I don't know how he did it, but he got the money for me to go back to school. He was very, very supportive.

There's more of a necessity to work with minorities, period.

My mom was already a U.S. citizen, and that made it easier for everybody else. But we were a family of laborers. We picked grapes, peaches, walnuts, almonds.

Her parents were well-off. They both had good jobs, a nice place. They grabbed everybody and sent them back.

My mom is a translator for the school district in Delaware. She'd hear these different stories from working with families there. Those stories stuck with me.

It was a new-school candidate, but it was an old-school campaign, ... We didn't have more money, we had people power.