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MOUNT MADONNA
SCHOOL
Interview with
Sam Farr
Congressman, 17th
District of California
May 23rd, 2000
Sam Farr: Great seeing you again. Sorry I'm late.
Mr. Mailliard: Well, actually your being late
was perfect in a way because I was just trying to
set signals; we are going to see Congressman John
Lewis this afternoon and right after that, Secretary
Donna Shalala. We are trying to have some kind of
ordered life here but I'm not sure that's possible.
Sam Farr: Only a powerful
man gets access to people that my constituents, or business
people, would come to Washington and never get access
to. So your class is very privileged and I also compliment
you. John Lewis and others who share these moments with
you, we feel collectively, that the best academic visit
to the United States Congress is what Mt. Madonna does,
and the way you follow through with it. (Laughter)
Mr. Mailliard: Yes! This is why he's my Congressman!
(More Laughter)
Sam Farr: No, I don't just say that because
I'm your Congressman. I'll just let you ask questions
but first I want share some thoughts Let me just say
that being a member of Congress is being very busy.
Wherever you are, you're always supposed to be someplace
else at the same time. So you have to make decisions
concerning conflicting priorities. I'm here with your
class, but I could be doing something else; upstairs
doing a speech; working on some projects; meeting with
constituents. You have to choose what you are going
to do, but even so other choices are always in your
mind, and you're thinking, "I should be someplace else."
We were just talking about how hard it is for anybody
in this business to remain focused all day long. Sometimes
it seems that you're just passing through really quickly.
It's like going to classes all day long until midnight
and at the end of the day wondering "What did I accomplish
other than being very busy?" However there is a reason
and a purpose to it. I've been in politics for twenty-five
years; as a County Superintendent, a County Supervisor
for six years, and as a state legislator for twelve
and a half years. Now I've been here almost eight years.
You come here as a legislator and realize the institution
is so big and complex. People are always telling you
'you can't do this' for one reason or another; you can't
legislate as much as your passion's desire. I always
think if you really want to be a good legislator and
really learn how to do things you ought to serve in
the State Legislature first. California, which is a
very active place and has the largest, most diverse
culture of any in the world, carries a lot more bills
then other states and has to respond to the pressures
of Californians. So the activity inside the State of
California legislature is much more rapid than the activity
back here at the national level. Nonetheless, the passions
are the same and I hope we can convey that to youth
of our country. You can discover that passion by being
a part of this experience, and conveying it to the people
that surround you; your family, your friends, and your
neighbors. It's important because it is the trust that
glues us together. The trust that we can self-govern
ourselves, and that the decisions made are fair, just,
and honest. It's so delicate because it all depends
on people participating. With your generation, the stories
are coming out about how kids really don't care much
about public service, voting, or participating. They
are more focused on "Where can I get a good job to pay
me this salary?". Everything in America, every job,
every institution, depends on a good government because
we make the laws under which business operates. If you
don't contribute in some way to this process, which
is the source of our prosperity, and makes the United
States such a wonderful place to live, and if you don't
bring your best, brightest and most enthusiastic support,
our way of living can be tarnished and forever lost.
That's why it's so delicate because, again, it depends
on people participating, and fewer and fewer of our
population are doing so in the elective process. That
could destroy the very essence of what makes America
so great. So I get energized when I see students like
you coming here with your enthusiasm for learning about
this system, trying figure out what makes America tick
at the federal level. You can only get that by listening
to different people that are in this job. If you
look at these people in government, I think you'll find
that all of them could probably go out and make more
money in the private sector, but they've chosen this
profession, I think, as teachers choose the teaching
profession. I think we need to reconnect, reinvigorate
the youth of America that service to your country, and
public service jobs are honorable positions. When I
graduated from college, the most exciting thing for
me to do, no matter what else had been offered to me,
was to go into the Peace Corp, and I did. Nobody cared
how much money you made; people quit their jobs all
over America to work in Washington and help get the
Peace Corp get started. You saw some of this spirit
come about in McCain's campaign. People were reconnected
because they thought that this candidate made a difference
particularly in issues like campaign financing reform.
So I think the spirit is out there. We just have to
capture it, articulate it, and market it a little better.
