go and maybe not this one. Yeah. And the less negative media consumed the less that we made media is only being made to be consumed. Yeah. So if it's not what people want they're not going to make it. Yeah, it's kind of interesting how we have that side of us that always goes towards that negative factor. It's like no matter what, it's like especially in news it's like they portray it so negative even if it's not that negative they're like we'll grab their attention with this but it's not all negative and there's a lot more positivity coming from it you always focus on the negative but as you said it's really important to shift your views and see how you really want to see it because there's multiple ways of viewing these things. I think another reason people like negative content like that is because they can compare it to their lives and be like oh I'm thankful my life's not like that which they probably don't think exactly like that but still you know people like to compare themselves to others and it makes them feel better if they're better than what's on the other side of that. That's very true. It's interesting that like the negative media that you can consume can just be like countered if you're an active participant in the media you're consuming you know like I know that like a lot of Facebook and other social media platforms rely on algorithms that use like clickbait articles or how many times you click on certain things will determine what kind of stories you get in the future so if you just avoid clicking on the bad articles more often than not your feed and the media you're consuming will become good and that seems crazy but I guess it's not which is so cool. Yeah it's amazing how much is just based on awareness. Like once you're aware you can move forward and I think even with your project that's the first tiny step is just being aware of what plastic's doing or being aware that maybe you're kind of weird and it's okay and that's others other people out there do and you can build from there. Awareness is key. Yeah it sounds like that's across the board what we learned. Awareness matters. And what you put your attention to to be aware that's what matters too. Yeah. Do we have any closing comments? Anything else anyone to say? I don't think so I think I'm good. I think we hit our points. Yeah. Well this has been an awesome opportunity to talk to you guys and it's been very cool for our class to be able to be here so thank you for watching and enjoy the rest of your day. Wow.


The study aimed to understand privacy and confidentiality concerns among Malaysian men who have sex with men, MSM, regarding participation in a hypothetical app-based HIV prevention program. The results showed that most participants were willing to participate, but expressed concerns about privacy, confidentiality, data security, and risks and benefits of participating in all stages of the app-based HIV research process. Multivariable logistic regression models identified perceived participation benefits as a positive correlate of willingness to participate, while increased concerns about app-based clinical interaction and e-prescription, and higher degree of perceived risks of participating were negative correlates. The study concluded that mHealth app-based HIV prevention programs are acceptable for future research on Malaysian MSM, but must be safe and secure to ensure widespread public trust and uptake. This article was authored by Roman Shresta, Celia Fisher, Jeffrey A. Wickersham, and others.


Aloha mai kakou and welcome to another broadcast of Roots Hawaii. My name is Walter Kauai, I am your host. We are here at the wonderful studios of Think Tech Hawaii located in downtown Honolulu in the Pioneer Plaza building. Joining me today is my very special guest, Nijoni Chan, who is part Native American Indian and grew up on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Aloha Nijoni, thank you so much for joining us here and taking time off from your extremely busy schedule. Before we talk story with Nijoni, I'd like to share a little bit about her to our viewers that may not be familiar with her. As one world leader once said, and I quote, no success can compensate for failure in the home, end quote. Nijoni says, my family, my faith are the most important things in my life. And because of that, my pursuits for degrees and recognitions are secondary, my family, my children are my priority. After attending BYU Provo for one year, I met my husband and our family began. It's been a balancing act between school and motherhood. Nijoni shared with me one of her favorite Bible quotes, quote, to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heavens, end quote. Nijoni is grateful to have had many opportunities to serve in her community and the church to which she belongs, even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Aloha, mahalo once again, Nijoni. Aloha. Tell us a little bit about where you're from. I think that's quite intriguing that you, in this century that we live in, that you grew up in a Navajo reservation. And tell our viewers what that experience was like for you. Sure. A little bit about the reservation. It's on the four corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. And I lived in the Utah for just a bit of time in the Monument Valley. We were raised there for about 10 years. And it was wonderful waking up every morning and seeing the sunrise and seeing the sunsets behind the red rock. And then we moved into Quanta just over the border. My dad's a school teacher, so he took a job there. And that's where my parents still reside. And I claim I'm from Quanta. And people ask me where I'm from. And Quanta is in Arizona. Quanta is in Arizona. So I