Transcripts For CSPAN2 Rebel Mother 20170522

Good afternoon. Is great for you to be here today and i currently serve as the provost hot and it is a joy to be with you today to hear from our colleagues and friends peter it is quite an amazing book i will give a brief interview and talk about the format and the ground rules so many of you know quite well he is the professor from International Studies here wraparound also for International Public affairs he joined the institute in 2001 and previously worked at reed college and a scholar at Harvard University Research Fellow at brookings and also with the Macarthur Foundation fellow. He got his ph. D. In government at cornell. Peter is one of the truly unique and wonderful combinations of scholars gifted teachers and a wonderful colleague i was fortunate to get to know peter when i came here and we were partners in crime for a couple of years so aside from being a truly gifted teacher he is the author and coauthor and coeditor and published a terrific book that cave mouth in in 2013 selected by amazon and Foreign Affairs before thats as one of the first books that i have read the business of survival that is a terrific book talking about that particular moment in history and what smuggler nation does that it takes a an issue of how we think about Illicit Trade of smuggling thats is offcenter but central to the way we understand the key phenomenon as well. He is dead colada for god issues on the border and drugs and the way that well understand it and this is a truly unique gift the way he can take these issues to show they are relevant to the mainstream but in the way the war engaged if you read the book it is very sensible it is a real pleasure to have you as a colleague and friend. This book today hopefully you had a chance to look bad it if not they will be sold outside is incredible that blends together a story of peters mom and their relationship over time but especially when he was shown but this story was going on politically in this country and reading together those narratives makes this a very compelling story and actually brings to life personal and real what was going on in this era so again this is a terrific book proposal peter will talk about the book may be for a half an hour then after words we will kickoff us a discussion then we will open to the audience furcula day session this is taped by cspan so please turnoff your phone and when you have a question please wait for the microphone otherwise people will not hear the questions during the recording. [applause] eight you very much on this gray cold day so the reason rick davey introduction not there is a glowing untrue or their provost of the university but because when he first arrived at brown he was the first person here figuring out i was writing the book he has an extra antenna for these things so not only did he figure that out but right away immediately so he has insomnia in getting great comments so i am grateful because i did not broadcast widely i cannot believe this was happening so rick was support on this project. William not wearing light Political Science at today that i should say that it is about politics so there is continuity here with the most deeply political thing that basically reflects personal and political is hard to imagine today this intensely political childhood. It was a story in my head i did not know what to do with i thought i would write about it but i never thought i had enough raw material i did not entirely trust memory to produce a book so what made this possible . Tragically it was my mothers death she died very suddenly and unexpectedly and going through birthings i discovered her diaries. In fact, it was next to her bed where she died and the last line in the diary was a think im having a heart attack. But it goes back decades to of a childhood. This was reading as her son but also as a researcher part of that was there to pick apart was i can tell the story. So it is a local bout of life on the run with my radical mother basically covered three states and five countries with a dozen homes and a dozen schools between the ages of five and 11 much of the time i was not in school at all but it was a personal story about a radical arab us so the story captures the era of this particular family stroma the 60s and 70s toward a country apart in many ways and also families apart. So i will do today which is also very different with the evidence presented but i will actually do some reading which is a little different for me. I should mention most of you have not even looked at the book but the diaries not only gave me the confidence but her letters of correspondence it made it possible for me to do dialogue. It took me awhile to adjust she was such a good writer in the diaries i could basically extent and use that material to come up with an actual dialogue so if you wonder it is mostly from the diary. Very selective readings the idea is to recapture different moments in this story and i will all jump ahead to september 11th 1973. Estimate just after 9 11 9 00 in the morning we were around the radio in the kitchen listening as the president broadcast his last publicly spoken words. Be a just gotten back from cleaning their animals and we hurried into listen to the radio. The president ial palace in in santiago was being blocked bond. This is part of the growing communist threat i vowed never to give up to the military to be dead within hours those that claim he committed suicide but that ak 47 Assault Rifle given to him by fidel castro his voice was strong and defiant. Long live chile and the people in the workers. I am certain with sacrifice will not be in vain at the very least a moral lesson to punish felony cowardice and treason. The radio fell silent i can only think of another. Where was she . Wish to save . What i never see her again . I did not fully comprehend the political situation i knew enough spanish to know his words and recognize my mother could be in danger after all she was a supporter of the leftist government and in her complaint about him was that