Liz Murray 1 "from homeless to Harvard" march 16, 2005 7:30 P.M. Phillips center for performs arts a >>> My names Sara Hanson. I'm the director for women's history month. On behalf of the women's history month committee, I'd like to welcome all of you and for thanking timing out of your busy schedule. Women's history month is a time to celebrate and recognize achievements of women past and present, especially here at our university I'd like to start off by first thanking accent for help putting on this event. We couldn't have done it without them and thank their chairman David bu 2 halter for being patient with me in planning this event and I had no idea how to do it on my own. He's been very helpful. Our speaker tonight, Liz Murray was homeless at 15 and able to work her way through high school in two years and won a scholarship to Harvard university and now she's a grad student at Columbia. I'll not tell you the rest of her story. I'll let her do it. Without further adieu, here's Liz Murray. >> hello. Good evening. Just checking your pulse, making sure you're there. This is very dramatic. I was going to say it is 3 good to see you all tonight but I can't see you anymore. I can hear you. Thanks so much for coming out. As often as I've been doing this lately, I never lose the shock of stepping out from backstage somewhere and seeing a room full of people here with me so I can share a bit about my life. It blows my mind. I think that's partially because just to give you a lit bill of ground before I get into anything, You may be not be able to tell it by me standing here, I had no intention of speaking publicly and having some kind of story and especially travelling 4 around to tell it to people ever. Really, I guess you could say what I'm doing here is grown out of something I genuinely love to do, reaching out to high school students. That's as big as I thought any of this would ever be. You could say I had given up at some . I think that would be fair to say. I had left school, I had wandered, given up on myself. when I decided to go back and take charge of my life, I guess you could say a lot of people made a big deal about it. When I graduated, I thought, if I was a dropout, what can I really 5 do with this? How can I be of use to people. It occurred to me to pick up the phone, call some guidance counselor. I'm from "New York Times" and tell them give me 10 or 15 of your absolute worst cases, students borderline. I'd go and this is how it all began I actually wrote, it's embarrassing, I wrote out this sheet of participate we are points and I had 30 minutes worth of remarks and go into a high school classroom and there'd be 15 students and sweat dripping down my forehead and I would be really nervous and read all these points on a piece of paper, telling kids how to get their lives 6 together. This is New York City. I got some papers thrown at me and kids rolling their eyes. A few people listened I kept doing it Sometimes when I felt really brave, they would give me 20 students or 30 and that was a huge audience for me. I kept this up. That's right around the same time the media got hold of my story. When that happened, it was pretty transcutaneous. My life changed and they got hold of what I was doing. This piece on "20/20" aired, a special Barbara Walters. When it aired, that's when 7 things changed I got about 3, 000 letters in the mail that first month. Then my voice mailbox at work was flooded. I was on this year off before I went into college. I got a lot of insane phone calls, one of the phone calls I got that led to this and transformed what I was doing was from a woman and I remember her getting me on the line and saying something to the effect, is this Liz Murray, the home loss to Harvard Liz Murray. And right then it was settling into my mind, that's what I'd be called the rest of my life. You got me. She said I'm an event planner for the Franklin 8 covy company. I remember thinking, whoever they are. I played it cool. She said we're doing an event for some people in my company. I'm wondering do you do any public speaking? thinking of my 10 or 15 high school students, I naturally said, yes, I do and I'm good ait. Didn't know who she -- good at it. I didn't know who she was. My big fat mouth got me on a plane. I ended up in Utah the morning of and came out from backstage with my piece of paper and curtains part and there's 2,500 businessmen in the audience staring at me 9 They told no keep good timing because Mr. Gorbachev was going on right after me. I looked and his forehead and everything, he was there. I'm not kidding. It was about 30 minutes planned, I got off the stage in 11 or 12 minutes and I ran for my life. There's a tape floating around. Any way, don't watch it. Some lunatic hin the crowd thought I had something there, I remember him pulling me aside and said, I think you do have something. I remember thinking, great, tell me, I don't know what is it. Long story short, they 10 started moving me around from company to company. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of audiences like Merrill lynch and Xerox. I love those guys. I had a lot of fun there. I remember sitting there and going, what? You know what's the relevance? I pretty soon realized what had gone on in my life stood for something to other people. motivation and determination and overcoming obstacles. Really, guess if it's your own life, you don't see anything too remarkable about it until later on. it wasn't until I looked back I understood, wait a 11 minute. This can be useful to people. I didn't get that. It took me a while. It wasn't in my intentions. So, what I'm -- you caught me at a good time is kind of what I'm saying, I left my piece of paper behind a long time ago and I feel comfortable enough standing here. I finally get it now the whole . is for me to have a conversation with you. I'm speaking to people and feel pretty comfortable doing that. In the end, I would love to hear from you and take questions from you. Sometimes I feel like that's where the real value comes from, of me visiting 12 with you I'd like to share back and forth and primarily in the vain of being useful. Please keep those questions in mind so we can turn them back and forth. That would be great. I love doing that. I think I can kind of see you if I do this I just want to know by a show of hands, I want to know how many people here, it helps explain things, heard of the lifetime movie they did about me or home loss to Harvard? can I see by a show of hands? Quite a few people. People watch cable TV. The men half raised their hands. They don't watch lifetime. 13 I feel like I out people when I ask that question. I appreciate your bravery. For those who haven't seen the movie, this whole thing starts in the Bronx with me. It's funny when I travel the reputation I hear that the Bronx has in New York City. The gangs and the drugs and the violence and whatever else. I kind of wish I could tell you it was really different. Certain parts or fine the rumors are more-or-less true where I grew up, I used to sit and look out my window when I was a kid and watch some of the things that would go on in my 14 neighborhood, people getting robbed or drug dealers, the crazy things that would go on. I'd look at my parents and ask them, why did you move us here? And they would explain, it was that time and that place. My parents were kind of hippies. That really affected a lot of my upbringing. they were hippies. They wore in the scene with afros and bell-bottoms and disco music and cocaine, lots and lots of cocaine. They got high together. That's how they met. Last year I found out my father was my mother's drug dealer and that's how they met. 15 I remember hearing to that and saying to my father, it's not very romantic. He's like, you're here, don't complain about it which I can't argue. I tell you that to really illustrate the . that I was born in this atmosphere. I'm going to share with you some incidents of things that happened in my life. More what I want you to hear, rather than the incidents themselves are the messages behind them. Ask yourself, how would this affect a child growing up and what does it do to the mentality? I'm born in this atmosphere. Right off the bat, my parents weekend party cocaine thing had become an 16 actual drug addiction. That drug addiction had entirely changed their lives. you have my older sister, lisa and I growing up in the '80s. While we were completely dependent off the government. if ever there was an argument for welfare reform it was based on the demographics in my neighborhood. Every single person in the neighborhood just about lived off of the government one way or another. The first of the month was like a held in our house, I tell people, because it's true. Everybody got their checks. The mailman was like a 17 celebrity. Coming down the block, like Santa Claus or something. Every nay born my building would be standing by the mailboxes waiting eagerly, my parents included We get these checks and it looked like a parade of people marching to the check cashing store. The line would be wrapped around the block. Everybody in our neighborhood, SSi, food stamps whatever, everybody got something. This is how we sustained in my neighborhood. I thought as a kid growing up, this is how everybody lives. Jobs, what are those? Maybe the mail man has one or the people at 18 McDonald's has a job. I saw nothing bigger than this little bubble I was living in. Guess you don't know how strange your upbringing was until you're out and I guess you're experiencing that now. You move around in society and go, everybody didn't live like that? The lessons come to you in stages. When I did get to Harvard much later, as you can imagine with, a little bit of cultural shock. A tad. I got there and I remember trying to re late to my roommates sitting around reminiscing about European vacations with their family and Christmas in 19 Connecticut. I was wracking my brain and I would joke with them although they didn't find it funny. I would say in my neighborhood we had 12 holidays a year, when the first of the month came and they would stare blankly back at me. It's true. Everybody had their own routine, own family Our family routine was to go get the check, go get McDONALD'S and we all went to the drug spot together. Le sand I would wait on the sidewalk and our parents would disappear up the stairs and cop a bag, get Coke or higher than, anything they could put in 20 a needle and shoot up constantly. They would buy their drugs and we go to the supermarket together. A list of things to do. At the supermarket we would have 30 dollars worth of groceries for the entire month for the four of us. If you're counting and think that doesn't make much sense, you're right. It's a drug addict's budgeting. Our parents get this little bit of food, bring their drugs home, Lisa and I would eat and our parents just get high. Certain people can stay awake on certain drugs for five or six days at a time. Phenomenal to watch, unbelievable? 