\'We are a nation of immigrants.\'

I've heard live speeaches at RNC and DNC. One chilled to bone and the other warmed to head. Why?

My favorite movie director Filmmaker Steven Spielberg said it all:

"We are a nation of immigrants." "This world is full of monsters. And there’s racism, homophobia, ethnic hatred, class hatred, there’s political hatred, and there’s religious hatred."

"Atrocities are happening right now. And so we wonder not just, ‘When will this hatred end?’ but, ‘How did it begin?’"

"Because there’s no difference between anyone who is discriminated against, whether it’s the Muslims, or the Jews, or minorities on the border states, or the LGBT community -- it is all big one hate."

"But make sure this empathy isn’t just something that you feel. Make it something you act upon. That means vote. Peaceably protest. Speak up for those who can’t and speak up for those who may be shouting but aren’t being hard. Let your conscience shout as loud as it wants if you’re using it in the service of others."

"all of you, turn to someone you don’t know or don’t know very well. They may be standing behind you, or a couple of rows ahead. Just let your eyes meet. That’s it. That emotion you’re feeling is our shared humanity mixed in with a little social discomfort."

Ain't you?

 

!!!!!! Ref. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harvard Commencement Speech: drop-out at CSULB, 37 years to college degree!

 

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg Speech | Harvard Commencement 2016(ZT)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYtoDunfu00

 

Thank you, thank you, President Faust, and Paul Choi, thank you so much.

It’s an honor and a thrill to address this group of distinguished alumni and supportive friends and kvelling parents. We’ve all gathered to share in the joy of this day, so please join me in congratulating Harvard’s Class of 2016.

I can remember my own college graduation, which is easy, since it was only 14 years ago. How many of you took 37 years to graduate? Because, like most of you, I began college in my teens, but sophomore year, I was offered my dream job at Universal Studios, so I dropped out. I told my parents if my movie career didn’t go well, I’d re-enroll.

It went all right.

But eventually, I returned for one big reason. Most people go to college for an education, and some go for their parents, but I went for my kids. I’m the father of seven, and I kept insisting on the importance of going to college, but I hadn’t walked the walk. So, in my fifties, I re-enrolled at Cal State -- Long Beach, and I earned my degree.

I just have to add: It helped that they gave me course credit in paleontology for the work I did on Jurassic Park. That’s three units for Jurassic Park, thank you.

Well I left college because I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and some of you know, too -- but some of you don’t. Or maybe you thought you knew but are now questioning that choice. Maybe you’re sitting there trying to figure out how to tell your parents that you want to be a doctor and not a comedy writer.

Well, what you choose to do next is what we call in the movies the ‘character-defining moment.’ Now, these are moments you’re very familiar with, like in the last Star Wars: The Force Awakens, when Rey realizes the force is with her. Or Indiana Jones choosing mission over fear by jumping over a pile of snakes.

Now in a two-hour movie, you get a handful of character-defining moments, but in real life, you face them every day. Life is one strong, long string of character-defining moments. And I was lucky that at 18 I knew what I exactly wanted to do. But I didn’t know who I was. How could I? And how could any of us? Because for the first 25 years of our lives, we are trained to listen to voices that are not our own. Parents and professors fill our heads with wisdom and information, and then employers and mentors take their place and explain how this world really works.

And usually these voices of authority make sense, but sometimes, doubt starts to creep into our heads and into our hearts. And even when we think, ‘that’s not quite how I see the world,’ it’s kind of easier to just to nod in agreement and go along, and for a while, I let that going along define my character. Because I was repressing my own point of view, because like in that Nilsson song, ‘Everybody was talkin’ at me, so I couldn’t hear the echoes of my mind.’

And at first, the internal voice I needed to listen to was hardly audible, and it was hardly noticeable -- kind of like me in high school. But then I started paying more attention, and my intuition kicked in.

And I want to be clear that your intuition is different from your conscience. They work in tandem, but here’s the distinction: Your conscience shouts, ‘here’s what you should do,’ while your intuition whispers, ‘here’s what you could do.’ Listen to that voice that tells you what you could do. Nothing will define your character more than that.

Because once I turned to my intuition, and I tuned into it, certain projects began to pull me into them, and others, I turned away from.

And up until the 1980s, my movies were mostly, I guess what you could call ‘escapist.’ And I don’t dismiss any of these movies -- not even 1941. Not even that one. And many of these early films reflected the values that I cared deeply about, and I still do. But I was in a celluloid bubble, because I’d cut my education short, my worldview was limited to what I could dream up in my head, not what the world could teach me.