That's why you are all marketers because the minute
you learn about government, you can go tell somebody
about it and spread the word. I want to let a thousand
dreams flourish by your visit. Thank you for coming.
Students: Thank you for having us.
Sam Farr: Now you can
ask me anything you want. There are no dumb questions.
It is as they say, "the only dumb question is the one
you don't ask."
Mira Vissell: Has your view of Congress, or
the role of a Congressmen, changed at all in your
eight years in office?
Sam Farr: Yes, I
think it has matured. It is probably similar to your
going to school when you were between your freshman
and senior year. You get a gradually maturing view of
the institution. You come here with ideas that you can
do a lot more than you actually can. Then you remember
that what we do, we do for the whole nation, and it
is only by a process of compromise that all of these
people that come here with all of these passions can
work together. We have some views on each extreme, so
you end up bargaining down the middle. What we do also
affects the whole nation so the "keel of the ship of
state" is well set and does not move very rapidly. If
you want rapid change, you do it at the local and state
level. The institution of Congress is the keel of government
in the United States, and it changes direction very
slowly. You realize that as you stay here longer, and
get a better viewpoint of what significant change is,
and what it really takes to make it come about.
Alicia Weston-Miles: During our stay here,
we've met some pretty incredible people at all levels
of the government service. What was most apparent
and common to every single person that we spoke with
was how incredibly hard they worked, their commitment,
and their passion for their work. This came as a little
bit of a surprise to some of us. Why do you think
this aspect of government is so hidden from the American
people?
Sam Farr: I don't know,
because I'm around it all the time. That's a really
good question. You pointed out that it's a surprise.
Well why is it a surprise? Why is it a surprise to you?
Student: Well it's a surprise to me because
it is so different from the way that society looks
at government. There's a negative image given to our
political system. I never really thought, "yeah, these
people in Washington are working extremely hard hours."
I guess I never really thought about it, and it was
never really presented to me as something to think
about.
Sam Farr: Well,
you've asked probably one of the most profound questions!
You see sitcoms always joking about Washington, and
Jay Leno and David Letterman making jokes about it,
etc. The cynicism in this country is so rampant, and
I'm very offended by these sort of jokes about government
and the people in it. Sure I've laughed at them, but
I still think that they're undermining the faith and
confidence that people ought to have. What if you could
figure out a way to change that? Maybe that's something
to challenge the class with: how can you change that
thinking? This is an example of one of the things I'm
trying to say you can do; you've got to start this change.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first
step, and you can do it yourself. I try to do it by
conveying this sort of challenge to students. I never
knew what I was going to do when I was your age and
who knows, somebody in this class may be a member of
Congress, or President of the United States someday.
I really believe that. For example, Tom's from North
Monterey County. He knows what's motivated him to come
here. He was a concierge at a hotel in the private sector,
a hard working student who came to the Hill, and I think
Tom reflects most the staff here in that he gets a psychic
compensation to working here. It is that he is making
a difference. However, the press never picks up on that
psychic compensation, and unfortunately what we do as
members of Congress when hiring press secretaries, is
put out press releases and papers that don't report
on that theme. What we need is a form of reporting that
is something like what you've done in your journal.
There's a story of the enthusiasm in that journal that
each of you will find here. As students you will think,
"well this is keen! This is really nifty! I didn't know
this, and now that I do I'm excited about it." We could
write about that every day, describing cases where we
solved problems. I've had people tell me stories that
make me cry because they have changed people's lives.
We need to start reporting that, and they've got to
start printing it, but they're not doing it. So the
coverage of Congress is misdirected both internally
and externally.
Mr. Mailliard: Sam, that really is one of
our goals. This tape recorder here is actually streaming
the audio to the computer, and then we are putting
the audio of this interview up on the web site with
pictures, transcripts, and student's comments. We
are being followed by people in the district, and
the students families who have emailed our website
out to friends and extended family around the country.
So we actually have a constituency that's really listening
into this conversation.
As you know, I grew up in
this political world, and the thing that always struck
me was the dislocation between the reality of what you
do here and your intentions, and the public impression.
That's really the fundamental reason why we're here.
There are other reasons, but, that's the core, and I
think you've tapped into it; the question really is
"why is it such a well-kept secret when nobody's hiding
the fact that you're working hard?" Sam Farr:
Plus this job is totally public review. Everything we
do is on C-SPAN, and everything we write is published.