21 It's the same idea, going, going, going, getting high. I don't know what they're functioning off of, not even eating, getting piping Maybe five or six days later, they were strung out, there'd be no more drugs, definitely no more check money, no more food. it was always about the struggle, the struggle of getting to the next month. You ever hear about that in the ghetto. Everybody talks about the struggle man, we're all in the struggle together. That's group That character rises a lot of people's upbringing in that area. Everybody around the 15th or 20th of the month they're looking angry and people are short 22 tempered and PiSsED off. My parents had their own version of this and would get by through selling the TV for 5 dollars or things we had around the house. I would see kids in the building with our stuff and know it was ours. Lisa is older than me and showed me how to get around. She would walk me up and down the stairs of our 10ment building and walk by people's doors and smell the best smell we would have to agree on it and knock and ask if they could feed us. They would most of the time. I know this sounds very dramatic and it sounds desperate. 23 In context, this is kind of average. This is around the crack epidemic in the '80s in New York City in the Bronx where it really hit hard. A lot of kids, like latchkey kid type, they were just loose. Sometimes we'd go into these people's apartments, the grandmother of the building, a caretaker and you'd be sitting across the table from other kids and those kids didn't have food and they were neglected. Maybe we were more extreme, in other words, everybody was going through something. We would sit and eat and when we couldn't do that, we had different versions of getting by. 24 We drank lots of water or ait ice cubes and made mayonnaise sandwiches, if there was bread. if not, we split a tube of toothpaste. We did whatever we had to do but we knew we were fine as long as the 1st would come again and the cycle would start itself over. They would get high and go on and on. To paint a full picture for you, to put it in context so you can understand what the messages are, how it is to grow up in this environment, if you can imagine the drug habit as supreme that gets the most attention of everything in the household, you can imagine everything beneath 25 that fell apart. Everything that didn't fit with the drug habit. That means that there was no maintenance of any kind in the apartment. Meaning I'm being literal. Imagine no one ever maintained anything where you grew up ever. The fridge broke when I was in the third grade and we grew up without a fridge because no one ever bothered to get another one. The bathtub got stuck and we called it the blob and we showered at friend's houses if we showered at all and my mother had a temper and drank and she broke a couple windows and we had broken windows even during 26 the window We ha a cat and dog and no one changed the cat pen or walked the dog. There would be garbage and other stuff you don't want to step in. If you can picture this environment and see what this is doing to a kid. In doing this, it's unfortunate, I'm telling you about all this and I'm demonizing my parents. I know I am. Obviously anybody doing this to a kid have to be the worst creepiest people in the world. I hate that I do that up here. It gives a misimpression. It wasn't like that Maybe I sound crazy saying this, I know people always kind of 27 look at me like I am when I tell you Actually, I felt very loved by my parents. I love them very much. I did not feel angry, not because I was trying to block out the idea that I was being neglected, not because I was oblivious, actually because of something else I saw that was really, really direct. I don't know how many people in this room have had to deal with hard core drug addiction at this age. hope you haven't or maybe there's somebody that you really, really love that's been addicted to hard core drugs. If you have seen this, then you might know what I'm talking about when I say 28 drug addiction is a disease. Drug addiction of that kind is a disease. You can debate it. There's choice involved. I know, there's things you can say and all different degrees. When I saw my parents like that it was so hard to be angry at them because I didn't feel something was being done against me. They were suffering more than we were. My mother is schizophrenic, legally blind, having hallucinations, hearing voices, my father, obsessive-compulsive disorders and mental problems and both heavily drug addicted. What does that mean in real 29 life? What does that look like? if I haven't had a solid meal in two days my mother didn't have one in three or four days. Maybe did need a new winter coat. My dad was taking duct tape and putting them on his sneakers as they were falling apart. I didn't intellectualize this as a kid. I saw their struggling. Their suffering was obvious. I didn't see them run off and be better parents to other kids and stick it to us. See what I mean? There was no bad intention, no malice, no one was getting up and doing 30 something against me. What sense did it make to feel angry? this is how I felt as a kid. I empathized for them and felt their struggling and did not feel angry. Doesn't worry, Lisa was angry enough for both of us, and is legitimate. That's fine. She has her own life experiences. That doesn't mean I came out unscathed and say everything is fine. You can't come out of an environment like that and be healthy right off. You have struggles and I have mine. Participate in my life, I'm 24, I think that I know there are probably a dozen 31 of these, I can trace two really deep psychological effects most prominent in my personality. One as a result of growing up in this environment, one was really helpful to me and the other one was exactly the opposite. The first one this is, guess, unique, in a way, different for kids. I knew growing up ins the environment, the message I took from it was my life was my own responsibility. No one else was going to take care of me, right? My life was my own responsibility. People get this at all different stages of life, right? All different. When I got to Harvard, 32 again, you see the cultural differences, as you can imagine. I think kids were just coping with it then, the idea of self-responsibility. The first weekend that I was there, I had to go down to the laundry room to do my laundry. I thought I heard Ed and I was pretty sure and someone was crying and I opened up the door to the laundry room and one of my sweet mates is crying over her very own first load of laundry her mother hadn't done for her. When she saw me, can you imagine the guilt, she sees me, she's wiping the tears away and apologized. Said, I'm sorry, it's 33 symbolic. I turned on the heel and said whatever and walked away. Didn't judge her, I didn't judge her. I knew watching that as she was getting this lesson of her life being a responsibility. I thought maybe one of the ways I grew up was helpful. let me not be bitter about it. Then there's the dark side, the other side. This is almost like they're opposites, almost the inverse of the other one. You can't grow up and feel responsible for your life at the age of 6, right? Without feeling almost proportionately isolated You feel trapped inside 34 yourself. Who is there really to Connecticut with? If my parents are not talking to me, try to imagine someone in my situation making my way to school. you talk about growing up in a sense of isolation, right? I went to school by the time I got there, you're in college, you know what it's like to pull an all-nighter. When I was a kid and go to grade school, no one was making me sleep. We had no rules in my house. I would stay up until 6 :00 in the morning and my sister was older so she would drag me to another 35 school and plop me in the classroom and walk off. I would be dazed. maybe I hadn't eaten in a while. I was very skinny. I had lice, infestation of lines my hair, dirt all over my skin, holes in my clothes. My clothes didn't fit me to begin with. I was a smelly kid in class, you know that kid that sits in the corner, that was me. Get a picture of this in your mind. This is supposed to be a time I'm learning to be social. I put my face on the desk and didn't move it That was okay because no one was really looking to 36 talk to me anyhow. Maybe they threw some things at me and they had nicknames. Then the teachers. A lot of people say to me, okay, if a kid is starving, they're skinny and they look awful, doesn't somebody do something? how can you actually go through life like this and no one intervenes. They did try. They did fry You have to add context to the situation when you consider the problem. The teachers were underfunded. there were maybe to 35 kids in one classroom to one teacher. Lots of kids have problems. It's the crack epidemic. 