LACHI: Every day, I'd see successful people showing off their stuff and speaking their mind, and I so wanted that.

NATALIE LIMOGES: And that was the first time in a long time that someone looked at me as an individual, saw my potential, and believed in me and gave me an opportunity.

REBECCA DENG: And I heard the same sound... (imitating heartbeat from ultrasound) I was pregnant.

THERESA OKOKON: Tonight's theme is "Extraordinary Women."

♪ ♪ We all have the capacity to make a change in our own lives, in our communities, and in the whole world, because we all have the capacity to be extraordinary ourselves.

Tonight's storytellers are bringing their stories of the moments when they broke through barriers, when they defied expectations, and when they proved the naysayers wrong.

♪ ♪ LACHI: My name is Lachi, she/her.

I'm a Black woman with cornrows.

I identify as blind.

I'm a recording artist and songwriter from the greatest city in the world, New York City.

I am also a disability culture and inclusion advocate, and I run an organization called RAMPD.

And can you say a bit more about your work as an advocate for inclusion in the music industry?

When we talk about disability inclusion, I like to take it to the next level of talking about disability culture.

And disability culture is kind of the celebration that we come in different minds and bodies, and that sort of colors the art that we create, and should be celebrated.

Where do you think you've found or like, where do you derive the confidence to tell your story and to be yourself authentically?

It wasn't easy... ...to find my disability identity, but what ended up happening for me was in the music industry, I was tripping over wires, or missing a handshake or wave that would cost me, like, a record deal.

I just knew of myself that I had to do something, and turn it around, so that I could start asking for the accommodations to allow me to compete at these... ...big rooms I'm getting into.

♪ ♪ I never really had an attitude.

I knew getting one was bad.

Growing up, I'd hear things like, "He's got a bad attitude," or, "Watch your 'tude, bro."

(audience chuckling) But as a shy, quiet daughter of immigrants, a legally blind girl growing up in one-horse town suburbia, I was taught early... ...head down, work hard, smiles up.

So frankly, I never really had time to develop a 'tude, let alone have a bad one.

But I knew what an attitude was, right?

Every day I'd watch the TV, listen to the radio, and see successful people showing off their stuff and speaking their mind with big, huge attitudes, and I so wanted that.

I wanted to show off my budding skills as a clever, quippy singer, as a sassy writer, as a closet comedienne... (audience laughter) ...pushing big agendas with my big, huge attitude.

But, when I told my immigrant dad that I wanted to be a musician or a comedienne, he said it's actually pronounced "doc-tor."

(laughter) I can't blame my parents for wanting the straight and narrow for me, though.

I am Black, so I wore straight wigs, and kept my head down.

I am a woman, so I wore bright, positive smiles and kept my opinions to myself.

And I'm legally blind, low vision.

So, while I ought to have been using a cane, I didn't.

I made do.

All so that I could be who I was supposed to be in order to be successful in America.

After college, I snagged this great job at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Manhattan, and even though I kept my head as far down in my hidey-hole as I possibly could, people kept reacting to this thing called "attitude" that I didn't know that I had.

Exhibit A: So I'm working on a project with a young Caucasian male worker beside me, and he's reading doc info to me as I type.

Now, this guy is dance club grade loud in our library quiet office.

(laughter) And so I'm trying to say things like, (whispering): "Okay, next?"

And quiet, loud, this guy's just not getting it.

So, next thing I know, a senior Caucasian male comes swatting in and starts yelling at me for how loud "Loud Guy" is being.

And I stay silent.

Like, I'm shocked to my core in fear, confusion, and frustration.

But after a while, like, I think about how ridiculous this guy's outburst is.

So I send him an email, and I'm like, "Look, I know you're older and more senior, "but that outburst earlier was, just like, not cool.

Winky smile."

(laughter) I get called into HR... for writing an ageist email.

And they make me write an official apology... ...to the White guy that yelled at me in front of everybody for not speaking up to the other White guy?

Like... (inhales) So, I wrote the apology, and I put my head down, and my smile back up.

But that was when the drinking started.

I remember, actually, one night during a binge, looking in the mirror, and bursting into tears for no reason.

I remember taking off my straight wig and not recognizing who I was looking at.

Like, was that me?