There are no secrets. Every investment that we make,
every activity we have is just an open book. Everybody
can know about your life, all the time, and yet there's
this big secret about what we do. If I have a wish,
or a desire, it is that your generation could break
this. You don't have to accept this cycle. You don't
have to accept poverty in America. You don't have to
accept injustice. We don't have to accept human suffering;
we just don't! And we don't have to accept this cynicism
either.
Josh Lewis: An environmentalist, Hardin Tibbs,
wrote that "technological change is potentially a
crucial factor in reducing unsustainability, and that
this is paradoxical because technology is also the
direct cause of much unsustainability." Do you think
that we have to now rely on technology in order to
solve the problems it has created?
Sam Farr: I think technology is
just a tool to doing things smarter and faster. It certainly
has nothing to do with creation and being. It just facilitates
the exchange of information, and allows the creative
mind to use the tools of technology to be more creative.
Josh Lewis: I guess the question is, in terms
of the environment, we see increased industrialization
and technology, which allows for greater population,
by allowing specialization, centralization, and resource
utilization, that kind of thing. So, while technology
allows us to have this larger population, it also
has a negative impact on the environment. Then again,
with increased technology you gain a greater efficiency
in the extraction of resources and so forth. We also
see that the higher technology gets, in some senses,
the cleaner it becomes. Do you think that this is
an appropriate path to take, to continue to rely on
that which though it may be the solution, it's also
the root of the problem.
Sam Farr: I haven't thought a lot about it. The question
is more profound than the amount of thought I've given
to it. We are in a new industrial revolution and people
are asking the same questions they did about the invention
of the automobile and what that would do. It's interesting
how destructive old technology is. For example building
roads is destroying Africa and parts of Central and
South America. The logging companies have a economic
interest in getting access to lumber so they build a
road and then there's all these unintended consequences
that take place. People who move in to do the logging
are now hunting, and deciding to squat in the jungles,
burn them out, and kill the animals. There's no infrastructure
so pollution and everything like that happens without
accountability. Those are unintended consequences from
logging, which is an old technology. When you go
back into Santa Cruz history, which is also about logging,
you might find some of the same concerns about what
that was going to do to the San Lorenzo Valley with
the logging trucks, logging roads, and even train tracks
that were built. I think we've seen these patterns develop
and hopefully we've learned how to solve the problem
without destroying the environment.
Derrick Diaz: What do you think is the most
significant environmental challenge we currently face
in California?
Sam Farr: Probably over-population and the issue of sustaining
everyone's ability to get access to resources. It seems
to me that one of the concerns that exists is that there
is no place in the world that isn't accessible now because
of technology. I think we live in an area where people
are very sensitive to the land and the environment,
but how do we still maintain its clean, healthy state,
and allow for the access to it of the population?
People can move in from any part of the world carrying
diseases or insects. In California there is now an infestation
in wine grapes of a bug called "grassy-wing sharp shooter".
Now for the first time it is in California attacking
vineyards, and it can totally wipe them out. In the
last two months, because of the infestation of this
non-indigenous, non-native species, we've appropriated
about twelve million dollars just to attack it. That's
a lot of money to go after one little bug, but it was
carried here by people, and products, from other countries.
There are no boundaries anymore because of this
globalizaiton. So how do you use technology, how do
you use knowledge, to sustain something that is now
under attack by an invasive species, whatever they may
be?
Jenny Johnston: How do you deal with the conflicts
that inevitably arise between environmental concerns
say for marine habitats, and concerns of agriculture
that requires chemicals for crop protection?
Sam Farr: Good question. We live in this balance of the
joining of land and water which is the most dramatic
and also most fragile ecosystem in the world; where
water meets land. We've taken all those tide pools and
rocks for granted, and that's the ecosystem that gets
pounded the most from nature, but now people are the
ones crashing into them even harder than the waves.
