Good afternoon, everybody.
Raise your hand if your mom ever told
you don't talk to strangers.
Yeah, my mom-- that's what my mom used to tell me.
So my story today might make you question that piece of advice,
and it also might make you question my first year
self's decision making, but that's beside the point.
So my first year, I woke up one morning.
It was spring in March, and it was rainy and cold
outside but I was excited.
And I was excited because that day was
the first day of the primaries.
Now, I know everybody in here is probably fed up with politics,
but it really didn't have anything
to do with politics for me.
For me, it was the day that I would
be able to cast my first ballot in the United States
or anywhere, for that matter.
And for many people, that may be a given.
But for me, it was a milestone in what
was a long and personal process because,
as any immigrant knows, the process of becoming an American
or just coming to love this country is not a given.
It's something that takes a lot of investments
and personal time.
And for me, it was just something that I wanted to do.
And I was really looking forward to it.
So I got up, I took a quick shower,
and I hopped on the route seven bus.
And this was my plan for the day--
I had a broken phone in my pocket.
That's a different story.
I'm not going to tell you how that happened,
but I had a broken phone in my pocket.
I had to go to Batteries Plus to get it fixed,
and then somehow I was going to get to the elementary school
where I was going to go vote in the primary.
And so I hop on the bus, I get on, I go to Batteries Plus.
I had my first obstacle.
It's not open for another hour and a half.
So OK, that's OK.
Plan B, go to the Cavalier Diner and enjoy
some pancakes and eggs, like any American would, I guess.
And I'm sitting there, I have my first plate of pancakes.
It was good.
And I start getting bored, so I order some French toast
with blueberries.
Maybe that will make me feel better.
And I finish that, as well, and I just
start drinking coffee at that point.
I just-- I don't have anything else to do.
And this gentleman walks through the door, and he's elderly,
well-dressed and he instantly catches my attention because he
says--
he greets the server by name and he just sits down at a table.
The table next to me, in fact.
And the server brings him his coffee,
brings him his breakfast, but he did not even place an order.
He's clearly the man of the house here.
So I don't know if it was the boredom, or the coffee buzz,
or a combination of the two, but I strike up
a conversation with him.
I say, hey, how are you doing?
And I notice he has a sticker on his lapel.
It's the I voted sticker.
And I say, you know what?
I love your sticker.
And we get into a long conversation.
Thank god, because I had to pass some time.
And his name is Will.
He was a resident of Charlottesville
and had been for a very long time.
Actually he had been here since he
finished his time in the Korean War
and moved here with his wife.
And after his wife had passed away,
he started playing piano at the local retirement home
and that's where he was coming from that morning.
And I got to share a little bit with him about who I was
and why-- where I was going and why I was alone in this diner.
And after a while, I'd look at the clock
and I see, OK, Batteries Plus, it's open.
I could finally go.
And so I get up, but the server, she was distracted.
She was tending to other people.
And he says, no, you can go get your phone fixed.
You can just leave your things here, I'll watch them.
That's fine.
I say, OK.
And I leave.
After not really thinking, I leave my backpack there
and, keep in mind, my homework is
there, the ones that I spend five hours on the day before,
my laptop, everything.
And I walk out of the restaurant,
and as I hand my phone to the Batteries Plus attendant,
it starts to hit me.
I just left a backpack there with a complete stranger.
And I have to say, a lot of you are looking at me
like my mom looked at me when I first told her this story.
But I walk back, and I notice something is missing.
And it's not the backpack, and it's not Will.
Will is still there.
It's the check on the table.
It's taken care of.
He says, young man, you have--
you're a great person.
I really enjoyed meeting you today.
I said, thank you very much.
I was really taken aback.
He says, how are you getting to the middle school
where you're going to vote?
And I didn't have an answer.
My plan was to find a bus, figure it out, maybe
catch an Uber.
But then I look at my phone and, of course,
there's no Uber app on there.
And he says, hey, maybe I can take you.
I can just drive you there.
And so at this point, I just think, OK, that's what I'll do.
So I hop in this fossil of a car,
and it takes like three tries to get it started.
And we get there, and--
we get in the car and we drive there.
It takes about 15 minutes.
You know, I finally--
like, this is it, you know?
This is the moment that I've been waiting for,
the reason I woke up at 6:00 AM.
And I get at the school and I find out I can't vote.
I had not registered.
[LAUGHTER]
I didn't even know you were supposed to register.
And yeah, it was a good time.
And I tell Will this, and he just shakes his head.
And he says, OK, well, do you want
me to drive you back to school?
And I say, sure.
And so as we're going back, he starts
pointing out these buildings.
Like, at UVA, and they're only ones like, you know,
Thornton Hall, the physics building, the rotunda,
and there's all these other ones that he doesn't recognize.
And this is when I start to think
about how old this man is.
[LAUGHTER]
Turns out, he actually went to school here.
So thank God for the honor code.
And ultimately, I get dropped off at Bonnie Castle,
and one of my roommates walks by and he sees me getting out
of this random car, and he asked me, what was that all about?
And I just told him, forget about it.
And I don't think I told anybody this story, really.
My roommate at the time, and my mom,
she was not happy when I told her this.
Yeah, I didn't tell anybody.
I just held onto it.
And I and I sat in my room later that evening
and I reflected on this man and how great of a figure
he had been that morning.
And only recently-- throughout my time here
I have drawn on that memory.
I thought about it in the elections
later that year, amongst that cloud of political anger
that I think affected everybody's lives.
It impacted me and I thought about that moment.
I thought about it last August.
I remember sitting at home thinking about how this could
possibly happen, but then I thought about Will
and it gave me a little bit of hope.
And I thought about it this week when I found out
that there had been some disparaging comments made
after the Hispanic community had put out a letter in response
to the Ours to Shape campaign.
And I also have thought about it now,
I think about it now as I think about all the memories
that I've made and the things that I want to treasure
after these four years.
And to me, it means a lot and I can only
thank you for letting me share the story today.
[APPLAUSE]