But then I directed The Color Purple. And this one film opened my eyes to experiences that I never could have imagined, and yet were all too real. This story was filled with deep pain and deeper truths, like when Shug Avery says, ‘Everything wants to be loved.’ My gut, which was my intuition, told me that more people needed to meet these characters and experience these truths. And while making that film, I realized that a movie could also be a mission.

I hope all of you find that sense of mission. Don’t turn away from what’s painful. Examine it. Challenge it.

My job is to create a world that lasts two hours. Your job is to create a world that lasts forever. You are the future innovators, motivators, leaders and caretakers.

And the way you create a better future is by studying the past. Jurassic Park writer Michael Crichton, who graduated from both this college and this medical school, liked to quote a favorite professor of his who said that if you didn’t know history, you didn’t know anything. You were a leaf that didn’t know it was part of a tree. So history majors: Good choice, you’re in great shape...Not in the job market, but culturally.

The rest of us have to make a little effort. Social media that we’re inundated and swarmed with is about the here and now. But I’ve been fighting and fighting inside my own family to get all my kids to look behind them, to look at what already has happened. Because to understand who they are is to understand who were were, and who their grandparents were, and then, what this country was like when they emigrated here. We are a nation of immigrants -- at least for now.

So to me, this means we all have to tell our own stories. We have so many stories to tell. Talk to your parents and your grandparents, if you can, and ask them about their stories. And I promise you, like I have promised my kids, you will not be bored.

And that’s why I so often make movies based on real-life events. I look to history not to be didactic, ‘cause that’s just a bonus, but I look because the past is filled with the greatest stories that have ever been told. Heroes and villains are not literary constructs, but they’re at the heart of all history.

And again, this is why it’s so important to listen to your internal whisper. It’s the same one that compelled Abraham Lincoln and Oskar Schindler to make the correct moral choices. In your defining moments, do not let your morals be swayed by convenience or expediency. Sticking to your character requires a lot of courage. And to be courageous, you’re going to need a lot of support.

And if you’re lucky, you have parents like mine. I consider my mom my lucky charm. And when I was 12 years old, my father handed me a movie camera, the tool that allowed me to make sense of this world. And I am so grateful to him for that. And I am grateful that he’s here at Harvard, sitting right down there.

My dad is 99 years old, which means he’s only one year younger than Widener Library. But unlike Widener, he’s had zero cosmetic work. And dad, there’s a lady behind you, also 99, and I’ll introduce you after this is over, okay?

But look, if your family’s not always available, there’s backup. Near the end of It’s a Wonderful Life -- you remember that movie, It’s a Wonderful Life? Clarence the Angel inscribes a book with this: “No man is a failure who has friends.” And I hope you hang on to the friendships you’ve made here at Harvard. And among your friends, I hope you find someone you want to share your life with. I imagine some of you in this yard may be a tad cynical, but I want to be unapologetically sentimental. I spoke about the importance of intuition and how there’s no greater voice to follow. That is, until you meet the love of your life. And this is what happened when I met and married Kate, and that became the greatest character-defining moment of my life.

Love, support, courage, intuition. All of these things are in your hero’s quiver, but still, a hero needs one more thing: A hero needs a villain to vanquish. And you’re all in luck. This world is full of monsters. And there’s racism, homophobia, ethnic hatred, class hatred, there’s political hatred, and there’s religious hatred.

As a kid, I was bullied -- for being Jewish. This was upsetting, but compared to what my parents and grandparents had faced, it felt tame. Because we truly believed that anti-Semitism was fading. And we were wrong. Over the last two years, nearly 20,000 Jews have left Europe to find higher ground. And earlier this year, I was at the Israeli embassy when President Obama stated the sad truth. He said: ‘We must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it.’

My own desire to confront that reality compelled me to start, in 1994, the Shoah Foundation. And since then, we’ve spoken to over 53,000 Holocaust survivors and witnesses in 63 countries and taken all their video testimonies. And we’re now gathering testimonies from genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, Armenia and Nanking. Because we must never forget that the inconceivable doesn’t happen -- it happens frequently. Atrocities are happening right now. And so we wonder not just, ‘When will this hatred end?’ but, ‘How did it begin?’

Now, I don’t have to tell a crowd of Red Sox fans that we are wired for tribalism. But beyond rooting for the home team, tribalism has a much darker side. Instinctively and maybe even genetically, we divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ So the burning question must be: How do all of us together find the ‘we?’ How do we do that? There’s still so much work to be done, and sometimes I feel the work hasn’t even begun. And it’s not just anti-Semitism that’s surging -- Islamophobia’s on the rise, too. Because there’s no difference between anyone who is discriminated against, whether it’s the Muslims, or the Jews, or minorities on the border states, or the LGBT community -- it is all big one hate.