37 The kids in my neighborhood already are poor. Everybody's living off welfare. The array of problems in this school, everybody -- you'd have to set yourself on fire for attention. I sat in the classroom and maybe I was in the extreme end of the spectrum, there was a lot going on with me. What could the teacher do? They tried. Don't get me wrong, they tried. I think back on it now, it's kind of-I forgive myself. I always think there was something wrong with me, I wasn't able to accept their help because I wasn't able to understand it. 38 they would come turnover me and look, hi, Liz. I would be sitting at the desk with lies in my head and they're saying, sweetheart, oh, and I see them trying to figure it out, um, you haven't been here in three weeks, sweetheart. No homework again? Sweetheart, don't you want to be somebody? don't you want to grow up and reach for the stars? You know? I'm like does she have a sandwich in her purse? What is she talking about? Can this woman feed me? You know, that's my whole thought process. I'm sorry, but what is she talking about? Sitting there looking at 39 her, you know, and she's just saying, okay, you know, here's some juice and cookies, you know. You can take a nap. then other kids are learning how to add fractions and stuff, I'm sitting in the corner. You talk about growing up with an enforced sense of isolation, hear you go. Already enough of the kids are not getting the lessons they need. This is the situation I'm in. The only way -- I knew how to respond was just not to come to school. because why go? People are trying to fix you and figure you out. If I was hungry enough I would go. 40 Other than that, I decided to stay away from school. that was my solution. I went maybe a handful of days every month. Maybe some people can re late. if you grew up and your parents live off the system and getting checks, you've been to welfare a million times. If you've been to welfare and a kid and trying to learn how the world works, you learn things function off a system. every system has a bottom line. My mother had to fill out certain forms, make certain meetings and make certain requirements. I went to school and searched for the bottom 41 line. I knew if I showed up for my exams and only champs and passed them how could they hold me back. I said I'll pass them so I did. not because there's anything particularly bright or special necessarily about me. First, I think the standards were extremely low in the schools. Seriously. It was almost funny. On top of that, the other thing, a gift that was given to me was the love of reading. That's thanks to my dad. If you've seen the movie, you know, he's completely out there, kind of a weird guy. 42 If you haven't seen the movie, if you've seen "as good as it gets "with Jack Nicholson with OCD, that's my dad, a mad scientist Totally insane and completely on drugs. He was really intelligent. He would go to the library and check out stacks of books and wouldn't return a book ever. he had a few aliases at the New York public library. He would leave them all over the apartment. my parents aren't connecting with me. I'm not going to connect with my peer group, right? The teachers, you know what they're doing. No one's reading the newspaper in my house My mother sold the TV for 5 43 dollars Where is my connection with anything? I read. These books were there. I read them. when I went to school and took my tests, I was just able to do it. I don't know how else to tell you, I was able to get by. This is how they promoted me every year. This is how you can live in a bubble like this, how it can happen a kid can be almost on the brink of starving and abused or neglected, however you want to look at it, no one can do anything. It's not as though there wasn't that threat of social services. I guess that's the one 44 thing that might have burst our bubble. You know the state, social workers concerned, you never know who calls, either a teacher, maybe a neighbor, somebody looking at you and thinking something's not right, they pick up the phone and call the state and say, look into this, this doesn't look good social workers showed up at our house. That's the only thing we had to look out for that might have changed everything. You talk about growing up in a deep sense of isolation in society. Let me put the disclaimer out there and tell you I've met some good social workers and even great ones 45 later in life. I realized that these calls of concern were just that, they were meant to help. Actually, what ended up happening with the social workers in the Bronx in the mid-80s, I don't know the hiring process back then or the criteria, the terrorist of these phone calls is these people ended up in our house and sit there on the coach and look at us and they would tear into us, let my sister and I have it and put us down. They would have my attendance record there. Lisa went to school more than I did so I got all the attention. They would say degrading things. Elizabeth, you haven't been 46 to school in this many weeks, huh? It's really a shame when you don't go to school. When you don't go to school by this many days I have to come here. When I come here, I have to breath the air in your apartment. Do you know what your place smells like? How do you answer that? They would say, well, you kind of live like pigs. Look at this, they kick garbage around on our floor, how does it feel to live like a pig? How you do answer that. The woman was telling me you are old enough to keep this household in order. If this place is a mess it's because it's your 47 fault. I was 7 years old. If I thought my life was my responsibility when I was 5 and 6 if the house was a mess when I was 7 this followed my logic. I believed her and began to internalize the problem and blamed myself for almost everything. More than that, the higher message I took, the real damage done was she would say things along the lines of what you need to understand, I go to many houses, Elizabeth, you're not normal. This is the worst of it. I have never seen anything like this. Your dysfunctional, do you understand that? She would tell me this and 48 tear into me and go on and on. Inch in the end, there would be this punchline, say shape up or you will ship out. There are places for kids like you, group homes, city youth facilities, lock-up, we'll put you away. If you can't get your act together, we're going to get your act together for you. She would tell me, you'll scrub toilets, clean, given chores. She added the girls will beat you up because you're white, they're not going to like that. You're a little white girl. We were the only white people in my neighborhood. To me that didn't matter 49 but apparently it mattered to a lot of people. I received a lot of racism. Apparently my skin color showed some sort of privilege I had yet to benefit from and I got a lot of flak from it. She used that and threatened and she would leave and never take us. I just didn't understand this. I don't know if the fulfilled a quota or what she was doing. I don't know the hiring process, this is what happened. Years passed. What you need to do is add it all up. It om came into my awareness in the last year or two the way you can look 50 at this. The idea that my life was so polarized only recently occurred to me You can almost draw a line right down the middle of my life. Right on this side of the line, you would have society over here. You would have normal people, people who had jobs, people I don't know had bank accounts and suits and lipstick and credit card. Valid people. People like sue on TV and movies. People more real than we were. They were over here. On this side of the line, you would have people like us, just as she told me I 51 was dysfunctional, not normal, wrong, off. I didn't understand much about this, right? I knew very few things. I knew for certain I did not belong on that side of the line. That was huge, right? what really characterized the difference. this is really typical of a lot of people that grew up in a subsection of society, disempowerment. These are the people in charge, they were the people we were to appeal to and we were the people not in charge. There were a few of those and they ran everything and most of us are at their mercy. If I'm going to welfare 52 with my parents, we're gettings the messages, we can be taken away at any minute. Our income can be cut off if we don't prove ourselves to welfare. Teachers are part of reporting us and give us grades and decide whether we pass through. Given free lunch in this summer program in my neighborhood, decide whether or not they want to feed us. There's a whole bunch of people and we're always in a state of appealing to them, always asking for something. They can kill us if they want to, practically It's almost life-threatening if they 53 decide against something we want. We were the people over here who were meant to appeal. I've heard so many people, psychologists and things in books I've read about identity, where do you get your identity from? you have a few core believes about who you are and what went into that? a lot of this happened in childhood. This is my identity I began to form. I was one of those people. Did not belong in society. Every week in my life was another message to reinforce this idea primarily I tell this and I try to hear it from your 54 prospective. I suppose it sounds unstable to say the least. It's meant to fall apart you know I end up homeless and maybe you've seen the movie and you know it gets worse before it gets better. if you're a kid, isn't fair you think the way your live is the way it will always be, your parents will always be together, your home will always be your home, you will always live in that area forever. You have that false sense of security. Even I did. I thought things wouldn't change. That was big for me When we finally did fall apart as a family, that was 55 shock. I did not see it coming. I was 10 years old when my mother was diagnosed HIV-positives. They weren't careful with their needles and had been passing them around. They had friends coming up there and shooting up with them. I would watch them. My father would do my mother's arm because their eyes were so bad. He would shoot up for her and pass that needle to each other. My mother was diagnosed when I was 10. She came into my room drunk one night to tell me about this. She and I talked a lot. We connected a lot. 56 I was kind of like her diary. She shared this with me, it put me in such a state, I was wrecked when she told me. I remember her apologizing to me and walking out of my room and saying, forget I said anything. she was drunk, she shut the door. With that became like this dirty secret in our house. No one talked about aids. People didn't talk about it in general, not the media. Even in people's homes where aids existed we weren't supposed to speak about it. I want the only one going through that. People I did manage to talk to sometimes their parents 57 would be sick so it was hush-hush, and it was like this looming threat over us that guaranteed something was going to change and soon. I knew that, being 10. Well, a few years later, things did change. They kind of completely -- it's like somebody took a wrecking ball to our family. Everything came undone. My mother moved out. She left my dad and she moved in with another man who she called a real family man who she met at the bar which meant in my neighborhood basically that he was employed. That was it. he didn't wait for the mailman so he was like some 58 stud. she moved in with him. She took my sister. She offered to take me and I spent this confused chunk of time between my mother's new home and my father's apartment that was ours. And still in the Bronx nearby. I guess that wasn't meant to last. I hit junior high school age, a few years had passed, the social service department, the social worker saw my mother was gone and saw my father I was living in this place completely falling apart. they took me away and they placed me in that group home they had advertised for so many years in my apartment. 