he was not left enough personalities with the were the more radicals with the revolutionary Left Movement she that they should distribute arms to the workers in preparation for a military coup. I have not seen or heard from her in more than a month and had no idea how to reach forefather and at that moment i felt more loan and cut off than any other time in my life. I was happy living on the farm now it seemed i was rude to their ruth and his voice is on for ever staring at the radio in stunned silence i could see the fear in her eyes so after the man who ruled next i ages they waited for my mothers return. My mind raced of the possibilities. Will she imprisoned . Tortured . In a morgue . An unmarked grave . Then i wondered what it would be like. What i end up with no socks were selling issues together to keep them from falling apart . Would they take me to the safety of michigan . That fought was comforting but disturbing that means a mother never comes back. Now she did come back a few weeks later you can imagine those weeks were traumatic we were living on a foreign 500 kilometers south of santiago. When she showed up and took the with there and we fled the country to argentina and shortly thereafter. So now i will skip ahead were now in for ruth perot peru and her boyfriend is half her age. [laughter] so this section. As soon as i started school april 1974 weiss arrived i tried to draw on the page but they fell from my head as if they tried to get my attention. I that they were falling off my head because it was so crowded not enough room for it all i imagined fistfights is they were fighting over the landscape and first was startled the falling lice became so routine in a barely notice them. I was embarrassed but other kids had their own personal colonies my mother would spend many nights Getting Better eggs out of my hair the affection in routine reminiscent of monkeys we tried everything. Special soaps, shampoos even kerosene putting an awful smell the my hair that lasted for days the and nothing worked. She spent more time coming clothing lice out of my heritage she did cooking the she did it would be too difficult we just had this single burner hot plate so usually meant crusty bread and jelly with tea or coffee after school where another if her boyfriend read a political event my mother would pay a neighbor to feed me those were better at home but still rice and soup and bread for go his wife and their two daughters treated me like family she was a special she was especially vice to me when sober but the only smelled like alcohol one night he announced he had a cure for my problem it had worked on his kids and he wanted to give it a try. The girls giggled it works they promised after dinner he took me out to back lower your head he instructed. I need to douse your hair. States still. Dont move. I did exactly as he said bending over as far as i could in the dark sticky saltwater nothing smells quite like youre in. Nothing like having a pot of p dump on your head. Rub it in good he said tentatively i reached up to massage the year into my scalp he said harder. So i did not want to offend him. And began to stand up but he shouted you need just a bit more. But there was none left in the pot so be unzipped his pants and put a hot streak on my head. Taking care not to miss any spots i was so drenched even my years were full. He said that should do it gaging i desperately wanted to rinse my hair but he stopped me again. What is set there it has to soak. So i sat patiently waiting for the minutes. It worked exactly as promised it turns out theyre even more disgusted than i was. A few weeks later they were back in full force because the and the kids at school still had lice. But i did not ask for another treatment. Now my mother and her boyfriend, she was about 41 and he was 21. It was an intense relationship very intense political relationship but i mostly remember is them arguing about politics unfortunately she has the blow by blow in your diaries so i reconstructed one argument. As much as they loved each other she loved to argue about pretty much anything especially anything with politics those matches infuriated them some lasted for hours at any time of the day i hate christ he declared one day he was trying to pick a fight but my mom could resist simic is non necessary to heat christ off they went a verbal fist fight was jesus the proletariat . Was the dance to the rich and powerful . If you believe in christ could you believe in london . Yes seven other if christ is reactionary . So then you think i and the reactionary . My mother told rabil it was nice that jesus thought it was nice to watch each others feet always the poor who were supposed to be humble but my mother would shoot back it is a realistic to expect people to throw away all their lifelong belief in one jump it is politically smarter to attack to the church of the doctrine rather than jesus but raul replied i dont care those young peruvians need to learn what he symbolizes. Dont be so dismissive have you actually read the bible . Instead of the answering he said remember religion is the opiate of the masses. But that doesnt mean there isnt anything to be learned. One afternoon substitute the names of marx and lenin and mao for jesus she thought was a creative way to convert christians to the revolutionary cause pleased with himself he proudly showed the doctored song sheets to my mother when she came home, did she would be impressed. He was hoping to sing the song and maybe even sell copies on the street but it completely backfired. My mother was not only unimpressed but mad. You turned marxism into a religion but raul was stunned. It is a tactic to politicize the masses. No. It perpetuates the called the personalities substituting marks for jesus. Angry he lit a match and it caught fire in the middle of the room we both jumped she said dont be crazy. Stomping out the fire ashes from the bird to sheets floating across the room you could burn the whole place down. My mother in raul only squirreled without resolution what my mother would call the