Land on the different issues of the day, what is coming to the floor is the ways we talk to one another, the ways in which we listen. You have written a fantastic book with understanding and hearing other peoples stories and ways they are heard and ways you listen to them. Lets jimp in and ask you, what led you to this book . What is this book . Tell us the background of it. Your assessment is right. I worry a great deal about that we dont converse anymore. We have lost that as an art of conversation. We have become divisive. The rhetoric on both sides takes over the conversation. This is about human beings, an ethical issue. For me it started many years ago in childhood, t 20when i ma eastern chad and refugee camps right when they were coming over. In those camps i would say is when i started listening to refugee stories and i heard the best of humanity and i heard about the worst, what happened to people. I made many subsequent trips. Then many years later, in looking at this world were living in, i said i wanted to do something we often forget there are real people involved and that is what led to this book. So you use this wonderful term real people. As youre talking, it a curse to me that listening and hearing has more to do with just the words that you hear. It has to do with the person in front of you and how you read them, listen to them and take in their entire being. Talk about what that was like to you and stimulating to understanding and hearing stories as opposed to reading an article about something. What is it about being with another human being about listening and hearing . I love being with people and technology is great, but there is nothing like being with another person because there is so much more than the words. Any of the work i have done or any work on the book i did, throughout the years i tried to be fully present so that for my book, i taped all those interviews because i didnt want to be preoccupied with writing down things. I cant read my own writing anyway so to be fully present to me and it is really bearing witness to another persons life. I view it as a privilege. When people share their story with you, the most difficult time; when they got some hopes when they got a break and someone was there for them. It is going out of yourself into their story and not framing it in ones words, but letting them, let it pour out and take it in. So shall we jump in . Is there is a little bit of a section of someones story you would like to tell us . Yes. That would be great. All these 11 people are incredible but a woman who lives in houston now. She is iraqi, de di which is a religion not many people know about but worth listening about and she talks about living in iraq at the time of hussein and what i have done, i highlight their words because it is their stories. Im just the conduit for telling those stores ris. We all lived in fear of hussein and what he might do at any time. He kept the ire rack ky people isolated from the word. Any dissented was killed. What hit about that line, one can read that line and go on, but in this country we cant dissent im democracies around the world but around the world dissenting is being killed. We have that, too, an exception not the rule but in iraq, that was the rule. Then she talks about moves me. Her grandfather talked about the value of education and the value of stories so when i reached high school, my father and grand father thought it was time i start reading books. I had three or four books in english. This was in high school. The first i read was gone with the wind and i read it again in arabic because i worried i might miss something. Then i read love and the time of cole lara by marquez. I read that over four times. She said about marquez, marquez transformed me from the reality of my daily life in the village of ba she ca and she says i wanted to learn everything. I wanted to educate myself abouwestn rland i studied the arts and movies. Then she said the following to me. She said, by doing all this reading and by learning, my friends called me the imaginary girl because i was always telling them stories of other cultures and heroes and these stories transformed me. Wow were going to fake a quick break. Please join us in just a moment back here on mosaic. Good morningment welcome back to mosaic. Im rabbi eric weiss. Were in the mid of a wonderful conversation with lee bycel. He wrote a book and in their own words. Welcome back. Thank you eric. I want to ask you to read another snippet of a story, but you talked about an iraqi woman who isidore di. That is a new word for some. Explain. We have little fam mill year ty. It is a religion and mono thee yis stick and they believe in the sun as a source of life and servon a weekly babut to they have n way intreat people. They are very into, they really value human interaction, respect and dignity and all that. Back in 2014 they were trapped and we did bomb. There were 40,000 or 50,000 and we bombed at the bottom and many were able to escape but they continue to be persecuted in iraq. I think they are a branch of euro astro yen . Yes. Another story. The oldest person is a holocaust survivor and each person, everyone of the 11 people are from different countries, different times and different ages. Sadonia, unbelievable story. The themes of resilience, courage, hope but this one part really gets to me. This woman is fierce. She spent decades in schools talking about the haul low cause and type o teaching people, but she was scared when she lived in a bunker underground in the warsaw ghetto. She would sneak out when she could. She was a young teenager. She shares the following, sodonia. At that time i was eating from trash cans leftovers. There i was a teenager with novi ta minutes whatsoever for years now. My father heard that somebody