59 I don't really have any time to get into that whole thing with you and tell you about the group home. I can summarize it for you and tell you the messages I got from there Well, okay, whatever the hiring process was for the social workers that came to your airport, whatever that deal was, these were the same kinds of staff members, right? only now you're locked in and living with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can imagine what this does to your self-image to who you are and how you feel on a daily basis. It was everything the woman said. She always said you'll do 60 chores. I found it ironic, I scrubbed toilets in the bathroom as she always threatened. They did beat me up. they had a few nicknames for me Casper, cracker, white girl, pound med on the head a bunch of times. Everybody was violent to one another. it was a zoo. That's not what left the biggest impression in the group home. what did it for me was the staff. the absolute apathy that emanated off these people. They did not care. I often heard the praise somebody could be beaten up. I had hot soup thrown in my 61 lap and a girl tried to break a chair into my legs. they'd say I'm out of here at 3:00 leave me alone tell the next staff member, it's not my shift. They had this attitude, you were invisible, that's what it was. they didn't see you, you weren't a human being and didn't matter. You could be invisible and not matter, yet at the same time there are get as on the windows and you can't open up the window because you're locked in, you're buds in and out of doors. The staff walk is a round with keys on their waist and permit you access to the refrigerator for a piece of fruit if you earn it 62 You're dehumanized and forgotten and invisible. When lift that system later that year, I made a promise to myself no matter how bad things got I would not go back to the system. it's a promise I made myself. that's the message I took from there. Things did get worse. A lot of people ask me how do you end up homeless if you're a teenage in America in New York City? how does that happen? it's actually a lot easier than you think. it happened pretty quickly. I got out, I was about high school age. what is a kid going to do when you have a lot of issues at home? 63 if when you have your group, you find a click at a certain age, you find kids kind of exactly like you or something like you, I found my click when I got out of the group home. I found my -- sort of embarrassing, you know the Goth kids, the all black, die my hair purple, Pierce every available spot of everything on my whatever, I'd wear a curse word across the chest of my shirt and listen to metal music, the air of rebellion, that distance from society, I found my group and I became a Goth kid. I found about 12 other kids pretty much exactly like me We all immediately bonded in this new neighborhood I 64 was living in with my mother. I drifted. I met a girl named Chris. You know who Chris is if you've seen the movie. If you haven't seen the movie, she is kind of like the poster child for got life, a mo hawk and attitude problem through the Ruth. Chris this is symbol. She and I became like sisters and really close very fast. she was drifter who ran away from home because she had been abused by her dad. She had nowhere to live. She went from one friend's house to the next in the group. we called ourselves a family, really. 65 I think we even joke wed had familial roles. I would be the mom, Chris was the rebellious kid, and an uncle. we had different roles we fulfilled. We were kind of ban niching our parents together. One thing we all had in common was we had problems. It was like, we met and I've got issues, I've got issues, will you be my friend? I hate the world. Let's go hang out. What's funny about that, is you know, you meet -- I guess friendships should be forged out of something positive but it's like we formed friendships to be against things. That's what we did. 66 That was our thing. We got together and I began sleeping might different friends' houses with Chris. I hardly ever came back to this man's apartment, back home. My father lost the apartment, ended up living in a homeless shelter. so that door was closed. My mother got so sick she was so sick, she began living in the hospital. She was fading. I don't really think I accepted what was happening with her until it did happen. There was this time period where I was in complete denial. it's amazing how that really does work. fy was in denial about what 67 was happening with my mom because I couldn't get the idea through my mind what it would be like not to have her. I know I talk about this dysfunctional atmosphere and I wish that there was some way to say it up here, there just isn't, not completely anyway, but the love we had between us it was real. It was an actual thing. I heard the words, "I love you" from my mother on a daily basis for years. She would hug me, she would ask about me, look in my eyes. She would tuck me in at night when she was there. She cared for me. And I loved her so much. I look back now at the 68 crazy things did with that group, I know I was tuning out the pain. Back then I thought I was having a bunch of fun. we cut school, we went shoplifting, we overturned trash can is in the middle of the street and sang and locked arms and went down the street marching and yelling and being obnoxious basically and making all the noise we could. I don't know if it was the pain turned inside-out, I don't know what it was. I felt good, I felt free and I totally completely forget about my life. I left school behind in this really big way and eventually I left everything else behind. my mother began living in 69 the hospital almost permanently The man we were living with was an alcoholic surprise surprise, from the bar. He didn't want us there my mother couldn't see it coming. he constantly threatened to throw us out if we caused lots of problems. Eventually I was at a friend's house and my sister picked up the phone and was told I had a pins warrant, like a child in need of supervision. Like a teen arrest warrant. At some . I found out if I returned back to that apartment when the police would pick me up and going to take me to the group home. I wasn't going to the group 70 home at all. I made that decision. As a result, I was 15 years old and I became homeless although I -- again, denial is amazing. I didn't realize I was homeless for about three weeks. Chris and I had that plan. We planned for all whole lives together. Hilarious, you have these friendships in junior high school, high school, you get together with somebody, Chris and I were going to graduate from high school although we weren't attending high schools with dip prom mas would -- diplomas would materialize and going to live in these fabulous apartments although we had 71 no jobs and that would somehow happen and live these amazing live styles in New York and marry these guys when we wanted to settle down and we'd have neighboring houses. She would have two kids and so would I and maybe our kids would marry each other. We made this life together in our minds. Similarly, we thought in a really unrealistic way we would go from one friend's house to the next and just be fine reality eventually sank in. We didn't think too much of it the first night we slept on the subway, Chris put her head on my back and we had our flannel shirts and blankets and kicked our 72 book bags under the seats and went to sleep rocking back and forth with the train. We woke up with the morning commuters, people on their way to work and students on their way to school. We went to work sometimes we went to get our train passes," got hot lunches, socialized. One time I went in to take a test to see if I was rusty or what and Chris came in and she wore her cog collar to see if the social studies teacher would react. The didn't even go to the school. this was my whole high school education. We drifted and were wandering around and 73 begging for change outside. Chris turned to me at some . and said Liz, I said, yes. do you think we're homeless? You know, you're on to something. I think so. I want to tell you I was devastated. Actually, I laughed hysterically. I thought it was so funny. You probably could not have said anything funnier to me. Not because I was insane, if you watch, it's so interesting, I'm studying a lot about human development now and realizing the power of identity, it's so powerful. We decide our identities 74 almost unconsciously. Maybe it was something you heard a million times over when you were a kid, your self-image pn I've heard people say whatever you believe most about yourself, maybe only three or four things, it doesn't have to be that complex, whatever you believe most about yourself is what you manifest your life, so I can look at any of your lives and tell what you think about yourself. If you apply that principle to where I was, I have found this hole for myself, I had been told over and over I was dysfunctional and wrong and off and society was over here and we another over here and I don't belong. 