mean, OK, forgive me if this sounds crazy what I asked this question. But so if I were just driving, just driving throughout Arizona, would there be something that would tell me that I'm now entering the Navajo reservation? No. It would just blend in like any other city? It would just blend in. You would see probably a lot of native people. OK. And that would be a clue. That would be a clue, some native words on buildings and things like that. But other than that, I don't think you'd be able to tell really that you were on the reservation. I guess that's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, so wonderful. Tell me a little bit about the historical background of the Navajo Indians. I know there are a lot of Native American Indian tribes in the United States. And by comparison, in terms of the Navajo nation, how is it ranked? Is it one of the largest, the largest? Right. I thought I read somewhere that was like the second or third largest. Is the second largest? Second largest. Cherokee, I think, comes up before the Navajo nation for federally recognized people who've claimed that tribe. The Navajo nation, though, as a whole, the land is the biggest, the biggest in the US. What is the largest? So it's the largest as far as the reservation.  And I saw an area that had, like, four mountain peaks. And within those mountain peaks was the reservation. Can you share with us, I mean, that's quite unique. Yeah. Our people from the very beginning, I mean, our orally, our history has been passed down orally. And it's been told that our people believe that if we were lived between the four sacred mountains, there's a mountain to the north, to the south, to the east and to the west, that if we were within that, that we would be safe, we would be protected. It's sacred. And so there was a point in history where the government came and tried to take, you know, remove our peoples from this area. And they did. They were removed for a time. But when it came time to work with the government and treaties and other things, we were able to reclaim that area within the four sacred mountains. And our people still live there to this day. The reservation sits inside those four sacred mountains. And that's where you grew up. And that's where I grew up.  Because maybe growing up as a child, you may not have seen that as being, yay, best place to grow up. But when you reflect now as an adult and in the times that we live, what are some of the positive takeaways, you know, as an adult? As an adult. I'm able to teach recently. I wish I had a picture of my son, but he is serving a church mission in the Marshall Islands. And there, the people have nothing. They, you know, wait for the rainwater. They collect the rainwater and he washes his clothes in the bucket. And he, you know, he's gone on and on told us he climbs coconut trees for his breakfast in the morning and fishes for his dinner. And I, as I shared with him before his mission in my mother, we shared, he knows. He knows that that's the way my mother grew up. And that's where I'm from. There are people still, you know, in the United States that live that way. And on the reservation without electricity, without running water. And so I think for him, it was, there was a appreciation for their culture, knowing that, you know, he's, our Navajo side is very alike in that way. There was an appreciation and an understanding. And I think, I think it built in me an empathy for others. And it doesn't matter where I go. I know that, you know, in those circumstances that I, I've lived there. And I've, my grandparents, and we've been, you know, we've seen those, those things. And I can see that. Yeah, that's, that's a blessing, as you mentioned earlier, earlier.  I believe this is your mom. Yeah. What a beautiful lady. Mom's still alive. Mother's still alive, yes. She is full Navajo, born and raised on the Navajo reservation. And I could say so much about my mother that she's been through so much. Just trials and hard things. And I'm just grateful that she taught us and made it, you know, it was very important for us to, to go, go to school, to know about our family, to know our culture and to, and as members of the, you know, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she is very, very strong and faithful member of that church. And this taught us and instilled in us a lot of those values and standards as well. So your mom, I mean, just looking at that picture that we got to see, you know, do you see some similarities in the Navajo Indian culture that, you know, because you live here in Hawaii, you're obviously exposed to the native Hawaiian culture and being where you actually live and we can get there, talk about that later. What are some of the similarities you see?  And, you know, you're trying to provide, I would assume, to your children the best of both cultural, indigenous peoples' worlds, if there's such a phrase, being the Navajo as well as the Hawaiian. How is that being blended in your family now as you're raising your children? Sure. My, I talked to my mother this morning and she reminded me that, you know, with my genealogy, I have my Navajo side and my dad's side, which is white, we call it a Navajo Bilagana.   