somewhere illegally had some apples for sale. He wanted to get an apple for me in the worst way. He never came back. All i know is that i lost my father because of an everytimi remeer him. So here is a person who takes an experience like that and she is an optimist about life and deeply aware of Current Events and involved in the Current Situation but rather than feeling the sadness which she does inside, she views her dad in a positive way and loves apples that are always around her and her nickname is the apple lady. This story reminds me of something as i read your book. In some casts the person telling their story has told their story repeatedly and in some cases, they are part of a group that goes to an education setting and continues to tell their personal stories for historical record for a class studying something of historical significance and in some cases, the very first time the person is telling their story and the very first time even the most intimate Family Member reads or hears their story is through your book. Well take a quick break in a moment, but i want to ask you to comment what is that juxtaposition of stories repeatedly told and stories told for the very first time . So most just to pit it three of the 11 speak often about their stories. That is not an accurate representation. Most refugees are neff speaking about it. They dont want their children to know about the hard ache and hurt and many said lee, i was never no one ever askeme about my story. No one ever asked. So for those people, this was really ca ther dick that they said it or willing to have it in a book and now their children are seeing it and it is having a great impact on them. To me its only emphasizes how important we ask each other about our stories. In such an interesting comment we can talk when we get back, what is the affect of silence and not asking or not knowing to ask . Join us in a moment back here on mosaic. Good morningnt welcome back to mosaic. Were in the middle of a wonderful conversation with lee bycel about lition book refugees in america stories of courage, resilience, and hope in their own words. If you would like to have more information about refugees in america stories of courage, resilience, and hope in their own words please go to refugees in america. Com. That is refugees in america. Com. Welcome back, lee. We were talking about all the different stories and im so interested in one of the words of the subtitle of your book which is hope. I know you have a little piece of the topic on one of the folks in the book. Will yue take a moment to read what he said . Hope is such an important thing to have in life and for all of refugees i think there are moments or moments, months, years, where they lose hope but when they get a window where th marin, suffered terrible brutality and comes here to the states eventually. He gave the graduation speech at university of San Francisco in december 2016 and these words were part of his talk. It is not an easy road, but hope is the oxygen of my life. I have hope in humanity. So simple, but so true. That is to me the challenge. How do i find hope . What is the source of that for me . Why do we give up hope . Here are people who have been through so much and marin reflects everyone and everyone i met who was a refugee to still have hope in humanity even though experiencing the worst of it. It is such a good point and good question. Every faith tradition tries to articulate it as best they can in whatever form it does, hope, and there are theological structures averaged narratives and core contemporary conversation about what hope is and how it functions. We think of hope a lot of times lives and that is part of it but i am wondering what you learned about hope from these folks. These people have taught me so much about life. One of the things is true i think of every refugee i met or for the most part the they have respect for our stories, you, me, the viewsers. Everyone has a story. Their stories are dramatically different because they suffered tra men does hardship, om them i have gained insights about how to live life, about how to not take education for granted or every day for granted. I find in judaism the reminder for me, my favorite prayer which i say every night at bed is the hosh ky vay new to go to bed in peace. Allow me to put my head in my pillow tonight in peace. Be at peace with what i did today, but then the part of hope is, and allow me to wake up tomorrow renewed to life, to relationships again. That is a hopeful prayer and these people have really taught me and continue to teach me that one has to have strength, resilience, one has to have courage and we all can shape a life that we want and one thing they all share in common, they all talk about, they have been lucky but i add, they knew what to do with hear luck. They didnt squander it. They got a break and they walked right into it and went with it. You remind me that i think in every faith tradition, you say part if i can use businesst faith traditions are in has to do with the cultivation of hope. Were in the business of hope and maybe that is part of the rationale for faith traditions to bow involved with issues of refugees, issues of cultivating hope and catching people when they take a leave of faith and teaching them a language, a system, helping them to understand a culture because it is a way of cultivating hope. I just wonder if that resonates with you about this topic. Very much. I think there is a deep connection. When we read stories like this or a number of stories add there are many great writers out there. We learn about othersthink part more empathy, compassion, if were motivated to help people like refugees in much better ways than were helping them now, but also it connects deep within side of us. What is the revenant