75 Look what I did with myself. I gravitated towards the streets. I officiallized the decision where I was homeless. I had nowhere to go. There's some choice, we could have stayed with this man for a while, maybe I could have done homework and gone to school. there are certain things I could have done and didn't do, maybe that has to do with my identity. I had a black outfit to match my identity I had an outfit. I think that's pretty telling. I completely solidified myself in the role I thought I belonged in. 76 look at yourself deep down and what do you believe about yourself the most. If you had an honest moment with yourself, no one was watching, had to put a pen to the page, who do you believe you are I know that's deep. I know that's who I thought I was back then. You could have seen it on me and it was obvious. I found my role and drifted and years passed. I stayed this way for a while. I guess I could have drifted maybe forever if not for what happened. People do drift, you see these people lost later in life and have all this regret. I had something happened 77 that really changed absolutely everything bus we all mean to do something with our lives, right? We all kind of know what we're supposed to be doing, we all have this message inside, they call it, I always hate it because it sounds so corny, the voice within or your conscience, you know the voice in the back of your head always telling you what to do. I don't know you but we all have one, that thing that tells you I have to go to school, get a job, do these things, get my life together. It asks you questions like what would happen if? One day I really dream of this. you have this inside of you 78 and everybody has it Because it demands so much of you, because it's really your potential I'm talking about, because it demands such high standards of you it becomes annoying and hard to deal with. We quiet the voice by lying to ourselves. I can't really try out for what I want to do. I couldn't really be a doctor. I couldn't really be a rock star, I couldn't really be a scientist, I couldn't really do these things I want because -- we throw all these excuses in front of us or else we don't think about it much at all. We pick up a phone and call a friend, you go to class because you have to go to 79 class. You pass the time and don't think about the bigger picture of your life. Everybody has a method of tuning out that voice, kind of lying to yourself. My method was just the use of one word. That word was "later." I used it a lot. Anything you could have asked me to do with my life I would have told you I'll do it later, go to school later, get a job later, make a real plan with my life later. I had the misimpression, I always believed there was some other time to do something, there would be this perfect other time the obstacles would be different. 80 I believed that in a way. If you do that enough with the smaller things, the more important things fall to the wayside, too, because I meant to visit my mother more in the hospital and I didn't do that much. Because I always thought there would be this perfect time later. I told myself that so much I actually believed it. My mother, she died on a Wednesday morning, December of that same year I turned 16. No one had visited her in a few days. I hadn't been in there almost a month because I told myself I would do it later, right? I believed that. That's the thing. 81 If you lie to yourself enough, you believe your own lies. I was insulated in deny Pam She died then and we buried her the day after Christmas of that year. We had no money for an actual funeral, so we went and we got this charity service to donate a pine box. And then we went to the bar that she used to drink in and pulled together cab money and we took the cab to her funeral, her burial, and someone had taken a black magic marker and scribbled on top of that box and wrote her name, misspelled and wrote the name head and drew an arrow down the box. There were other pine boxes 82 and she was going to be stacked and placed in this unmarked grave by a highway-I can't communicate enough to you how much I truly believed, truly believed that there would be this other time. That's the thing. Always, it's not even like I thought she might die some day and -- there was this romantic idea in my head of life, you know, that whatever you want to do, something waits for you somewhere. It will eventually happen, is kind of the way that I felt. When she died, and I was standing there and I looked at this box so pitiful, maybe 42 might sound old to you at this age, it didn't 83 to me. She died when she was 42. I don't have to time to tell you about the dreams she had and the things she wanted to do but she did have dreams and she died without fulfilling them. Sorry. It's hard to talk about sometimes because it's like I want to get back at myself back then and yell at myself, you know I really believed there would be later, with all my heart. There just wasn't. And so when I took the car back to the neighborhood to see my group that day, you know, my friends, the family, we called ourselves, right? Well, this feeling happened 84 inside of me I guess the feeling is you could say, the reason I'm standing in front of you today, it's the only reason I can even be here because of what I learned. It's not very long, it's kind of condensed and short and straight to the . It's unfortunate this kind of saying is so misused because you can't hear it anymore, right? People tell you life is short. Treat it as though it were precious and they tell you that a lot. What does that really mean? I saw my mother go and I sat on my friend's coaches. their parents had pity for the first few weeks, I didn't really run out of a 85 place to stay at first. I sat there and I saw my friends differently. I saw everything differently. I became obsessed with time. I became obsessed with time in the sense that I knew it was going to run out. We used to be able to sit there, the group, we would sit there, watch TV, sleep, we'd play video games, we would do everything wasteful you can possibly think of and we didn't even consider the hours going by. Here my mother had run out of her time, right, when she was 42. Now, I'm sitting on my friend's coaches when she passed away, and a change 86 happened inside of me. I watched my friends and I saw suddenly a few things, first of all the thing with time, second the differences between us. Maybe I didn't belong over here in this live but I certainly had found my place with my friends, I thought. now I didn't belong anywhere. You know how you get a friend and try to make yourself stick to them, in your mind you think they're going to somehow keep you company and that's enough. I thought I had found my group and my place. Well, I looked at them and realized they got up in the morning and opened up their drawers, most of them and 87 had clean clothes, ate meals, could open up the refrigerator, they could call across the apartment to their mothers, right, they could say mom out loud, they could -- they had family portraits on the wall. They had things I didn't have. I saw the differences between us. I sat there by myself and realized suddenly that whatever I did or did not do with my life no matter what was going on around me, it stuck to me. At the end of the day, if I wasn't going to take charge, you couldn't go and sit at a job interview, and they ask you, what have you done with your life? 88 say, I may not have done these things but listen my mom died and all this stuff happened to me and my friends, they're great. Either you do it or don't do it. Only the results matter. That's what I realized. I saw that. And I saw that the results mattered and I saw my time as having gone by like this. I was going to be 17 years old by the time the next school year started. most kids were graduating at this age. I had an eighth grade education. I think I had a 42 average on my transcripts. A lot of people say I can't stand really to hear people 89 talk about how impossible something is because I want you to look at the full picture of this because what happens right after this it is so rapid it goes by in a blink. That's the long stuff. Once you realize what to do. The problems are complicated, the solutions are simple. you ever heard of that, right? People tell me they can't do things sometimes. I tell them consider the situation. You look at this, I have an eighth grade education, I'll be 17 by the time the next school year starts. I have nowhere to live, my dad is living in a shelter, 90 my mother is gone, I have no relatives, I don't have anything to eat. I have three outfits maybe, two rolled up in a book bag, I wash my hair in sinks and diners with my friend, Chris we sleep on rooftops or couch's and I had nothing, I had a pins warrant out for me where the system was looking to take me in. I had a license, I guess you could say, to just stop. Nobody would have blamed me. My friends were turning 18 and going to the welfare office and opening up their cases. Didn't that make sense with the way I had grown up? The problem was I realized 91 something about the voice in the back of my head. It's like somebody had taken all those things I ever nagged myself to do and I was able to quiet that voice, it's like somebody turned the volume all the way up. I walked around everyday and realized to give up would be an excuse, would be a lie to myself, a continuation of the lies I lad told myself. I decided to go back to school. I realized about the whole thing with time, if you see how all the years add up because we had all gotten older, all gone through some things. Things had definitely changed, time created 92 results. I said to myself, what if I picked a goal, maybe high school, I picked that goal and then once I had it in mind, I got up and every single day I worked as hard as I possibly could, as long as I was awake, as long as I had energy, I would fight as hard as I could with this goal, with all time pass like that, weeks, hours, everything, all added up, how different would my lieu be in six months? -would my life be in six months? What would my life look like in one year, two years? I found a high school. I went to a few, I guess you could say there are all 93 these reasons to keep giving up, I found out about alternative high schools in New York