Ocean Vuong

But you go off and then you tell yourself, and I think this is particularly true of the immigrant and the refugee, but I think it's true for all children of the working poor.

You tell yourself, I'm going to go into that institution, and I'm going to figure it out, and I'm going to come back and give this thing that was locked away inside the university libraries.

I'm going to give it to my family, and then we're going to find out why we're here and what happened to us.

So it's kind of this mining.

And you realize that knowledge is so inefficient and it takes so long.

Meanwhile, destruction is so efficient.

You know, our social services are gutted overnight.

by the stroke of a pen.

Entire city blocks could be blown apart by weapons.

It will take decades to heal and repair them.

Destruction is so darn efficient.

I think human beings, one of our worst inventions was that we have found the way in the 20th century to make instant ruins.

You know, before that, ruins took thousands of years to create.

But now we can make ruins instantly.

And we are still living in the aftermath of that.

And I think that's also a metaphor for reparative learning, which is what so much of class, being a class outsider is, right?

You're brought up with so much shame.

Shame is so perennial for so much of American life.

It's very much true for the poor.

I remember, you know...