Where was that clever, quippy singer I once was?

So Exhibit B: I am now a nightly drinker, daily edibles for smiles up, and...

I stayed late, well past my clock out, one evening.

I remember my supervisor stayed late with me, (chuckling): supervising me, quite literally over my shoulder.

And I remember thinking, "Aren't you, like, a weekend warrior?

Like, don't you have practice or something?"

But when I was done, what I did say was, "All done, sir.

Signed, sealed, delivered."

And he looked at me, stood there, and in all seriousness, said, "Are you getting an attitude with me?"

I sat there slack-jawed.

All I could say was, "No, sir."

But you know what?

I learned something right then and there.

I learned what an attitude really was.

I learned that it didn't matter if I put my head down.

It didn't matter if I kept my smiles up.

I wasn't the problem.

It was the amorphous ism.

It was the racism, the sexism, the ableism, the everything-that-I-am-ism, that was the problem.

That night, I go home, I don't drink, I don't smoke.

In fact, a sense of Zen sort of washes over me as I recognize my circumstance; that I am not the problem.

So the next day, I'm actually called into the office, my supervisor's boss parades me in front of all the managers, and says that, "Someone didn't like a look I gave them."

#I'mBlind.

(laughter) And that my supervisor, uh, had issues with my attitude.

And you know what?

When she was done reprimanding me, she ended it with, "Oh, and by the way, your bra's showing."

So I took it all on the chin, I went back to my desk, sat down, and after three years of service, I turned in my resignation.

Zen.

I am not allowed to speak at my final gathering, in fact, there is very little fanfare.

I will later learn that my experience as a Black woman in that office is not isolated.

But you know what?

As the doors revolve behind me, as I walk out with my head held high, I am flooded with a new internal sense of ideals.

I'm hopeful.

I'm free.

(soft chuckle) I am who I'm supposed to be, and I will never again put my head down.

I will wear my Black hair out with pride.

I will traverse the streets with my mobility cane.

And I will never again apologize for standing up for what's right.

And you know what?

I will chase that career being a clever, quippy singer, being a sassy writer, and being a bold personality, pushing big, huge agendas with my big, huge attitude.

(audience laughter) Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ LIMOGES: I am Natalie Limoges.

I am a pediatric neurosurgeon and I'm here visiting from Palo Alto, California.

What role does storytelling play in your medical practice?

After such a long road of training, it was a way for me to pause, and kind of look around and see what had happened, and what I had accomplished, and how I can use that to relate to other people.

Can you tell me a little bit about the first time that you told a personal story, like, in front of an audience?

It was for a neurosurgery conference in San Francisco, and it was empowering, it made me feel like, hopefully, I was able to communicate some humanism back into our profession.

And also, remind my colleagues that, you know, our patients are people who have all of these experiences, and to pause and step back before we judge others.

♪ ♪ I'm 18 years old, and for the first and only time in my life, I couldn't physically speak.

I was a sophomore in college, I'd graduated high school early, I was back visiting my parents for the weekend, and I had something to tell them: I'm pregnant.

I'm smart.

I'm careful.

Dad's not in the picture.

How could this be happening to me?

And when I tried to tell my parents over the course of several days, I just couldn't get the words out.

I finally separated them, and told them individually, which was a bit easier.

And when I told my mom, she started rattling off a plan, and I just shut down.

When I told my dad... ...he was silent, and he just looked at me, and his face had this expression of profound grief.

He knew what this meant for my future.

He has three sisters, all of whom had teenage unplanned pregnancies, probably to escape their dysfunctional home.

And now he's looking at his daughter, who's independent and stubborn, intelligent, pre-med; she's pregnant.

He didn't say anything.

He got up and walked away.

I'm 19 years old now, staring in the incubator of my 25-week premature daughter.

I had spent the last couple of months homeless, living in my car in between friends' couches, trying to not overstay my welcome anywhere.

I had spent the first part of my pregnancy just in emotional turmoil about what to do about it.

Do I keep her because I love her?

Do I give her up for adoption because she deserves to not be with a kid, but with a stable, loving, two-parent home?

And when I finally settled on adoption, my parents asked me to leave.

My mom told me that I was selfish, that she would just take the baby, and I could have it back when I decided that I wanted it.

