00:00 - Thank you, Kristen.
00:01 I'm sorry, I'm not Taylor Swift.
00:05 (audience laughing)
00:08 I had to say it, come on.
00:11 Even my daughter would want me to be Taylor Swift right now.
00:14 But anyway, I really wanna say thank you to Time Magazine,
00:19 to Sam Jacobs and Jessica Sibley and Mark
00:24 and Lynn Benioff as well, and all the Time editors
00:28 and reporters and writers.
00:31 You know, I didn't think there was anything cooler
00:33 than making the Time 100 list,
00:36 which I did earlier this year, but here I am.
00:39 And I'm very grateful, so thank you.
00:42 And by the way, that Time 100 party is so (beep) cool.
00:47 It's the best party in town, it is.
00:52 I mean, where else can you rub shoulders
00:54 with an African nun?
00:55 Hey, Sister Rosemary, Nicki Minaj, and a Koch brother,
01:00 all in the same room.
01:01 It's my favorite party of all time.
01:06 In 2016, seven years after I co-founded the EFA,
01:12 the Endometriosis Foundation of America,
01:14 I was recruited by the American Civil Liberties Union.
01:19 And I met a man named Lee Gallant.
01:25 And I had no idea how impactful he would be to my career,
01:30 and actually just to my life.
01:33 Lee's an attorney.
01:35 He's probably the country's foremost expert
01:38 on immigration law.
01:40 And over the next two years,
01:43 under his tutelage and mentorship,
01:45 I received quite an education.
01:48 I read redacted court filings,
01:51 I read interviews of mothers who were separated
01:54 from their kids, I spoke to asylum seekers,
01:58 I read books about refugees all over the world.
02:01 I was there when he argued in front of the Supreme Court,
02:05 and he was there when I crossed our southern border
02:10 in Brownsville, Texas, on foot to Matamoros and Reynosa
02:15 and back in August.
02:17 I saw the crisis unfolding firsthand.
02:19 I witnessed what people will go through
02:23 to enter our country.
02:25 And I just wanna say, I stand before you tonight
02:30 as an immigrant.
02:32 I was raised by a single mom,
02:35 and she enjoyed none of the resources
02:39 I enjoy today as a parent.
02:41 And yet she was able to make a life for us.
02:45 I am still that four-year-old girl
02:49 who boarded a Pan Am flight alone,
02:51 bound from India for Elmhurst, Queens,
02:55 who is here with you all tonight in this sparkly dress.
02:59 And frankly, my journey is living proof
03:03 of the best America there is.
03:06 (audience applauding)
03:10 I'm speaking about Lee Gallant
03:17 because my work with Lee made me pivot
03:20 and pour all that I learned into my professional life.
03:25 Through Creating Taste the Nation,
03:27 I've met the many who build this country every day.
03:32 They give me hope, even in times like today,
03:35 when frankly, it's hard to feel hopeful about our country.
03:38 They aren't media trained,
03:40 and they don't often wear sparkly dresses,
03:43 but they're here standing with me in spirit.
03:49 They honor us with our stories,
03:51 they courageously share their lives,
03:54 they open their homes to me,
03:55 and they bear their hearts for the whole world to see.
03:59 I've heard stories of severe abuse,
04:03 of mothers who've watched their children die of starvation
04:07 in their arms in the jungle,
04:09 of racism as an active force in the daily lives
04:13 of people who are just helpless against it.
04:16 People like Emiliano Morentes of Elemi Restaurant in El Paso
04:21 who spoke to me of how folks embraced his food,
04:24 they loved his tacos,
04:25 but they didn't care about the hands that made that food.
04:29 I'm inspired by the Cambodian refugees
04:32 who came to Lowell, Massachusetts,
04:35 who in one or two generations turned the economy
04:39 of that tawny New England town around.
04:41 And I can show through them
04:45 how immigrants aren't a drain on our economy,
04:48 but rather the engine that fuels it.
04:52 I am deeply, deeply indebted to them
04:54 for helping me prove this point.
04:56 I grew up in immigrant communities on both coasts,
05:00 but through the ACLU,
05:02 I saw how much America meant to so many
05:07 and why it's important to fight
05:11 to sustain that brighter vision of America,
05:14 where anything is possible for everyone.
05:18 Meeting Lee really changed my life.
05:21 He introduced me to Jillian Thomas
05:23 of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project,
05:26 who along with the wonderful Jessica Weitz
05:28 encouraged me to write an op-ed
05:31 about my own story of sexual violence.
05:34 It would be one of the most difficult
05:37 and rewarding things I've ever done.
05:40 They reminded me that I have a voice and a story to share,
05:44 but really, everyone has a compelling story.
05:48 You just have to be willing to listen.
05:51 I've been fortunate enough to have a career
05:53 as a writer in food and television and Time Magazine.
05:57 I thank you so much for this acknowledgement of that career.
06:01 I feel it's a little premature, I have to be honest.
06:04 I'm just getting started now that I've had
06:07 Kristen take over for me in Top Chef.
06:10 But for all my work in those fields,
06:13 I realized that while the analysis of food is interesting
06:18 and it's important, the people that make that food,
06:22 that they're truly fascinating.
06:27 And the participants of Taste the Nation,
06:30 and Top Chef for that matter,
06:32 build a true mosaic of what America looks like today,
06:36 a fuller picture.
06:38 And while our nation is far from perfect,
06:41 full of contradictions and hypocrisies in its policies,
06:46 it can still show the world that, you know,
06:48 a country needn't consist of only people
06:51 from the same ethnicity or religion.
06:54 It can be built with all of us
06:57 who see the best possible America
07:00 and help it lurch forward,
07:03 stumbling often along the way towards a future
07:07 where we will, hopefully, share the same rights
07:11 and all are welcome.
07:14 I thank you so much for this most precious honor.
07:18 Thank you.
07:19 [APPLAUSE]
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