And to me, and, I think, to all of you, the only answer to more hate is more humanity. We gotta repair -- we have to replace fear with curiosity. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ -- we’ll find the ‘we’ by connecting with each other. And by believing that we’re members of the same tribe. And by feeling empathy for every soul -- even Yalies.

My son graduated from Yale, thank you …

But make sure this empathy isn’t just something that you feel. Make it something you act upon. That means vote. Peaceably protest. Speak up for those who can’t and speak up for those who may be shouting but aren’t being hard. Let your conscience shout as loud as it wants if you’re using it in the service of others.

And as an example of action in service of others, you need to look no further than this Hollywood-worthy backdrop of Memorial Church. Its south wall bears the names of Harvard alumni -- like President Faust has already mentioned -- students and faculty members, who gave their lives in World War II. All told, 697 souls, who once tread the ground where stand now, were lost. And at a service in this church in late 1945, Harvard President James Conant -- which President Faust also mentioned -- honored the brave and called upon the community to ‘reflect the radiance of their deeds.’

Seventy years later, this message still holds true. Because their sacrifice is not a debt that can be repaid in a single generation. It must be repaid with every generation. Just as we must never forget the atrocities, we must never forget those who fought for freedom. So as you leave this college and head out into the world, continue please to ‘reflect the radiance of their deeds,’ or as Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan would say, “Earn this.”

And please stay connected. Please never lose eye contact. This may not be a lesson you want to hear from a person who creates media, but we are spending more time looking down at our devices than we are looking in each other’s eyes. So, forgive me, but let’s start right now. Everyone here, please find someone’s eyes to look into. Students, and alumni and you too, President Faust, all of you, turn to someone you don’t know or don’t know very well. They may be standing behind you, or a couple of rows ahead. Just let your eyes meet. That’s it. That emotion you’re feeling is our shared humanity mixed in with a little social discomfort.

But, if you remember nothing else from today, I hope you remember this moment of human connection. And I hope you all had a lot of that over the past four years. Because today you start down the path of becoming the generation on which the next generation stands. And I’ve imagined many possible futures in my films, but you will determine the actual future. And I hope that it’s filled with justice and peace.

And finally, I wish you all a true, Hollywood-style happy ending. I hope you outrun the T. rex, catch the criminal and for your parents’ sake, maybe every now and then, just like E.T.: Go home. Thank you.

———————————————————————————————

Steven Spidelberg

Steven Spielberg is an American director, producer, screenwriter, editor and a father of seven kids. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. In a prolific career spanning more than four decades, Spielberg's films have spanned many themes and genres.

Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films, such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977),  and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking.

In later years, his films began addressing humanistic issues in such films as Empire of the Sun (1987), Schindler's List (1993),  Saving Private Ryan (1998),  Lincoln(2012). (Source: Wikipedia)

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Filmmaker Steven Spielberg on immigrants

　



來源: TJKCB 於 2016-08-05 19:46:28 [檔案] [博客] [轉至博客] [舊帖] [給我悄悄話] 本文已被閱讀：2224 次 (18485 bytes)

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雨塵一說｜莫讓大選撕裂華裔社會

　



來源: judd 於 2016-08-05 18:19:26 [檔案] [博客] [舊帖] [給我悄悄話] 本文已被閱讀：578 次 (16970 bytes)

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本文內容已被 [ judd ] 在 2016-08-05 18:20:21 編輯過。如有問題，請報告版主或論壇管理刪除.



作者：雨塵一說 美華一周



四年前，自己曾參與過美國大選的報道，那時的美國兩黨也是到處拉華裔的選票，當時美華商報上的頭版就是現任美國眾議院議長保羅·瑞安手持美華商報微笑的照片。四年過後，或許是依靠微信的傳播，或許是華裔參與美國政治的意識覺醒，華裔關注美國的大選的程度絕對沒有像現在這樣火熱，讓美國社會再次看到了華裔的能量。




作為華裔美國人投身於美國大選，是好事，但也應該知道，華裔占美國社會總人數的百分之幾，在美國政治力量中的比重更是有限。當我們積極投身於兩黨選舉的大潮中時，可否想到，從總統爭奪旋渦中掙脫出來的時候，這大選是否會撕裂了我們華裔社會？




大選是美國兩黨之間的爭奪，每個黨派的主張各異，每個人站得角度不同，視野不一，也自然會得出不同的結論。我們可以爭辯，但不可以惡語相向，咒語不斷。爭辯之後還是朋友。君子和而不同，而不是同而不和。華裔來到美國，大多經曆各種磨難，有了穩定的生活才參與政治。華裔的人數有限，力量並不強大，不是不談論大選，而是如何談論大選。沒有豁達的心態，沒有相互尊重的心理，大選過後朋友成為敵人，那這選舉還是不參加為好。