And my dad told me that it was too hard to look at me and my growing belly, knowing that I was giving away his granddaughter.

So I left.

And under all of this stress, and working full-time, and staying in school, I went into preterm labor.

And before I had the adoption set up, my daughter was born.

And now I have this tiny, really sick baby in front of me, and she needs a mom, and she needs one right now, and here I am, so she decided to be mine; she's my baby.

We spent four months in the NICU together.

Usually, I was there 12 hours a day, getting a lot of looks from a lot of people.

And one day, one of her neonatologists stopped after his rounds and said, "Hey, who are you?

"Tell me about your life.

What do you want to do?"

I told him I'm in college, pre-med.

I want to be a doctor, probably a pediatrician.

And after that conversation, he offered me a research assistant position in his lab.

And that was the first time in a long time that someone looked at me as an individual, and saw my potential and believed in me, and gave me an opportunity.

When she was discharged from the hospital, we went home to my parents' house, and it took me a really long time to reconcile the hurt of having so quickly been thrown out, and then welcomed back when they got their way.

But I pushed away my hurt to the side for the sake of the relationship that they have with my daughter, and my daughter and her grandparents truly have the most beautiful relationship and love, and over the years, I've grown to forgive them.

I'm 21 years old, I'm in the grocery store with my toddler, carefully calculating how much everything costs.

Going through the checkout line, a woman looks at me and says, "I hope you're the nanny."

Then she looks at my food stamps card, and says, "Of course you aren't.

You're just another leech on society."

(audience groans) And in that moment, I felt so ashamed and so small, and totally speechless.

And she's not the first person that's made comments like that to me.

She wouldn't be the last.

And a lot of looks that communicate those same things have happened to me over the years, and I've remembered how each one of those have felt.

Later that afternoon, my daughter had her well-child visit at her pediatrician's office.

He had been my pediatrician, too, growing up.

And the receptionist tells me, "I don't think that you're going to be able to be seen today.

You have an outstanding bill of almost $3,000."

It was the cost of her care that wasn't covered by Medicaid.

And I just look back thinking, how am I going to do this?

The doctor comes out, pulls us into an exam room, and says, "You're not going to pay that bill.

You can pay me back when you're a doctor."

(audience chuckling quietly) And he let me shadow him, he wrote me a letter of recommendation for medical school.

When I was in medical school, I spent my month of pediatrics with him, and he took me to spina bifida clinic and introduced me to the field of pediatric neurosurgery.

He never let me pay him back... ...and he unfortunately passed away before I could force him to let me.

(soft chuckle) A lot of years went by, I got married, my daughter did end up getting adopted by my wonderful husband.

(giggles) (applause) My mother knew that I wanted to be a neurosurgeon, but unfortunately passed away from breast cancer before she saw the match.

I've had a lot more hurdles, and a lot more helpers, and then I was 31 years old, and I was going back into that same NICU over a decade later.

But this time, wearing a surgical cap, hospital-issued scrubs, as a senior neurosurgery resident, consulted on those tiny babies.

And the NICU was the same, and the babies were the same, and there were even some nurses there that recognized me.

And it was so gratifying to go back to a place that I had felt so judged and show them that I had succeeded.

I'm 34 years old.

I'm at my neurosurgery residency graduation, and I'm looking at my husband, and my 15-year-old daughter holding her newborn baby brother, and my dad.

And my dad is speechless again, but this time, because his really, really, really stubborn, (chuckling): intelligent daughter became the first person in the family to graduate from college, and then went on to medical school, and became a neurosurgeon.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ DENG: My name is Rebecca Deng.

I am South Sudanese, originally.

I came to the U.S. as a part of the Lost Boys and Lost Girls of Sudan.

There were about 3,400 boys that came, and then, only 89 girls.

And you wrote a book about your experience called, What They Meant for Evil, is that right?

Correct, yeah.

So much attention has been paid to the Lost Boys of Sudan, and the Lost Girls have gone largely, kind of, unknown.

So why is it important for you to share that story of your experience?

DENG: Um, when we first arrived, most of the girls were younger.

So we were not in the media and the boys were.

You know, a lot of people come and interview the boys and not the girls.

I wanted to highlight that what the boys have been through: the suffering, being displaced as young children, some of the girl went through that, and even beyond.