root causes of female oppression. For persistent focus on the woman question raul sometimes lashed out telling her as the north american she was the daughter of imperialism she would counter always remember youre not the most oppressed person in the world he never worked out an effective response. Won saturdays several months after we moved the debate about female oppression lasted the entire day. Walking into town to take a hot shower they argued in the shower together and on the way back it was as if i wasnt even there. That day they got so mad at each other over the different interpretations they decided to part ways on the walk home if i was kicking of rocks in the road my mother saw i started to cry she put her arm around my a shoulder. She said everything would be fine after he returned home a few hours later the argument where it was left off and continued into the night. As they tried to make up she told him sincerely and christina were just trying to get revenge when the sure way to get to know those white imperialists. I am not sure that made raul feel any better but they did stop arguing for that night. So now i will switch gears a little bit we were broke in my mother never had a financial settlement with my father over the divorce. So we had to go back to try to settle things with him it is hard to believe that this point but at that point in my life my spanish was better than my english i hardly even knew how to write in english and nine years old so my mother was pushing me to get up to speed after being gone a few years so i wrote a poem in english may be the only one ive ever written in my life so i thought i would read it december 74 i import and rich life is sometimes sad and sometimes marvelous the bathroom is full of shit my mother never comes they call the green go. Ini years old first in my class life is sad dammit my mother is teaching me english and that is good. Chou. [laughter] after reading the poem my mother smiled shes and ill be sure to keep this as defined in your diary for a decade later. And we came back to the United States my father refused to negotiate a property Settlement Agreement unless my mother was willing to have a custody battle over me. So she rolled the dice and she was broke some how had confidence she would not only get her some of the custody so she got the supplement and lost custody of me so i moved into suburban detroit with my father with an extraordinary change of lifestyle as you can imagine with my stepmother the trial was in august so i lived with them that fall and another was in colorado at the time became increasingly anxious and depressed and debris and would write to me over and over warningly of the pitfalls of my new life style. Pretty heavy stuff. Dear peter the judge and lawyers are still talking about the settlement money negative furious it makes it more difficult of your incarceration beverage in human letters that they do not send i imagine he didnt want to hear about my preoccupation you are free to and enjoy your new life as king of the universe your child of the people. The start to view the people was a print your privileged life dont waste their time but guard against the poorer when we help the poor sometimes but you never wanted to kick out the rich to take power. What preoccupies me is that you fear the power when they rebelled just like the rich have and then youre so far away from that youll never see the rebellion. Your so far away from the reality of the world if youll forgive what you once knew but that will fade and i hope you dont feel that your real home is with their rich i never tried to show you a notice of your previous life making you think because your father entered my body one day than somehow they give some rights over your life. Theyre trying to get a hold of your passport if the judge agrees then he will have a serious problem. Dont talk about this with them it is very delicate i just want to tell you this a you dont trust them too much rosalyn was to give me promises but doesnt have the power you always love those around you a treat you well the also think about what you are losing in how that will affect your mind and attitude and personality. You are a scene boy easily adjust to new experiences but now think very seriously if you want to totally adapt to the life of luxury and security. We are a little crazy for sure we do not care about respectability the u. S. To think about why we have chosen to be this way you could be stronger and more conscious for spending a few months there or sellout without caring. It was a risk to leave you there because you are young but youre not so innocent and the busy within weeks but dont announce that you are imprisoned there without knowing it. I would you mama suit she wanted me to feel i was in prison but that is not how it felt i did not know how to respond to the letters when did not write back. So the last thing i will read which is the most emotionally tortured moment of my childhood shortly after that letter and time period the warrant for my mothers arrest was issued by the Sheriffs Department few rafters our after my teachers reported the missing from the playground the official charge was enticing a child under 14 years of age the epb with or description was sent out to the police to the airports and train and bus stations but it was too late. We have already crossed the border. , knew exactly what i wasnt wearing because it was reported in the incident report. Last in bluejeans and beige trouble that grey sweater cowboy boots with the green ski coach. These are my only close until we reach through a few weeks later my father contacted the state department but no extradition would be granted. I finally agree however reluctantly to be a part of my own kidnapping. I sneaked out of the schoolyard during lunch recess my mother was waiting in a red beetles she disguised herself with dark glasses and a black wig. I would not have recognized her if she did not wave to me. I walked quickly to the car and we sped off. Despite the cold she looked pale against her winter coat. Everything