People are using chemicals on land that run into the
ocean, and we must ask ourselves, what consequences
are we going to have? That's one of the reasons we use
all our marine labs to study it. First you find out,
okay, what do we need to know? Where is there a lack
of knowledge? We don't really know how much or where
all these chemicals running down into the sanctuaries
are coming from in order to be able to trace them. We
can suppose that, "well if this chemical's getting in,
then it ought to have some consequences on these organisms",
and you can begin with this causal connection. This
leads to the next idea, "Maybe we ought not use that
chemical, or we should make sure that's it's treated
or handled in a different way." We did that with banning
of DDT. So first you've got to get money for the studies,
and that's what I've done as a member of Congress. The
national marine sanctuary is working with AMBAG, the
Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments, and the
farm bureaus of all of the counties within the sanctuary
to fund a program that looks at all of the chemicals.
It traces where they are put on, what happens to them
when it rains, and identifying any patterns. That will
lead to knowledge about better farming practices, and
the farm bureaus are in it, so it's not like this is
all combative. I think people are very interested in
doing their business in a better way. The problem with
a lot of the ideas is that they increase the cost of
doing business. Then you can't sell your products for
higher prices, so you end up being squeezed out of the
market. That's what people in business don't want to
do, but if they can just learn how to apply chemicals
in a smarter way or find alternative chemicals that
are less harmful to the environment, they are willing
to do it.
Dante Branciforte: What will it take to cause
us as a society to be willing to consume less? Especially
given that other countries point to our level of consumption
as a reason for not pursuing more environmentally
sound policies. Take for example, the recent Kyoto
conference.
Sam Farr: I think all countries look out, first of all,
for their own selfish interests economically. I don't
think it is a case of, "America's this evil country
and the rest of these countries are all good." However,
I think there exists also this unwillingness to accept
the responsibility to being a global brother and sister.
The United States tries to help a lot, but we can do
a better job. I think it is very easy to criticize the
affluence of America, and I think Americans are critical
of it too because we know we are wasteful consumers.
We start by trying to deal with what can we do to make
us less so? Your generation has to accept as much responsibility
as my generation by asking, "what do we do?" I'm trying
to get this Congress to recycle just the little things.
We have a great recycling program in America but Congress
doesn't live by it. There's a funny sense around here
of, "We make the laws but we don't have to obey the
laws because we don't actually live here." This is just
a building we work in, but we live someplace else. Is
this building handicapped accessible in your opinion?
There's a lot of stairs around this place. I don't even
know whether they've gone through and done energy audits
in these buildings like they probably have done in your
school. So a lot of these things begin at home.
The responsibility for a democracy begins with the self,
and the question for the self is "how do I become a
better citizen?" How do I learn to get along with people?
How do I learn to help those in need? I mean basically
the tenets of most religions in the world. What nationality
are you?
Dante Branciforte: Italian.
Sam Farr:
Italian. Do you think that the Italians have a different
value of the earth than the gringos?
Dante Branciforte: I think there is a different
kind of mentality, but basically we are all the same.
Sam Farr: Yes. So
it's the way we approach the situation, but given a
better way to do things, societies usually accept it.
Dante Branciforte: It seems like a new way,
in order to not only be accepted, but actually followed
through on, that that way has to be easier than the
previous way.
Sam Farr: It has to be less selfish. I was listening to
a businessman tell me about doing business overseas
in countries where you have to pay everything under
the table. He said in the long run, corruption is more
expensive for a business. In the end when you deal with
corruption, there's unreliability because you're paying
out all this money and you're not getting a return on
it necessarily. I think that everybody would love to
live in a corruption-free society. Fortunately, America's
probably got one of the best societies in that sense.
There's envy of America because of how we can live so
freely.
Mr. Mailliard: The efficiencies of honesty
are phenomenal. It's not the money. It's not the money
that gets paid out, it's the loss of efficiency, or
coherency, and it's the collateral cost that really
breaks a country. Take for example road maintenance,
if money is allocated for a road and it goes into
somebody's pocket, that' s one thing. However effects
of the bad road of the road in terms of loss of life,
traffic accidents, the amount of down time for vehicles,
and the slowness with which things move, is the real
cost. The amount of time you spend worrying about
who's going to get what from you is really the loss,
and it's phenomenal.
Boy, do I appreciate doing business in America when
I come home. Sam Farr: That goes back to that delicate
issue of whether we have appreciated America enough
to realize the profundity of the system of governance
that we've created, and that we must nurture that. The
political system, the governance of our country, needs
as much nurturing constantly as a child does in order
to be healthy, and that's your role.