And so, family's very important in our, and that's the first thing that, you know, my mother taught me was my clans and where I'm from and my grandparents and their clans because they help us to know in our, you know, in our genealogy where our families are from. And it helps us to tie into, you know, who we're related to or who we don't marry because they're cousins or they're closely related. So we, we know we have a clan system. And yeah. You know, that's similar to the Hawaiians, but I'd like to have our engineer bring up our next picture. And I think this is a picture of your dad. So tell us a little bit, you know, we're going to diverse a little, get away from the Navajo side. But your dad has an interesting story and his connection to the Navajo, doesn't he? Can you share that with us? Yes. He is in this picture at West Point. He lived in Pennsylvania and played football and did really well. He was really, did well with football that West Point wanted him to come out and play football for them. So he went and was there for a while for a time playing football and realized he just didn't enjoy it, didn't want, he wanted something different. And, and his, you know, just trying to figure out what he wanted to do. He found, came upon a magazine of some sort and saw about a story about Brigham Young University and their football program. And he was very intrigued and wanted to, you know, wanted to know more about it. He had a car and he packed it up and he drove out to Utah and he made himself part of that football team. He was able to play football for a while. So he was a good athlete. He was a good athlete. Yes, he has. Your dad wasn't a member of the church. He was in a member of the church.  He headed off to the Midwest in hopes of being able to, you know, play football. And, and he felt like that was where he needed to go and play. And I assumed dad played football, graduated from Brigham Young University. Yes, he did. So how does, how does he meet your mom? Yeah, so in his, you know, being able to be on the university campus, I shared the story with you. But he one day it was a Sunday and he was out running. And everybody else was dressed in white shirt and ties and dresses and they were all headed to a building. And he asked, he asked, where's everybody going? I can't, I'm, you know, I'm wondering. And they said they're well, there's a profit, a profit that is visiting today. And so he decided to go and follow. He had been brought up with the Bible and knew there was profit and wanted to know. And, yeah. And then he went to this gathering where he saw and knew that the profit at that time was President Spencer W. Kimball. And he, from there. That would have been in the 70s, right? That would have been in the 70s, yes. From there he took missionary discussions and learned more about the church and wanted to serve a mission. So he was called to serve on the Southwest Indian Mission, which is the Navajo Reservation. And- Is that where you met your mom? He didn't meet my mom on his mission. He ended up serving his two years and he actually met my mom's, the family. He served in the area where my mom's family but never met my mother. And they, when he went back to Brigham Young University, later met my mother. She was attending? She was attending Brigham Young University. Okay. So in the universe, that is not happenstance. When you think about it, you know, the odds, your dad's at, he's a cadet at West Point, for whatever reason, decides he doesn't want that and flips open a magazine of all things and then finds Brigham Young University. Probably didn't know anything about Brigham Young University. Other than, as you said, a great football program. And, you know, he was a good athlete, got into the university and played football. Still hadn't met your mom yet, served during the church, served the mission, and ironically in the Navajo Nation, met your mom's family, still didn't meet your mom, goes back to school after serving a successful mission and then they're on campus. So you kind of get the notion that, you know, somebody had their hands in the preparation of this. You know, when you fast forward and look at where your life is, your children and everything that's happened to all of you. Maybe we can have Rob put up our next picture here, your family picture.  So maybe you can describe to us. Yes. So that's my grandmother that's there at the bottom and I included her because that's my mother's mother. She never got to go to school. She was, during that, you know, those years, her brothers and sisters were rounded up by soldiers and she should have been too to attend boarding school and her parents who are in the picture, her father standing there and her mother's next to her decided to hold her back and hide her in a water barrel so that she couldn't leave. That she would be there to work hard and help them with the sheep and whatever it was and so she stayed behind and we're really grateful for her, my grandmother because she's instilled in us the importance of, you know, education, she never got that and she really wanted that for her posterity and so she shared it when she could, her story and that she wanted us to have that. That was a good motivating factor to pass on to our children and her posterity. Well, folks, we are talking story with our special guests this afternoon here at Roots Hawaii, Nezhoni Chan. But we're gonna take a 60 second break and you're watching Roots Hawaii. I'm your host, Walter Kovaiyaya. We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years and we're fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championship. This show is based on my book which is also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, achieving and sustaining success and finding greatness. If you're a student, parent, sports or business person and want to improve your life and the lives of people around you, tune in and join me on Mondays at 11 a.m. as we go Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. Aloha. Aloha, y'all. My name is Mitch Ewan. I'm from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and I'm the host of Hawaii, the state of clean energy. We're on every Wednesday at four o'clock and we hope that we have interesting guests who talk to us about various energy things that are happening in Hawaii all the way from PV, to windmills, to hydrogen, close to my heart, electric buses and electric vehicles. So please dial in every Wednesday at four o'clock on Hawaii, the state of clean energy. Aloha. Aloha mai kākou and welcome to Roots Hawaii. I'm your host Walter Kauaiā and we're here talking story with our special guest, Nezhoni Chan. So, you know, we were talking about that picture that was shown of your grandmother. My grandmother. And so she was one of 14 children? One of 13. 