go okay . She squeezed my hand. Nobody suspects . I shook my head i didnt say anything period my words would be trade my ambivalence and we drove in silence as the approach the tattle to link United States to canada at tears started to roll down my cheeks my mother pulled over to the side of the road. Do you want to go back . Year of most of the border she was trying hard to seem called and i said no. Wiping away tears i wanted to be in the car with her right then but i also wanted to be on the playground and school i did not look at her fearing she would see the decision in my eyes. She did dont press me she knew she would get a different answer if she asked again. I changed the subject you look ugly with that we did i have never seen my mother in glasses she laughed and started the car again she said okay and will take off after we crossed into canada. We made it to peru in three weeks later. Two weeks after reflag michigan and was back in peru but my mind was still struggling we spent that christmas lighting fireworks with raul family with his three brothers. In their small home in the shantytown of several hundred thousand on the al outskirts of lima. The house had no decorations but that did not dampen the festive mood. The few years earlier nothing more than in in the desert with the over crowded slums organize the nighttime takeover but when the police came to evict them to tear down the shaft the squatters refuse to move looking at a potentially bloody confrontation they relented and entered into 4,000 people rushing to stick up plots of land. Although the terrain was not welcoming the squatters were looking and openly and not far from the capital salvador had no electricity or Running Water tanker trucks came once a week to fill up the beryls the toilet was a hole in the sand with a can of lime powder to dissolve the shit. It was dangerous to go out tonight we slip to gather on the straw mattresses waking of with fleabites i missed my fully free bed and saturday morning cartoons and frosted flakes but i resisted saying that to my mother and this time in our first arrival i knew what to expect. [applause] so what i will do is kick off the conversation. That was fantastic and very powerful. Especially the reading. zero asked just a couple. I think this is an amazing book because it weaves together several complex stories on the one hand a very personal window into political events whether peru or berkeley your chili chile and then back again with radical politics in denver. It is interesting take into that period but on the other hand, it is a personal story that is a chaotic and childhood certainly not traditional your mom and raul or any other relationships, a kidnapping and putting you in some positions that were actually dangerous if not inappropriate so very different childhood that we normally think of but what was so interesting wafers to read this the couple draft but certainly the first draft with the untraditional childhood experience as a parent on one hand and was very injury angry. But on the other hand, with that shift of the motion changes to the incredible love that your mom had for you that existed with you and incredible welty the way she would challenge you even as a young boy to think beyond yourself. Is a truly interesting complex story. How did the child could shape your approach first tube being a parent and parenting. [laughter] and the way that you think about that . How did that shape the kinds of topics for your professional life . I could guess but it would be good to hear from you. Great questions. The contrast you start off with which is a shocking and the love at the very end of the book with the epilogue by partly wrote that because you said that i need one though one minor would be my mother was incredibly negligent but i never felt neglected and that is a big difference i definitely felt wanted to she spent the sheers fighting for me but in terms of reflecting on parenting im doing probably reaching the opposite of what my mother did because of that i am probably toward my fathers end of things. One lesson from the book is there is no one right away to parent things seem extreme or crazy from our perspective today maybe we were extreme back then but less so because context really does matter and i think we have lost something that kids cannot go outdoors to play in the streets and watch everything in your considered a criminal if you dont watch over them every minute so maybe it is the opposite direction. Including myself frankly. But your last question, but not until i did this book did it dawn on me that to work on borders and smuggling and clandestine crossings. [laughter] it is so obvious in some ways because my mother used me as a smuggler to get out of chalet she wanted to be of these political mementos the soldiers were frisking everybody but was only eight years old but in the other sides of they did not frisked me and waved me through but basically she is me to carry out a political pollster maybe they would confiscate but when we left after the last story the settlement money was all in cash sum of zero raul she and i were crossing into mexico so she sewed pockets into my pants to carry tens of thousands of dollars with us so i of smuggling cash into mexico. [laughter] coincidence . May be better titled think so. [laughter] i never put that together. The question how you begin the presentation i used started the project so you discover the cachet of diaries my memory is to read them initially then years later again to see how different this is. So tell us more about the process from reading the diaries and revisiting them then years later how you could translate into a wonderful memoir. The initial impulse was reading backwards in time but then start at the beginning decades earlier now it is the opposite so the initial reading after she died, i was in the midst of scrambling for tenure i had to go cold turkey and put into storage so why did not dig them out until years later but especially focusing on those years in south America First i use that as a source