Ocean Vuong

To live without shame and to be proud of parts of your life that people think are failures.

Because in my short journey...

I've learned that all the struggles that me and my family have gone through, they were all also sites of innovation and creative struggle.

So to me, I think dignity is about looking at what people have said to you that you should discard and realizing that it's always part of you and being proud of that as a process of who you are.

So owning all of your parts is,

and not having to walk around with that shame, that to me is what dignity is.

And to me, it's like, you're told that you got to go up, go up the mountain, and there'll be a light that will heal everything.

And what I realized was how long and inefficient realizing that is.

You know, it's like, when my...

I was raised by illiterate women.

And because they were illiterate, they knew how powerful reading was.

It was like sorcery to them, you know, because it's like, we don't know what it is, but we know the world runs with language.

So you have our blessing to go off and figure that out.

I never had a mother that forced me to do this or that.

She said, son, go off and learn what you can.

And if you can't, there's always a seat next to me at the nail salon.

So you go off, you go get your education.

And for me, it was a long, circuitous path.

It took me six years to get my undergraduate.

I went to four institutions, community college, business school, dropped out, what have you.