13.  She stayed home. So she lost out on that opportunity. Right. Literate. A formal education. But, I mean, thinking back, I mean, obviously your family became the beneficiaries of her trial of not being educated and literate because as you were saying before the break, she really, as she grew older, she really promoted that, if I could use that word, amongst her family, to how important it was for them to get an education to become literate in that way. Tell us more about that.  I did. We would go regularly to visit her. My mother was always very good at taking care of her mother and would go and especially after my grandfather passed away, but even before that, and there were responsibilities to do, she still did corn. We had acres and acres of blue corn and sheep. She had hundreds of sheep. And so when we would go visit grandma, if she wasn't home, we knew she was probably at the corn field or she was at the, you know, doing the sheep. And so my mother would know, okay, let's go find grandma.  And when we get there, grandma had responsibilities for us when we got there. It was to get out, you know, go water the corn or, you know, she gave us something to do to help in those tasks.  I probably, when I can remember, probably about five, five or six that I can remember. Maybe a five-year-old might be thrilled about going out there and helping grandma if she's sharing the sheep.  So do you value those experiences? I do. What lessons, I'm sure you've shared those experiences with your own children in raising them. And so what would have been your takeaway from that, even though you were five years old, how have you translated that into a learning opportunity to share with your children? Yes, I, we have always had a garden. My mother and dad, you know, father have always garden, but I do that myself. I live up on Kamehameh school's campus right now and I had to ask, you know, please give me an area to grow a garden. And they didn't, but we weren't ahead and we figured a way to work with it and we've still got a garden. And my kids help. And there's a piece of property that, you know, that we live on and they have people that do it for us who come and mow and want to do it for us. I said they were going to take care of it, but I've said, no, my kids are going to do that. And so I make a mow and it takes them a good part of the day to get that whole yard done. Not only mow, but you know, there's other responsibilities as well. But I was brought up that way. My mother was brought up that way. And that's values that, you know, my grandmother, I grew up seeing. And that's the good part of what grandma had to go through. Yeah. Her posterity reaps the benefits of that. Right. You know, cause we live in a very different world. Our kids, so many kids don't necessarily have that opportunity or choice. So I've been wanting to ask this question. What actually brought your family here to Hawaii? Yes, so my husband's job. He was, two years ago, we were living comfortably in Utah. And we were near all of our, my family. And his family actually migrated since from Wahiwa move to Utah. And so we were surrounded by family and friends. And my husband was actually asked to apply for a position here on the islands at Kamehameha Schools. And he did. And it was a prayerful effort to whether we would accept and to do it or not. And I wouldn't have been able to do it had I had that assurance. And that this is where we're supposed to be. I mean, that's a huge move for your whole family. And maybe you and your husband could make that kind of move. But then you have your children. I mean, you're literally uprooting your children from the place they were born, the friends they have, close to family. Has that all worked out? Were your children, yay, let's go to Hawaii? I think for a while it was kind of the honeymoon period. We're a beach and all kinds of fun things. And then it was, oh, who are we going to spend Thanksgiving with? And a lot of the understanding that. But in that, we have learned that there is family here. And there is distant family that we're learning of and we're gathering with now that we would have never had that experience had we remained where we were at. And so we have learned a lot about family, family here on the island and that we do have it. We just have, we've had to do the work to find them. That's the positive for the kids and for the whole family. Okay, I'm sure our viewers out there who may not still be familiar with Nizhoni Chun and her husband. So we won't keep it a secret. This show is not about him and it is about Nizhoni and her growing up in the Navajo Reservation. But Nizhoni's husband is Dr. Taren Chun who is the headmaster up at the Kamehameha Kapalama campus. I'm sure all of the students up at Kapalama campus knows who Nizhoni is and of course loves their family as much. All right, you mentioned a connection you felt with your tribe and to the Hawaiian islands. And the experience it's been, the honeymoon period is over but now you're growing, the family's going through that. What similarities have you and your family, you see in the two cultures? You know, it's like you have two worlds that your children are part of