So the story that you're telling tonight is one of the stories from your book.

What do you want the audience to take away from that story tonight?

In life, people are always going to run into obstacle, and those obstacle can be overcome, but if you have a community around you, um, it become easier.

♪ ♪ I remember the day I arrived at the airport in Michigan.

I was a 15-year-old from Sudan.

As I walked through the luggage area, there was this bright light everywhere, and I was like, "Wow, this is fascinating."

Because in Kakuma Refugee Camp, where I grew up, there was no electricity.

And as I look beyond the light, there were this sea of White people.

(laughter) And they all were blonde and blue eyes, it appeared.

But even in Europe, where we had layover, I saw many different races.

But in Grand Rapids, Michigan... (laughter) there was no Black person but me and five other refugee children I was traveling with.

The media named us the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan because we had all lost our parent in the war or they disappeared.

I met my foster parent and we speak different languages.

I only knew few words in English like, "Hello, how are you?

Boy, girl, cup water."

I was a little bit relieved when I learned that my foster parent had worked in Kenya and can say few praises in Swahili, like... (speaking Swahili) Which mean, "Hello, how are you doing?"

(laughter) The first few weeks in United States I was overwhelm by everything: the language, the culture, the food, even new smell.

From choices of soap at the grocery store to seafood.

(audience chuckling) I never live in a place where you don't see sun for month and month.

(laughter) One day, my foster mom is trying to tell me something I did not understand.

She took my hand, put it in her belly, and I felt the baby moving.

And I was like, "Oh, you are pregnant."

I can tell that she's a little bit relieved because, um, I'm new in her house and she didn't know how to tell me.

But in my culture, where I came from, the more sibling, the better.

Eventually, she invited me to go to the doctor appointment with her.

She told me that I will see the baby.

And I was like, "What are you talking about?

"Are you crazy?

"You cannot, you cannot see unborn baby.

Is she going to labor?"

At the appointment, the doctor let her lay down, and she put something jelly in her belly, and took something that looked like a magic wand that is connected to computer, and move it in her belly.

And we heard this sound.

(imitating heartbeat from ultrasound) And something moving.

It was fascinating.

I was like, "Wow, it's a baby, I'm going to be a sister."

When the doctor was finished, she told the doctor, "I'm a little bit concerned about Rebecca."

I had told her that since I arrive, I had missed my period um, for several months, and she dismiss it.

She told me that it's because of weather change and diet.

You're only 15.

The doctor looked at me, touched my belly, asked me to lay down, just like my foster mom.

And she took the same magic wand, and moved it in my belly, and I heard the same sound.

(imitating heartbeat from ultrasound) I was pregnant.

I was shocked.

My foster mom was shocked.

Everyone in the room was shocked.

In a refugee camp where I was growing up, I had a boyfriend, but we were never intimate.

We didn't even kiss.

We just write love letters like, "I will love you to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.

I will love you till the River Nile is dried up."

And also, as a refugee girl, I didn't attend school regularly, so I never had a sex education.

I knew at 15 and 16 a man and a woman can make a baby, but I thought that when they were married, and I was not married.

But few days before I left the refugee camp, I was raped.

And I didn't know that you can be pregnant that way.

And so, I was thinking like, "Wow, is this it?"

And, I was never touched by a man before, so it didn't all make sense.

So my foster mom had her son in March, and I had my daughter, Cholie, in July.

I think I was in labor for, like, 24 hours.

It was super long... (laughter) ...and tiring at 15.

But once I heard her first cry, and saw her beautiful face, I fall in love with her.

In my culture, when you become a parent, it is your first responsibility.

So I imagined myself dropping out of high school and raising my daughter, but my foster mom and case worker encouraged me to continue my education.

They told me that, "You might have a child, but you are a child."

So, each morning, I will get up early, pump before I go to high school, and then come home during lunch, feed the baby quickly, and then go back.

And then after school, I come back, and I play with my child while I do my homework.

It was the most brilliant thing of my life.

And so, when I look back into my life, when I first arrived in United State, I did not know what to expect, but my daughter Choli grounded me.

I don't know if I would have worked so hard in the school to go on to college and graduate school.

I have enjoyed watching the woman she is becoming today, and she blessed me.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