of information and details of where we were places and names but then as i got into it realized there was a much richer story if i would actually weve the diaries into the narrative itself so her commenting on some of us being broke but at that at the time they had no idea. Her reflections in me remembering that differently and i comment in the book with different interpretations. So it wasnt just background material but it became part of the book it was her letters and correspondence and her own books she had written. And my father is a meticulous Record Keeper had kept every piece of paper related to the custody battle every correspondence with my a mother and lawyers putting them in folders for his own sake and manitoba mine is doing best he handed me the folders. Bills were extraordinarily valuable. In preparation of this book i was a complete rookie in in this role but to the degree that they can write a memoir without the material to draw on i needed those diaries to do the job. This book is so powerful because you open yourself up bin share memories and emotions and experiences that most academics would never share certainly not in the traditional published works and what has it been like . The first few jobs were purely descriptive this is what it was and how would have been and distant narration but the push back that i got from the editors and readers including you was dont just tell was what you did but what you were thinking and what you think now. You are right it is uncomfortable terrain to write about at and put it out there and had the right to the narrative first to hang the emotional stuff on to. But hopefully the book is deeper but yet that was hard the hardest riding i have never done by far. We will open it up. I cater just to hear about your mother and i think to share so the data you are so intimate with with the public that is the strength ben some academics dont have and i really appreciate what you have done. And wanted to rescue the question that i was asked haggai feel having shared your mother with everybody . That is a question and never thought about. I was very uncomfortable after sitting on it 80 years but it i achieved something and i wondered if the same thing happened to you . And has to take a huge weight off of your shoulders . Onto basket the same question so how was it to share your mother i shared my own mother with people i did not think i could do that. Good question. It feels good. The way you put that it is a way to lifted. I wrote this book as if she was still alive parley with the diaries to be accessible but i dont think that was in a position to do it i feel like i a know her better than anyone in the world so i think people only knew part of her or misunderstood her and i think this is a fuller and deeper story i think she would love to argue with me probably the be glad that i rode it wrote it. What a wonderful presentation i have known peter since grant school over 20 years and until this book came out i had no idea he had such a wild childhood. So how did you turn also normal . [laughter] but i am curious your relationship to your mothers ideology so what did you think about at the time and later as you got older . Has it affected you . Did you reject it . What was your relationship to that . As a child i was a true believer in the sense it was fun and exciting in the woods a revolutionary songs and got very tired of the arguing but in 1976 we just moved back to the United States, living in denver for the carter president ial election in november, she sends me to school they have a mock election in my Elementary School she sends me to school with designed to hold up at the rally that says dont to vote. [laughter] so i am 11 years old everybody is yelling carter or mondale and i say dont go. [laughter] i am not just the messenger i believe but this is fifth grade. I had a political break with my mother in college after i left. Everyone rebels from their parents at some point in for me childhood rebellion was to not become a rebel so by her standards at and though she used the word reactionary but it was hard and back to the issue of reading the diary said did not realize until then how her to she was that i sold out in some ways to the mainstream life and career and they do that towards the end of the book. So just to comment your said judge good reader you should do the audio version. So i was thinking about people that are minority or class identities like bad guaranteeing or broken families so i wonder as middleclass white heterosexual engendered christian that is different or to be a rationalized minority white people who cannot properly parent so did that position make you feel safe you could come out with these details are that you would lose that status . That is probably an unsatisfying or disappointing answer that from my perspective i was not particularly self reflected as a white man telling a story about my white mother. My father briefly and my mother as you could tell from that letter she gave me a really hard time worried i was self identifying with upperclass. So, i will have to think more about the question that i think you for. I come from a midwest mennonite background so when you said your mother is a meta knight i know a little bit particularly when they came here from 1870. Knowing what i know about the mennonites, very solid families. Women are greatly respected and education isnt that a important but you better read the bible. Can you give some background on your mother and wife broke her away from that tradition that she became a traveling radical . Im glad you asked that question because there is only so much that you can cover in a short period of time. One of the more astonishing parts of the story my mother was a pacifist mennonite from a town of 5,000 people in Central Kansas founded in the 1870s. Very traditional. Everybody went to the same college, 500 students i think. You didnt venture out much and if you did you went to communities in minnesota and elsewhere. I wouldnt call it a completely closed society, that it was a lot of