City, have you ever heard of these? Every time I travel, people talk about alternative high schools like dropout prevention programs. but in New York City they have a special set of high schools, designed to be like private schools almost. they're run by city funding and board of Ed certified whatever. They're very rare and my first high school had 5, 000 students in it. I had fallen right through the cracks. I never went. Sometimes Chris and I went, 94 right? These high schools had 150 students in them total. They had 12 teachers. You called the teachers by their first name. Hey have a lounge where the teacher's desks and students' coaches are and hang out as community, have weekly meetings where the whole school decides on policy. You go into a classroom rather than handing you a history textbook and study it, they Xerox different sections and discuss perspectives. You learn to think for yourself and challenge things around you. These places care about you in general. It sounded like a mirage in 95 general like I didn't believe in them. A lot of the kids spoke about the alternative high school system. I wanted to be a part of it. I went out to find an alternative high school. I had maybe five interviews lined up in one day. I got turned down flat at a bunch of schools. You know when you're trying to convince somebody of something maybe in an interview, you can tell they made a decision about your a long time ago, they're kind of giving you the nod and smile, yes, sweetheart, sure, I saw people click off. They had seen my transcripts because these 96 schools, you have to be worth it there's so few slots. They didn't want to take a risk on me I got turned down flat in a lot of places. need loss to say it was sort of discouraging. I walked in the street, I'm challenging my belief in society and taking a risk and getting turned down, appealing to everybody. I stand on the street corn over 60 something street Manhattan. I don't know if that means anything to you, big buildings, lots of people, a much of noise. I stood there and I remember this moment and it's sort of pivotal because I had money in this 97 pocket right here. I had enough money to do two things, as far as I saw, take the subway to a couple more interviews and finish them out, go to my rejections, as I thought of them, or I could go pizza for me and Chris, that's the way I looked at it. go back to the Bronx and hang out and have lunch money. I remember standing there doing this, frustrated, rocking back and forth, is it really worth it? I'm tasting the pizza, thinking about it And the pizza seemed more worthwhile at the time. I'm doing this, rocking back and forth. Such an interesting thing happened maybe you can 98 identify with, if you're being really honest with yourself. have you ever had a task ahead of you, you had to do something done, and it seemed too much, too overwhelming, right around the same time, you all of a sudden began to feel very sorry for yourself, start thinking how difficult everything is. I stood there. I had been in a decent mood before then, I'm rocking back and forth and doing this and started thinking about my mother and started thinking about my stand the way I've grown up and then about what happened to me when I was 5 on a Tuesday, you know, and you know, it was really upsetting when 99 that social worker said that thing and on and on. I caught myself actually manufacturing a bad mood in order to provide a reasonable justification not to go to these interviews. I caught myself only because I think of what was happening recently. I saw what I was doing. have you ever felt really sorry for yourself and hear yourself whining and turn it around and learn to make fun of yourself. I was doing this, when I was 5 on a Tuesday, I'm making fun of myself so it sounds kind of stupid but bear with me. I look down and saw my feet, look, Liz, you have two feet. 100 I think you have two hands. you might have half a brain. I think there's some air in your lungs, you know, just go to the stupid interview. You probably have more than what you need right here to dear yourself to the subway to go. I'm having a fight with myself and look like every other crazy in New York twitching and talking to myself. No one noticed, New York City. I'm doing this and laugh and walking my way to the train and came up with a new phrase that really helped. Liz, be honest with yourself, do you have enough in you to really do 101 it. It sounds silly but it became a phrase of mine, it became a double-check, no, it's not important. no. Be honest with yourself, feel yourself, do you feel you can do it. It became a check system I had. I got myself to school with this attitude. I met Perry who they call David in the movie. I have no idea why. it's huh pants preparatory school. I had guaranteed to get to the interview and hadn't guaranteed I would act right. You have to appreciate how I look. I had my hair in my face 102 and my black clothes and plopped myself down in this chair. I talked to Perry. He's like, so wonderful to meet you or something to that effect. I know what I did out loud, went Ahhh. He was talking to me, I guess I was self-destructive. I expected this man to look down on me and I was going to give him attitude and I did that and he probably looked at me, what dragged you in here. He was really gracious. No, nice to meet you. I couldn't look him in the eye, I couldn't look at him because he was one of those people, as far as I knew. I turned my back to him and 103 telling him a bit of my life. He kept asking questions to the extent I told him all about my life, everything that had happened, my mother, except the part about not having somewhere to live because I didn't want to be taken in, he had to call if he knew, I gave him a friend's phone number and address. I kept talking. A pretty amazing thing happened. I looked back after I was done speak and Perry had been listening and shaking his head and had his hand across his forehead looking off into space pn I found out later, he's the drama teacher but a very sincere man. 104 It's not like he was crying or sobbing, he was doing this. His eyes were kind of glassy. He really actually had been affected by what I said. This is a completely new experience for me I'm looking at him, Buddy, what's your scam? he completely took me of guard. He reached across and grabbed my arm, I kind of just went like that, like a wild animal with my hair, what are you doing? He said to me, it is absolutely horrendous what you have gone through. I don't understand. You're too young. He meant it. Buddy, you need to get out 105 there. People are going through this stuff. You all right? He said, no, no, look at me. Look, look at me. I kept looking away, took my chin, look at me. Your too young for this. I would love to welcome to you huh pants prep. I would -- humanities prep. I would love to give you a second chance. I said, kibe but you haven't seen my transcripts. I slid them across the table. Come in tomorrow to prep and bring a guardian with you because I lied about my dad. We'll sign you in. 106 if you pick up on the theme and messages, there's always a reason to say I can't this school administers wants no bring a guardian in, I have to have a legitimate place to live, I have a warranted out for me. I decided to find my father and lie and bring them my phone number and address. I'm walking down the street with my father, the phone number is 7 1 8 -- we live on De Kalb interview and we walk into the interview and he screws it up and I have to fix it and fill in his blanks. We got through it. We came outside he gave me a big hug, wished me luck, went back to his shelter. I always knew my life would 107 be my own responsibility. I go back inside. I think Perry and I started our friendship that morning when I look back on it He could have filled out the program card and said see you later. Instead, he sat with me and started asking me about myself, wanted to know what I cared about, who were my friends and why, what was it like in my neighborhood, got me laughing. He filled out my program card. He got me laughing. That was big deal with those people. I did it I started joke back. I remember him having a huge impact with the things he swayed,.> 108 He said, this will be easy You're a blank slate. You need every class we have. I said, thanks. that's not how I like to think of myself. math sounds important. history, I'm sure some stuff I need to find out about. Shakespeare, I teach the course, hear he's a good writer. Eventually filled out my program card, Perry walked out of the office and said good luck, then turned back on the heel and said, why don't you taken a independent study, go into the lounge, meet one of the teachers decide on an extra class overtime and taken a extra class, you don't want 109 to from graduate when you're 21 and walked out. Jerk, my attitude problem, I'm trying to get that attitude defensive thing coming up. It to didn't actually work anymore because I was too much in a good mood to put myself down there. What I did find out I was being a little bit of detective with myself. I realized I had this tendency when ever I was challenged with something I would manufacture a bad mood. it was much harder to do after having committed to honesty what happened with my mom and after having met this man, Perry. I go into the lounge trying to fight it. 110 I went in and said, okay, I'm going to do this, if I'm honest with myself, do I have it in me? can I do it. I said, I'm Liz Murray, I would like an independent study with one of the teachers. Okay, I'll give you one, work with me after school, here's your hours, here's your class. I stood up, that was easy I do feel honest with myself. I walked over to another teacher's desk and said, I'm Liz Murray and I think I would like an independent study. they gave me one. I said, that was easy I hadn't yet found the idea of balancing your efforts. 111 The whole lounge was filled with teachers and by the time I was done I had doubled my course load which I think was pretty stupid or did anyway. I had this idea I guess I was afraid, that's the truth. I was afraid. Didn't want to waste time. I kept pushing myself. I signed up for double the course load. I felt like time fast forwarded. I came in those first few weeks, I'd been feeling like a train had hit me. Didn't really know what to do or how to do it. I found myself in a really interesting position. I had never had so many responsibilities. 