單明先生說，我一直呼籲。不同政見不是非敵即友。政見爭論也不是生死相搏。用不到整天硝煙彌漫。對我們草根來說。自己又不去競選，也不是職業站台，最多就是到時候投誰一票的問題，輕輕鬆鬆談論大選。這才是民主政治。




本人評說過奧巴馬政府的作為，同時也認為華裔應該和而不同。“我不同意你的說法，但我誓死捍衛你說話的權利！”據說是伏爾泰的“名言”。是不是伏爾泰所說不重要，重要的是這句話將言論自由絕對化。實際上言論自由在世界各國都是有界線的，這個界線就是法律。




針對大選和國際恐怖主義，華人圈裏討論伊斯蘭教的比較多，伊斯蘭與基督教同屬於亞伯拉罕宗教，同是一神教。然而，伊斯蘭教與基督教和猶太教之間的衝突，卻是所有宗教之間衝突中最大規模的。此衝突延續至今。本人對宗教沒有研究，但是毫無顧忌地談論伊斯蘭教，將伊斯蘭教與恐怖主義直接聯係起來怕是會出現問題。




有一個華人商務中心將一場地出租給穆斯林做禮拜，據該中心的負責人說，在這裏做禮拜的穆斯林很友好，很守規矩。他們屬於美國穆斯林，同樣反對恐怖主義，我們之間也沒有什麽糾紛。所以最好不要憑著想象來亂下結論。美國畢竟是個法治國家，如果亂說那是要負法律責任的。




走得太遠，忘了為什麽出發。在討論這些敏感的宗教問題時，切莫忘記我們的目標是顯示華裔的力量，為了美國的未來，各族裔攜手共同建設一個美好的家園。美國有美國的問題，競選人有競選人的問題，我們也有我們的問題。宗教信仰是每個人的自由，哪一個宗教旗幟下也有違背教義的不法之徒。




此時，又在英國發生砍人事件一死多人受傷。當我們說著“我們和死難者站在一起”的時候，似乎蒼白無力。如何對待極端恐怖分子，其所在國的政府和軍隊會有所作為。我們當然要大聲疾呼。但為一選票去激化華裔與穆斯林社區矛盾？或者請未來的美國總統把他們趕走？




世界任何宗教的存在自然有它存在的道理，任何宗教也解決不了人類社會錯綜複雜的問題，我們隻能求同存異。




我們討論伊斯蘭教義和為選誰當總統而劍拔弩張的時候，還請關注最近華裔謝進文在法拉盛因撞車，而被歹徒打得頭殼骨裂腦部出血死亡的事件。昨日，紐約眾議員Ron Kim在老年中心就謝的身亡發表演講，譴責對謝的暴力，呼籲執法機構嚴懲凶手。國會議員孟昭文也參與出席。類似這樣與華裔生死攸關的事件也是接二連三，此時，我們應該站在一起。




誰當選總統，鹿死誰手，當然是包括我們在內的美國人民投票選了算數。當我們對新總統寄予無限希望的時候要想到，無論誰當總統，大多不會實現自己所有的諾言，美國無論前進還是後退，生活總要繼續，這就是現實。




在評說極端分子的時候，自己思維不要走極端，福兮禍所伏，禍兮福所倚，天塌不下來。應該考慮的是，自已喜歡的候選人若落選，自己咋辦？ 選舉後，朋友成為敵人，生活就此終止？華裔本來占美國人口總數2%的力量減少為1%？



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? 同意觀點。但現實生活中左左喜歡不斷挑釁。沉默的大多數一般就是沉默。 -joytiggers- ♀ 給 joytiggers 發送悄悄話 joytiggers 的個人群組 (0 bytes) (9 reads) 08/05/2016 postreply 18:24:39

? 幾乎都同意； 僅一點不同意 -SwiperTheFox- ♂ 給 SwiperTheFox 發送悄悄話 SwiperTheFox 的博客首頁 SwiperTheFox 的個人群組 (469 bytes) (67 reads) 08/05/2016 postreply 18:42:43

? 對。獨立思考追求自己真切所信的。 -sisbio- ♀ 給 sisbio 發送悄悄話 sisbio 的個人群組 (0 bytes) (0 reads) 08/05/2016 postreply 18:43:56

? 道不同有爭論導致反目也是可以理解。最好不要輕易表露自己的政治觀點。 -oldpp- ♂ 給 oldpp 發送悄悄話 oldpp 的博客首頁 oldpp 的個人群組 (0 bytes) (0 reads) 08/05/2016 postreply 19:25:09