intermarrying and so on. Part of what attracted her to my father, she was 14 and when he met he was 21. They dated once a week, held hands, kissed for the first time years later, got married when she was 17 and rushed to college by 19 so she could be with him but part of what attracted her to him is that he wasnt as religious as a lot of others. His mother wanted him to become a minister but he didnt want to. In their case it meant going out of state and so it was kind of her ticket out of town. No time to get into the details but her family was different than the standard family in town. About you didnt dance, play cards. You have the dances at the high school but its for the other kids out of town and so on. But she was itching to get out and my father facilitated and he didnt want us to either. My father now its moved back with my stepmother back their. [inaudible] one of the first questions to my father was would he play and hes not athletic at all so he smiled and said i play the radio. [laughter] another question to pick up on the point, which is not to say any particular but it struck me around the time of the economic crash about when someone takes shape, so this was very popular. The adventurer from the comedy is not a depression that an economic crash in which the family takes flight. But is it the case im wondering if a certain kind of identity can take flight. Is there a home to return to or some sense that one can take flight in return so i am wondering if we dont think of this ideology, the playground in detroit who do you think of that as home or would you characterize that as simply the normal and how would you think about where to return after you took flight . The permanent input of this experience home is to not have an intense attachment anyplace. People ask where are you from and i spent the longest period of my life there at that point but i dont feel like i am from anywhere. My mother could never return to kansas. Certainly returning to detroit, i left when i was five. It wasnt something i felt like a comfort zone. [inaudible] i developed a strong urban bias if that is what you mean. Regardless where i was. Lets get a microphone. Whether the playground is a metaphor for the type of home that is your true home for whatever identity you have, whether the playground or your fathers home feels like that which you and your mother took flight from, but that feels like what you were always trying to get back to and in a way maybe that is not for other people. At no point in the story that i have a longing to get back to something. It was always a moving forward story. I never felt nostalgic or wishing that i stayed somewhere. It doesnt mean that where i was wasnt perfect. The playground metaphor is real. In latin america the playground was a treat old ways and actually that is a better playground. [inaudible] i have trouble with that word normal. I have always felt like a misf misfit. I guess im normal now but i still feel like a misfit. Thats okay. Im actually jealous of people that have a deep sense of belonging to something replace because it never developed for me. The carol in the book was and who i knew. There were pieces of it and i realized you were so right when you said people are complicated and you dont always know who a person really is. And i didnt know what youre going through in denver in your childhood and after i read the draft that i first read and i met with you, i think i was crying. I said i am so sorry that i didnt do anything to help. Terrell was one of my best friends ever, a huge influence in my life. In the book, the pre pro linux they were an offshoot to steer away from. Such a decent person in my life and im just wondering the people that knew her, youre brothers and the people that knew her, can you talk about peoples reactions to the book i loved the book and im so proud of you and it is incredible that you wrote it. But there are so many other ways other than those that have just been said today that are even in the book of knowing what a principled generous spirit, thoughtful about everything, connected decent person she was. I am not doubting the veracity of anything you have said or written, but how the people that loved her head reacted. Shes actually mentioned in the book as Close Friends in denver especially in the early years that we were there. I have two older brothers but they are much older than me so much of the story is about my mother and myself. My oldest brother, jewel, who read it many times in the stage of the process, he was extremely supportive. Much more sympathetic to my mothers politics and positions. He would be the first to say you experienced it differently than i did. Its fine. He was older and experienced it differently. The downside was not as serious as for him. Other people that knew my mother wow, not that many people frankly have read this yet. I am bracing for the reaction. In fact i am giving a talk in denver. There will be a number of my mothers old friends who may or may not have looked at the book. One of her sisters has read the book and mostly was supportive. So im holding my breath. I hate to say i didnt write this book thinking what will people say if i write this . Going through the final drafts, sure i published some of the edges but i didnt want to write a book thinking the entire time [inaudible] i think we have one more question over here. I understand you and your mother experienced all these things together. So i wonder how in the writing you reconcile your perspective with your mother. That is a good question. Her perspective is on paper and the book is written from a perspective. This is why she would probably argue about it if she were alive today. But again, it is our story. But i do not try to. Her perspective is woven in to some degree because the diary that helps hold the book together s as a people do get hr perspective on things that way. But ultimately, it is my story even thoughfrankly shes more interested person in the buck. Please join me in thanking peter for sharing his book. [applause] thank you all for coming