112 I thought I was amazing because I was learning how to survive on my own. Try to actually go beyond survival and you'll see how hard it gets. If you push yourself to the absolute Max of what you can do, it takes higher skill than just getting buy I found myself in a position I needed to create a schedule. I started mapping out my time, planned time to do homework, scheduled what I did, set up goals every week. I kept it in a black marble notebook and decide ID would have all A's and at least keep an A average in school. I was going to work really hard and do everything I 113 possibly could. joint extra curricular activities and basically become a nerd. I pushed myself through it. It was very hard. Perry was there. He gave me his lunch hours and worked with me after school. The man got paid from 9:00 to 3:00 but sometimes the janitor bowled lock me out at night because he would coach me so much. I watched the teachers around me. I kept a notepad and listened when ever I didn't understand a word I wrote it down, when ever confused turned to Perry and he translated things to me. Between the combination of his sport and my 114 determination, by the time that semester was completed I I had completed a year, had a 96 average, became the top student in the school, did all the school functions, played hamlet in the school play which is embarrassing and they have footage. I turned it around. I had this report card. In that school, what they dine stead of writing A, B, C, D. they give you a whole page and write down your progress, how I'd did and what you can do better. I had so many courses like a brochure to the school. I'm walking over to Perry's desk and he's typing something, I remember slamming my report card 115 down and said, what do you think of that? I got high off myself. >> he picked up the corner and saw my average, it's good and went back to typing. Barry, jump up and down, it's fantastic. What's up? I guess I wanted the approval. He said, Liz, it's good but what did I tell you, really, it's consistency that matters. Can you do this again next semester. That will really help you. He went back to typing. I walked away, jerk, I started manufacturing my attitude problem. I had the double force in my mind. 116 I had that and the part that said can you do it again? Are you capable of doing it more. I committed to doing it every single semester and go through school like that and graduate in school years and keep my A average. that was my promise to myself. I couldn't do it randomly. I always had to set the goals. I started thinking to myself, I can just set a goal and rather than looking at everything like a big hassle, look at it like here's my goal, here's where I am now, anything in between is a steppingstone. Right? 117 Anything in between where I want to be. I wanted to graduate with an A average and graduate from college. Everything in between is a steppingstone, obstacle, turn it around. I did that with my thinking and went through high school pretty fast. We won a trip, the top ten students the school took us on a trip to reward us for working that hard. They brought us to Boston. Perry headed the trip. He did everything at the school, co-director, Shakespeare, teacher, counselor, everything. He took us on this trip. I look back on it now, it's crazy to think of, I had never been outside New York 118 City too far. you have to appreciate the transcutaneous amount of ignorance, like being locked in a room your whole life, they let me out, there's air and sun. I sat on Amtrak, I got the window seat, I thought I was going places in life, I'm taking this train with the students. We did a lot of things that weekend and got to stay in Boston university dorms instead of a hotel. I had never even seen a college up close in my life. I had only heard about them really. On TV I had seen one. we went to Harvard yard before we got back from the train at the end of that 119 weekend thanks to perry I don't exactly know how to illustrate how I felt standing there. I can tell you a couple of details but it won't cover it really. It's a kind of embarrassing, it's not I saw Harvard and since I saw it, I'll go there because I'm looking ait it. in a way it's little bit of that. You have to appreciate the amount of ignorance. We had gone into a restaurant earlier that day and some waitress had been feeding us and catering and waiting on us, she had put a coaster under my glass just before we had gone to Harvard yard. I pulled the coaster out 120 from under my cup and started play with it and spinning it around and making UFO noises and holding it up to the light. Perry caught me and I turned to him and said, Perry, what is this? >> he said it's coaster. >> Okay. What does it do? He just said, you don't know what a coaster is? I felt tremendously stupid. no, I know what it is. Too late. They started putting coasters in my coat pocket all weekend an confronted me, I became the butt 0 of the trip. You don't know what you don't know. I had never been anywhere and didn't know anything. 121 When I stood in Harvard yard, one thing I did know before this was that there had been that line and that there were those people, right? if ever there were a symbol for those people, it would be Harvard people. Here were the Harvard people. I looked at them and I got jealous. I can romanticize the feeling and tell you it's more profound. it was just jealousy Isn't there some sense of entitlement in jealousy? I thought, these people, I put these people above me. They look like they're made of pleasure and bone and whatever else. I could see them and it 122 demystified the whole situation. I stared at them with their Harvard sweaters and book bags, and I thought, I put these people so far above me my whole life, what have I done to myself, I'm sitting there thinking, wondering about Harvard and myself and Perry leaned over and said to me, without any prompting tapped me on my shoulder and said, Liz, Harvard would be a reach for you but it's not impossible. Thick you could go here. Me? I wasn't thinking that? What do you mean? you really think so Tell me more. I was too embarrassed to admit it but I believed 123 him. maybe because I maybe saw myself through his eyes. I went back to New York City. All this came to an end because when I applied for scholarships. when I found out tuition was 36, 000 dollars a year in certain schools and I didn't have enough money for a sandwich and I had a gap to fill, to say the least. It was actually almost comical at the time. My thinking in ignorance, if tuition is about that much, well, then scholarships are probably about 10 or 20, 000 dollars each, right, or something? I mean, how else are you going to make it happen? 124 Perry gave me a folder full of scholarship stuff and my high school guidance counselor put together some folders and opened it up. You, too, can have 300 dollars for college. You know what I'm talking about, if you fill out this tax looking form and jump through a flaming hoop and mail a blood sample. I'm like, what? I turned the page. 600 dollars, 700 dollars, whatever else, so frustrating. Finally I turned the page and the "New York Times" was giving out a scholarship 12, 000 dollars a year every year for school. They know how much college is. 125 That's not half of it but thank you for the common sense. I thought, what will they want, an organ donation. They said attach a brief biographical essay for any obstacles you had to overcome. Who planted this? I was petrified, saw people coming to school with briefcases because of my warrant, probably the smallest blip on anybody's radar. To me, it was everything. Perry didn't know. 3 :00 came students went home. I loved hanging out with Perry but partially hanging out because it was warm and went to barns and Starbucks and stay open and then ride 126 on the subway. If I count stay at a friend's house I would sleep on the subway with alarm clock in my pocket. I would wake up and go to school. This is how I was making this happen. it was big deal for no tell the truth because I had turned 18. I told the whole truth because I was not afraid of being taken away. The system is not this horrible in most places, but in my narrow experience, I was terrified. >> I told the truth. In my last semester of high school a huge thing happened. I got off the streets. 127 I had been working 40 or 50 hours a week during the summer. Did sleep. I had a door-to-door job, no time to tell you about it. I will tell you I learned the word "commission" that summer. Did well. I saved up some money. My sister and I got an apartment together. I got off the streets. We made a deal with the money I saved up with my summer, we would get into the apartment, real estate fees, two mattresses on the floor, a phone. We would be fine. Lisa would work overtime at the gap and support us while I finished my 11 or 128 12 classes whatever I had. We didn't factor food into the budget. That was okay. That would happen. We moved in together and two weeks later Lisa lost her job and fell into a depression and the bills started stacking up, just as I'm trying to finish high school these last few moments all this is happening. That's when my personal relationship began with welfare, I like to picture as Alice in wonder land, ten lines, good luck finding the right one, wait on them all day at the end of the day maybe you see a human being and that human being finally tells you you didn't bring a shred of 129 paper no one told you you needed, throw it in the garbage, come back tomorrow, start from scratch. Like a madhouse. I go in day after day in my last semester missing school, trying to save us from eviction. Wound you know everything ended on the same day. When I look back at it I can see why they made ait movie, it's pretty dramatic. It literally happen. all in one day I had three big things. I was going to my mailbox, my mail would be something like congratulations, Liz Murray, it went from 3, 000 applicants to 21 finalists for the "New York Times" 130 scholarship, you're one of them, come in for your interview, and then my other mail would say, you have 