Laura Johnson: I have a question. You already
talked about how we have a responsibility to the world.
We've also heard from Undersecretary Pickering at
the State Department and Caroline Becraft who's the
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and they both told
us that America needs to understand it's post-Cold
War role in the world. That it is in our best interest
to maintain a positive global presence and that we
have to be willing to commit some of our own resources
to create and sustain a stable global community. Do
you agree with this point of view? How do you think
we can best accomplish this task?
Sam Farr: Oh, I absolutely agree with it. The greatest resources
we have in America are our people, and we have to commit
our people, and lend their talents to other countries.
As I travel to Latin America now, and I was there thirty
years ago as a Peace Corp volunteer, I'm meeting the
President's of countries rather than the presidents
of barrios, and it's interesting. What they are all
asking for is not American aide like they were six years
ago; "We want money, money, money." Now they are saying,
"We need to upgrade our skills. We need training. We
need your people to come here." It's not necessarily
bringing people from Latin American countries to our
schools, because then they'll have a wonderful experience
living in America, training in our institutions but
then saying, "Gee, we could never do this back in our
country, because we just don't have all this infrastructure
support." We need a rededication to using American
ingenuity and American skills to go to other countries,
and if we're so damn smart, learn their language, live
with them and teach them how to do their job better
where they are.
Mr. Mailliard: Becraft said a very enigmatic
thing; that "America needs to give up some of its
power in order to maintain its power," that we have
to give power to others in order for us to maintain
our position and exercise a postitive influence in
the world.
Sam Farr: Well a lot of philosophers are
better at understanding this than I am, but what I've
learned in politics is that you want your enemies to
be just as well equipped as you are because only in
fairness will you succeed. If you want the globe to
mature, then there's got to be a more leveling of the
disparity, the difference between rich and poor, in
the world because they'll never trust you as long as
you have more advantage.
Katie Fayram: Caroline Becraft told us just
yesterday that if you have never failed, you have
never won. What sort of challenges have been your
teachers?
Sam Farr: We all have
a lot of failures; first your love failures, your academic
failures, jobs, etc. I've had them all. I think you
have to have enough self-esteem and confidence for when
you have failed, so you can recover. I have the greatest
admiration for people with addictions that are able
to overcome them because you see so many people that
can't, and you realize how difficult it is. So I think
that there's something in their persona that allows
them to recover and that's what's important. I told
my own child, and you probably have all heard this from
your parents, that when the opportunity to make a wrong
choice is offered to you, there won't be any parental
guidance; there won't be anybody there telling you not
to take that offer. You've got to have enough confidence
in yourself that you can say no to peer pressure, and
you all know kids that can. What we need to do is make
sure that every human being at least has a foundation
to be able to resist evil, or enough confidence to say
no to evil.
Student: Can you say something about
the letter which you are circulating through Congress
for signatures concerning the situation with the
Hua tribe?
Sam Farr: Yes, that's a very interesting
issue, but sort of a small issue. The Hua are an indigenous
people of Columbia who are essentially seeking to create
their own reservation. As you know, we created reservations
here in this country, but that concept has not been
commonly used in other places. The Hua tribe has a dispute
with Columbia on where their reservation boundaries
ought to be. The oil companies found some oil on what
they claim is their land, but the Hua don't want it
drilled because they respect nature in it's natural
state. I'm trying to support them by getting a letter
to the Columbian government, saying "hey, take a look
at this," and members of Congress are interested. Plan
Columbia is coming through Congress right now, so there's
a lot weighing on what Congress thinks about that country.
This is just hopefully a good strong reminder that we'd
like them to be conscience of something that this country
cares about.
Mr. Mailliard: Actually these students had
a chance to interview and speak with Abby Reyes whose
boyfriend was killed down in Columbia. She came in
and told them about her work.
Sam Farr: Then
you have a good foundation concerning that. It's a big
issue for Columbia; struggling to utilize a resource
like oil. It's helped build our country, but it conflicts
with one of those issues that you talk about all the
time, that the knowledge of indigenous people and indigenous
lands should be preserved. At the same time, the country's
struggling to use it's natural resources, such as oil,
mining, timber and so on. So how do you create a balance
so you can have a win-win situation? That's where technology
can really play a role. We can do things now that we
could never do before, so maybe we can have both sustained
in what I call, best manage of practices.
