LITrupCIÓN | Nélida López-Fernández | TEDxYouth@FranklinSchoolOfInnovation
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ67KYWUJQI Video ID: vQ67KYWUJQI ============================================================ [Applause] foreign I love the term disruption I love doing it on the daily mostly with color like I've noticed that sometimes people are intimidated by color especially in Asheville so I like to dress like a cockatoo all right so lit eruption was not just like a random thing that I came up with it's in it's all dissected here so lit is an adjective or slang for excellent but if you use it too much then it's not good um rub is the Latin root word to burst and xiong is foreign an action and a result and that is the point of disruption correct and lit eruption is for me exciting burst of Axion so an exciting burst of action now I am going to preface this whole thing by letting you know that I am not a scientist by any way shape or form as my husband reminded me before I left because I was having a hard time remembering the parts of the brain and he was like babe what's wrong with you so neuroplasticity it's a big word yesterday I fumbled on it neuroplasticity means that your brain encounters something that isn't right like I walked out here like yeah and your brain kind of went like huh does not compute not what I expected and then it does this magical thing where it goes and it creates a new pathway it molds IQ is not fixed when we were kids we were told hey you're a number nobody's just a number but your number and this is your number and this is your number for the rest of your life neuroplasticity has proven that that's not the case IQs can grow brains can grow people can change we've seen it happen once or twice so we know that it can happen this was my intimidating chart right so these are all representative of things that the brain does that I can't remember the parts of but I do know that the bilingual brain is is healthier salary it's amazing to work in two languages it's incredibly traumatic and frustrating as a child and you're the translator but it's a wonderful thing that your brain does it's healing trauma as it's learning a new language so Duolingo got it right I used to criticize that all the time that in grammarly and then I opened it and I was like Wow nobody has to do anything anymore these are the parts of the brain that handle Advanced speech and processing and when you are bilingual you live in two languages your brain does all of these things that other people's brains do but better and faster and harder you remember that song Better Faster harder stronger my son loves that song all right and now we get to the fun part that was the sciency part right so bilingual brain this is my family the Fernandez Family Circus I like to call it I used to have The Adams Family ringer on my phone and my grandmother heard it one day and she was not happy but they emigrated from Cuba after Castro I'm actually wearing her dress it was very hard to get into and there's pieces of it that are split but it was made in 1952 by my great-grandmother Ophelia so my family didn't want to leave Cuba they were having the time of their life they were the top one percent right and they're like oh my God they took everything away now we gotta go no that's not true that's oversimplifying it you know there's a lot of trauma but my grandmother took this dress out of Cuba and in the scene sewed in rings and jewelry and you know anything that she could take out and pray that they wouldn't find it when she went through Alanis to help the family survive it did a lot like resilience is this word that everybody throws out there like oh you're so resilient and you're like no resilient it's just a ton of trauma that you've gone through and you're still standing right it's it's a positive connotation on a word but it really messes with your brain all these Pathways you know it's not like you're creating a new neural path but all this drama that they were going through they were learning a new language a new culture a new everything and they didn't know it but their brain was healing itself and that's the crazy part like that's the biology of it not a scientist but it's the truth you get disrupted you get lit erupted and then you stop and think and you create a new pathway and it's an amazing thing it's an amazing invention so there it says loose antes de carbon and I thought that that was perfect for I should probably explain what that means light before carbon becomes a diamond not a great translation it's a Jose Marti poem and every it says everything that is light before light and in Spanish it sounds way sassier I just weigh sexier it's like a beautiful thing until before light it's carbon yeah it's just not right but they were constantly in change in flux moving here moving there new language new place they finally settled in Puerto Rico because my grandmother couldn't hack it in New York she was like I can't I can't do this it's too cold and nobody speaks Spanish so this is my dad's side of the family there's my Theo Javier not Pablo Escobar that's me and then that's my grandma Nana she passed away when I was 25 and talk about disruption like that was awful she was really funny and she'd been through a lot my grandfather died when I'm actually wearing him here one of the few pictures I have of him when he was like 45 from lung cancer and everybody in my family still smokes remember we went back to the brain this is the bilingual Spanish in English and monolingual this is my brain and this is everybody's brain except this lovely gentleman and lady at the front row unless somebody else speaks another language it can be anything but look at the brain like I'm not a scientist those red things are good and I have more red things than you do way more they're just like shooting off right now going Nelly what are you doing why are you trying to make these people laugh because laughing is also a disruption laughing is good for you right okay so all the disruption all the trauma all the moving all the things that made my brain as a child go like oh and I never thought it would get better I never thought anything of it other than that was like my daily struggle translate go work at the store go back to school translate for my grandparents my husband works at Franklin Mr Lou Who is the chillest person on Earth for those of you that know him I really am married to him we've been look there's the proof look how young we were we were 30 and then the next day we went to China again we were there for three years total tons of Adventures you'd never think it right and then his family his dad left fled Mao because his mom was a second wife and had to leave during uh when Mal got there it was he was the landowner's like okay you got to go or we're gonna kill you you know or starve you so they moved to Taiwan and then Japan so his family history is also like this trauma new language learn the language and then you get older and you read a book and you're like oh my God learning that language undergoing all that trauma I think it canceled it all out and why am I still so mad right like that constant why am I here why are we here why I think I'm here is my family I love my family that's something that I love about the Cuban culture it's not a tu and a yo it's a Nosotros but we end up like coming together in this new country in a new language living outside of your language is hard living outside of your Customs is hard when I first got to Asheville I used to kiss everybody on the cheek because that's how we do in Miami and so one guy was like are you hitting on me and I was like ew no you did not go over well but it's all these little things like at work I constantly have this thing where I'm talking and I'm moving and I'm trying to control my body and create a new pathway in my brain to be repressed because that seems to be the norm most of the time it's like just sit there and pretend like you like it or the word that I like to use is uh compromise I hate that word I want my way but I'm sitting there and one time I thought I was doing a really good job and my friend looked at me she's like what are you doing and I'm like trying to hold it in like my excitement she's like you look like you're having a seizure learning a new language learning a new culture it your brain heals while you're on it but sometimes the healing can't catch up to the trauma so it's important to remember that especially in underrepresented global majorities where we need a lot of kindness and empathy and a little lit ruption some excitement and action to take place and now going back to the brain see I brought it all back it's a giant Circle more like a loop we built this culture of oh God I'm gonna use the word resilience And Eruption and like just constant trauma and healing trauma and healing trauma and healing you never know which is which but yet we're all still here and the Us and Them is gone and now tu plus yo even though mine is prettier because I like color you and I and it's also Tuyo you guys know what that word means yours right so thank you foreign