experience at the heart . It is loss. Loss of home, loss of country. Loss of language, loss of familiarity, loss of everything. Hope is very precarious in mean ways. I think there are some people who would say they actually dont get to choose the way their lives go. I think some part of the way hope functions is you discover a place of hope that you didnt know existed and so i wonder how you think about the human struggle where people really come to a point of no hope, i dont have choice about whatever it is. And there are many people suffering from that and have that and i really get it. I think what refugees teach us is how even when you have a little window that you can find something to be hopeful about, because in judaism for all human beings there is always the possibility. One quick if i can i have very dear friend with als. I talked to him and the bucket list. He has reshaped it us 0 hof grateful he is in life for all the things he did on the bucket list that he dreamt about and he shaped it now to be realistic for what its mean toss have als and be confined to a wheelchair. Part is being a realistic being realistic about hope. Now i cant hope to go play professional baseball, but can i hope to be more appreciative of what i have in life . What are we hopeful about and if it is realistic, with the right support we can find the anchors of the ort and these stories we read, they can inspire us like with a sin ja. Stories saved her life and took her out of that world of her Little Village and the horrors and thinking about those stories, there is hope out there. Thanks for getting to the complexity of it. I think one of the ideas we dont talk about is the way hope converts itself to other forms of hope along the way of the human experience. Well take another quick break and come back to mosaic in just a moment. Good morningnt welcome back to mosaic. Were in the middle of a wonderful conversation about refugees in america stories of courage, resilience, and hope in their own words by lee bycel. Welcome back, lee. Thank you. I want to ask you a couple of logistic questions because im sure people are thinking i have an idea for a story. I would like to do this kind of treatment with the people i know. Can you talk a little about literally, how did you get oce it is along journey. You have to have a lot of patience which all refugees have but you have to have a rd thought because im only reflecting their stories. I had to work carefully with them that they were happy with them, because im not writing a book of fiction or academic book, it is peoples lives at stake here and i want today get it right, and make sure they were comfortable. I had help to get an agent in new york and that a gent shops the book and Rutgers University expressed interest and finally that worked out and then from the time they accepted and i didnt believe it would ever take this long, to the time it is published, is a year. I kept saying why would it take so long . Its just does. You have to have a lot of patience and set up good breaks. I was lucky to get a agent and a good publishing house. Is this in the category of his rodney reed . Human rights, maybe oral history, but really nonfictiontion, sort of a variety of categories dealing with human rights. I want to ask you two quick questions. Were almost at the end of our time together. Oh, no. Gist rewinding a little bit. We talk about the people who tell their story and comment a little on what that break from silence is like and maybe even consequence in a good way outcome impact of the first time of telling a story and in such a public documented forever manner. I would say ca thor tick for the person telling the story. We spent hours upon hours together. I think the more they felt empowered that s lig and cared abei for the their families hearing it for the first time that mom or dad went through this, some families say why didnt you tell me earlier . Some have a better lens into two women in particular, of the mothers story and all she experiencend and what she provided for the children so it is and the impact is only unfolding. The book just came out and were going to learn a lot about that. What do you hope people will get from the book itself . Listen to these stories as a starting point of reframing a conversation about comprehensive immigration reform. You have to start by a human story and connecting it to you. For me eric, it is the following. We have advanced medically, scientifically, et cetera. Have we from the First Brother killing . At the first time we havent advanced but wheni sit listothepeople, human who share hope in the human st in the resilience and the courage that people have. Lee bycel, thank you so much for your son sayings about the book refugees in america stories of courage, resilience, and hope in their own words. We would like you to read this book and to take the time to listen, to hear and tell your stories. Thank you so much for being with us here on mosaic. Jackie, im looking at your mri. Your shoulder seems to be healing nicely. Well, dr. Farrell, it feels really good. Thats good. And. Im sorry. Baby, dont touch that. I dont want you to play with that. singing twinkle, twinkle little star. How i wonder what you are. still singing up above the world so high. Like a diamond in the sky. Im so glad that your shoulder is feeling better. But, how are you doing . Im hanging in there. Schedule a video visit with your doctor. And get quality care with no copay. Kaiser permanente. Thrive. An extra 15 credit on car and motorcycle policies . Thats great thats 15 on top of what geico could already save you. So what are you waiting for . John stamos to knit you a scarf . All finished, jean. Enjoy thank you. I give. The stitch work is impeccable. 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