Karl Holzknecht: Sheldon Wolin, a political
philosopher said that "the strength of democracy has
been its capacity to confront difference and to cherish
it, not just to think about it as an impediment to
rational decision-making." How can we foster an attitude
that allows us to embrace our diversity rather than
just tolerate it?
Sam Farr: I think we are trying to learn that. How would
you respond to that?
Karl Holzknecht: Well, it seems to me that
a lot of that lies in the culture, and that's something
that's especially important to a few of the people
we've interviewed. Specifically, Elise Nelson, who
is an Assistant Director of the President's Inter-Agency
Council on Women. She discussed with us her conversations
with young women of different cultures, and how they
would return to their countries, and help change the
communities around them.
Sam Farr: What
I've learned in life is that prejudices are learned,
and so are tolerances. So it is about teaching. The
best person to answer that question that you are going
to talk to is John Lewis.
Mr. Mailliard: We saw Bonnie Campbell yesterday;
she's the director of Violence Against Woman Office
for the Justice Department. She was essentially saying
the same thing; that the attitudes that people have
about domestic violence are learned in the home, and
then carried out through the generations. It's the
same question. How do we change the way that we think
about ourselves; how do we tell ourselves a different
story that includes an embracing rather than simple
tolerance of diversity? We can see in the ecosystem
that diversity makes strength, and yet we haven't
been able to really translate that into a cultural
awareness or social awareness. I guess education is
it, but I don't know if you can legislate that. Maybe
you can make certain penalties for extreme non-tolerance.
What role does the government have in helping us change
our way of thinking?
Sam Farr: Well I think we do;
we passed the civil rights laws, and we are always trying
to amend those to allow for broader based application.
We are seeing that now with the domestic violence or
the gay/lesbian issues, but I think there's something
more profound than that. The older you get, the more
you realize that we've all assumed the most important
role in life without any training at all, and that's
being a parent. If we really had skilled parenting abilities
in society, we wouldn't teach the wrong thing. So the
ounce of prevention is in raising children, and the
pound of the cure is the cost of not raising them holistically,
in a sense. There are costs when children grow up without
learning how to cope, be tolerant, and live in a just
society. (BUZZING) These are what tells us that
we have fifteen minutes to vote. Listen, you can listen
to it.
VOICE: At ten-twenty five am, advise members
have fifteen to record their vote on the Indiana amendment
to the Intelligence Opposition Act. This is the first
call on the Vrolla Amendment at ten-twenty five, members
have fifteen minutes to vote and this will be followed
by two five minute recorded votes on the Trafficant
on that amendment. Thank you.
Sam Farr: This is
an interesting debate; it's on the Intelligence Bill.
If you want to know what's in it you have to go upstairs
in a locked room, sign in and read it. You can't take
anything out. I haven't done it so I'm going up and
voting based on others opinions. It's a strange process.
It's one of the members, James Trafficant, who's quite
a character here in Congress. He suggested that we just
do away with the CIA and give the money to CNN. (Laughter)
It would be a lot cheaper.
Mr. Mailliard: Let's go down to Chris then
because obviously you are going to have to go up.
We thought maybe we can get two more questions in.
Is that alright?
Sam Farr: Sure.
I can get there in a few minutes so we can go for another
ten.
Chris Sun: Barbara Tuckman, a historian, defines
a hero as someone…
Sam Farr: Did you meet her in
Georgetown?
Mr. Mailliard: I wish we had.
Chris Sun: She defines a hero as someone with
nobility of purpose. Who are some heroes in your life?
Sam Farr: My dad. He passed away three years ago. John F.
Kennedy. My mom. She died when she was forty-eight of
cancer. You have different heroes at different levels
of life. Teachers are my heroes just because they inspired
me. I think teaching is probably the greatest profession.
All these people that have become incredibly successful
whether it's in football, as the President of the United
States, or as a rock star, if you ask them that same
question, they all go back and say some teacher in their
life. So I say if this is what all the most successful
people in the world think is the most important profession,
why don't we honor the profession by equaling the salary
to that of Michael Jordan? I'm thinking about a Bill
to create a minimum wage for teachers of fifty thousand
dollars. That's a long step from your question, but
it's people that we honor and respect that are heroes.