the Navajo because they have Navajo blood in them as well as Hawaiian, Chinese and all the other ethnicities. So they're really in the right setting in terms of the ethnic background that they have within them because Hava is known for the camaraderie and the complex of all of the ethnic races that grew up here. So do you see similarities? Yes, I do. Something that I just share to remind us that in the beginning we were all one people. My mother recently did a DNA test to see she's full Navajo, right? Well, her DNA test came back 86% Native American, 13% Asian and then the rest was Polynesian. And she said, I didn't know I was Polynesian but we know and we have records. In our church, we have a record called the Book of Mormon that shares. We were all one people at one time and there was a man named Hagoth that came across the ocean and brought a group of people. And so with that, I know that there are similarities that we enjoy as people. It's one of them being strong connection to our families. Our family, there's in the Hawaiian culture, we talk about Hanai and Native Americans or Navajo is the same way. Grandparents raise children, family help each other, we take care of each other, it's a family, it's important. Yeah, I think the way that we identify, we connect is the way we introduce ourselves and there's a way that we do that in Navajo. We talk about, I shared with our clans, there's a way to find ourselves orally, we don't have that written. There's oral traditions and history that's been passed on. Okay, I'm glad you brought that oral. So we know across, and you and I were talking about this as we were driving down Seoul. Hawaiians had oral tradition, meaning they had no written language. And not until the arrival of Westerners whether they be missionaries or European travelers, that began the process for them of identifying the language and writing a language. I understand the Navajo as the same tradition, they were oral tradition. You wanna share a little bit with our viewers and kinda when did that change? I assume we have a written language now. Yes. Talk about the Navajo language and how all of that tradition got written. Yes, so the Navajo people up until the 1800s didn't have a record. And so about the 1800s when they began reservations and government removing people from areas and they began taking censuses of families. And that began, okay, the head and then the children. And because of those records, we have back to the 1800s. But after that there were other, I mean it took a while before, there was boarding schools that strict and didn't allow the children to know their language and have tried to squeeze that out of families and out of people. So it wasn't written until even later and I think in the early 1900s. And thus I shared with you the story of the Navajo co-talkers and how that plays a part and how I feel some connection to Hawaii because of that piece of history that we have. So Nishoni just mentioned the word talker, the Navajo talkers. There was a movie that came out about that and we're running out of time. So we'll have to come back on another show.  So share a little bit about that. Yeah, she, we don't know where, we began with our great grandfather but we don't know why that name except that maybe he, like we were talking about maybe he was a historian. Maybe he just talked a lot but he was given that as an English name. That wasn't his Navajo name.  I think what you shared with me earlier was that because the Navajo language was so complex in terms of its, you know, language itself, that I guess the US government saw that as an opportunity to use it in code form during the Second World War. And that's how this whole thing, the novel whole talker. That's really interesting. Well, we're running out of time folks. And so one last question before, and I could, I'd like to ask Rob to throw up that it's really the last picture that we have, the whole family. Yeah, there we go. That's a beautiful picture. That's your family, I see your family and your children in there. And I guess your extended family, beautiful. And is that, would that be somewhere in the Navajo reservation area? No, this is actually in Utah where everybody was living at one time and now we're all over the place. All over the place, yeah. That was a good time to take a picture because we're all there. Briefly, tell us what kinds of records would people be able to use today to find if they wanted to search off their novel ancestry? I shared with you the census records. It started in the 1885 for the Navajos. There is an index on ancestry.com as well as family searches, getting those ready to put out. And those are probably very key. The Navajo government as well has records, family group cards and records that they began keeping about the same time in chapter houses. And those are accessible only going to the reservation. There are also, I shared with you as well, about Doris Duke. There was an heiress of a tobacco company. She had lots of money that she used to collect oral histories. And so there are a couple places on this, well, a few universities in the Southwest, University of Utah. There's one in UNLV. They house those oral records, those oral histories that were collected. Well, invaluable. Well, we are definitely out of time folks and I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge our special guest, Nijoni Chan. For all that she's been able to share with us today, some wonderful stories about her life, on the reservation and her family, her extended family and her roots and about that beautiful family. Thank you for joining us here at Roots Hawaii. I'm your host, Walter Gawaiiaya. And until we meet again on our next episode, take care everyone. Aloha, no.