I don't think I have time to get into specifics on each
one of those persons I mentioned, but if you are interested,
I'd be glad to give you some of the reasons they are
my heroes.
Mr. Mailliard: Could you give us a reason
for one of the people you mentioned?
Sam Farr:
My mother grew up extremely well-educated and bright,
in fact I just found some papers she wrote when she
was twenty-one years old. She traveled to Europe in
the 1930's. They are the best written papers I've ever
read and to see that she could write like that at age
21 is just absolutely phenomenal. She always pushed
the envelope. She was always questioning injustice in
America. My father told me a story of when we were in
the South, coming back from Puerto Rico. We were in
New Orleans, and my mother took my sister and I to wait
for a bus. We got on the bus, walked to the back and
sat down. The driver pulled the bus over and told my
mother she couldn't sit in the back of the bus; it was
only for colored people. She said, well, this is where
I want to sit, and he said, well the bus can't go on,
you better get off. So she said, if I can't ride back
here, I don't want to. So I always say when Rosa Parks
stood up, my mother sat down. (Laughter). There's
a lot written about my father. They were both just remarkable
human beings.
Zack Donoghue: Drawing on your experience,
what's the best advice you can give to our generation?
Sam Farr: Believe in something that you have a passion for.
Believe in it and pursue it. Take risks, as long as
they are not threatening to your health and welfare.
Youth lasts a long time, and I think there is too much
pressure to try to be somewhere too early in life. I
think most of us didn't decide what we wanted to do
until our late twenties, early thirties, and yet you
are pressured from the time you graduate from high school.
Your focus is, "where you are going to go to college?"
There's big pressure concerning what you are going to
study, and what your major is. Where are you going to
go to Graduate School? What are you going to do? Where
are you going to get a job? Who are you dating? Who
are you going to marry? When are you going to have kids?
How are you going to afford a home? Now you're twenty-eight
years old and you've already made all of the most important
decisions in your life, and then what? When you go out
to get a job, people say, well I want people who have
experience, so what have you done? Where have you been?
I don't know if you have much extra time in D.C.,
but there's a fellow you ought to seek out. His name
is Ben Jealous. He grew up on the Monterey Peninsula.
He's an African American. Ben Jealous is one of my heroes.
He went to Columbia University and just because he's
so outgoing, he was elected President of the black student
union which went on strike at Columbia. He had to back
up the union because he was the president of it, although
he didn't agree with all of the things that they were
doing,. For that, he was expelled from Columbia. He
went to the south and worked, trying to stop injustices,
and he is still committed to doing away with the death
penalty. His grandmother told, "you should get back
into Columbia and then quit on your terms, but don't
let them throw you out. You are too good a kid, and
you did the right thing." He got back into Columbia
and guess what; he was selected as a Rhodes Scholar
because he stood by his convictions of doing things
that were totally different. The other Rhodes Scholar
selected was a kid who's father was in prison for committing
murder. So I think that what you are seeing is that
people are trying to select among you students that
have really had some different kinds of experiences.
That's why when I went in the Peace Corp, my mother
and father were really supportive of it because they
taught me that public service is the highest of all
callings. I was excited about it, but I didn't have
a peer among me that thought I was doing the right thing.
They thought I was nuts! You're going to give up two
years of your life, and then you're going to be behind.
What are you going to gain from living in a culture
of poverty in another country? But you know, it was
the greatest experience of my life. I took a risk, but
I knew I was right in my heart. Was I nervous and scared?
Yeah, because nobody had ever done it before. There
were many anxieties with that decision, but I was driven
by it and it changed my life.
So my suggestion to you is; follow those passions.
There is some voice in you, and the discussion we
had this morning was how do you follow your childhood
dreams? Follow those dreams. They are going in the
right place.
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Congressman
Sam Farr represents the 17th District of California.
Rep. Farr serves on the House Appropriations Agriculture
subcommittee and the House Appropriations Military
Construction subcommittee. Rep. Farr has been recently
appointed the Chair of the California Democratic Congressional
Delegation.