30 days to vacate for a apartment for non-payment of rent, your lights are going off. It was really crazy. I go into welfare one day. I had this meeting that would either make or break my eviction we were about to be thrown out. I had a deadline if we didn't get help to save us. Later that same day I had my Harvard interview and later my interview at the "New York Times," all in the same day. I went into welfare that morning with purpose. In my mind, it was going to be a one, two, three kind 131 of thing. We sat and waited in welfare, your typical stuff. A few hours later, when no one helped us, I got up and tried to get help just before leaving, I saw a social worker, the same hiring process. Factory and I leaned, said, hey, ma'am, I'm hoping you'll see us before we go. I was really, really honest with her, I know it was pride but also really anger. I leaned in to her and said, listen, please, I have a college interview after this, it's with Harvard and I cannot be late. She kind of blinked at me and looked at the person 132 next to her and made me really regret it. Harvard. Have a seat girl because we have yale, Princeton, you're good. She told me to wait and kept calling. Thanks for nothing. That's really what I expected. I left and went to my Harvard interview and that went really well and I went to my "New York Times" interview, and, well, I didn't know the "New York Times" was a very -- I knew they were important. I didn't understand the power of the "New York Times," let me say it that way. Didn't know they were quite that prestigious which 133 probably sounds horrendous and ignorant. If I thought the coaster was amazing, the "New York Times" -- I might as well have been locked in a box my entire life. I walked in. I guess the word that best describes my state of mind was oblivious, I walked in, here we go, I get off the elevator, this is a nice place. This lady greets me. I found out later I was the last student receiving an interview because all the 20 finalists had been interviewed that day. this woman greets you, a tray of paystries there and no one had touched anyone because they were so petrified. 134 What do you think the food looks like to me, would you like something to eat before you interview? Can I have two? if sweetheart, you can have the tray? Yeah, do you have some napkins. I started wrapping up bagels and putting them in my bag. This woman was crack up laughing, you said I could have it, whatever. She brings me into the interview, and there's this board room with these 12 really serious looking "New York Times" people sitting around equally serious oak table and a box of tissues in this thing you know in front of me, I guess for me because other students are 135 hyperventilating or whatever they're doing, I'm walking in, wrapping up my bagel, give me a minute. They laughed and it broke the ice fortunately because I don't know how I would handle it. somebody to the left asked me a single question. I hadn't realized everybody had a question, I have a tendency to talk and so I did I told them the whole story, I told them everything. I had that room for honesty and I told them absolutely everything. We had some really serious moments in that room. We also laughed, told them what happened at welfare, told them everything. 136 In the end, this guy leaned over and looked at me, there was silence and he looked at the whole room, he looked back at me and he just said, we really appreciate you coming here today. Is there anything you haven't shared with us that you would still like to share? I said, uh-oh. I don't know what to say. They finally stumped me. I said the first thing that came to mind. I said I hope you understand how much I really need this. I thought I hope that was right. Didn't say anything else. I smiled. They saw me with the bagels 137 and took me up to the cafeteria and actually bought me lunch. I thought, these people are solid. I liked them right off the bat. They sat me down with a reporter and took my picture and interview med. As long as I don't have to pay for the chicken, it's all right. A week later, don't ask me how the phone was still working, everything got cut off the lights went walking around with canals. the phone was working and that man called. He said, Liz, this is Roger from the times. Do you remember the last thing that you said us to before you left? 138 Said, I think I do. >> He said, well, it worked because you won the scholarship. I don't really have words for that. I can tell you I screamed so loud into the phone, this poor man be he's thanks, I have five more of these to make. I'll hold the phone far from my face. Made 50 phone calls. maybe that's why the phone went off, yelling and screaming and carrying on. A couple days later, I went to the newsstand there on the cover of the Metro section there next to some article of bill and hill ry Clinton whatever whatever they were doing was my face and the face of the other 139 five winners of the scholarship. It opened up the article something like Liz Murray will graduate from high school having squeezed four years into two with an A average, while homeless and her mother having passed away from aids and her father now suffering from the same disease which I had just found out. There's always a reason to stop. Always a reason. It went into the story of these amazing students and ended the article with me and my morning at welfare. It's not like I tried to put welfare in the "New York Times." Naw. Me? And well, they stuck in the 140 exchange with the woman. I think they quoted her right down to saying, oh, yeah, she got Yale or whatever she satisfied. and I hope she read it. -whatever she said. Something tells me probably not. Everything changed, I'll tell you that much. my life has not been the same since that article hit the stands. if I didn't know the power of the media when I walked off that elevator, I found out. Don't New Yorkers have a reputation for being cold? does that reach here? I was coming into school, strangers from New York were bringing me trays of brownies and clothes kids 141 weren't wearing anymore. a woman walked in to give me a hug. That's all she wanted. she was crying. said I reminded her of herself and just wanted a hug. People filled our fridge, saved us from eviction and turned our lights back on. People helped us out. One woman came, I remember the speech she gave, look, I don't have any money, I have a house, I have a station wagon, I live in New Jersey. I want to know if you have any laundry. she did my laundry once a week every week for the last semester of my high school experience. You always think you need a 142 foundation or write a grant and change lives with, which is true. This woman did my laundry and I'll never forget her. She didn't want to thank me, just wanted my address and came back to help. I'm glad she came back with my clothes not that it's much. then the media came, walking to school and they're taking pictures of me. Who are you? What are you doing? No, no, want you in your natural environment. This is not national geographic. And "20/20" came in and decided to do the piece and followed me around the last three 1/2 months from 143 school and they were there when the letter from Harvard came and I was accepted which really there are no words for because I don't know quite how to articulate it. They filmed the graduation, watched me as I made my speech and my dad came from the shelter and it call came to a close. When I was accepted I was accepted off the wait list because they weren't sure at first, I had that year off and then I began public speaking. I went to high schools, as I told you. I got asked to go to other places and talk shows. Crazy places. I ended up at some place with bill and hill ry 144 Clinton on stage, remember trying to smile and ability like you belong here, put my arm by them, thanks, bill, walking off, I'm thinking, uh-oh. I got asked all these different things, wrote the book coming out later in the year. They talked about doing the movie Didn't believe them. Le all of a sudden, they were shooting the movie, got a producer credit. was Emmy nominated and got an Emmy with the group and wearing a Vera Wang gown and thinking what happened to me. My friends have a nickname for me now. I don't know if you saw the movie "forest jump" and end 145 up in situations I have no legislate business being in. -- legitimate business being in. Fine, I do get a backstage pass. I guess that tension they talk about with the group and Chris and everybody, they call me "lucky." and we have a -- we've had a few fierce debates about it. I do find myself very lucky in one sense, in a couple of senses, really. The first one was how many people get that message, that wake-up call at the age of 16. My life provided an absolute scenario where I was completely backed into a corner. 146 It was either act now or just give up. It was so obvious to me there had been this path, one or the other, Liz, take one or the other, right, I was standing there with pizza money in my pocket, right? that seemed a reasonable option, actually. I had all these extremes happen to me. If you could be homeless and your life could change overnight, shouldn't it also be true your life can change overnight in the complete opposite way? if your life can go bad that fast, can't it go good that fast? life taught me that really quickly I feel lucky. 147 What do you think would have happened to me if I walked into that high school and Perry would have said no to me where would I have ended up what if I went to the high school and Perry said yes but ignore med the entire time I was there. I don't know. That would have changed everything. I would have done something but I'm not quite sure it would have been this because this is ridiculous. That's my luck. I think about these decision. Perry met me on the other end of that decision and I feel so lucky. I set my own goals and I picked my path and I sat 148 down and I'm so blessed to be able to look at the situation the way I did. When I did have that gift of looking at the situation, I made some good decisions, I think. I look at that now and know it's become exaggerated The point of this is not Harvard. I went to Harvard a couple years, transferred to Columbia where I'm finishing up now, living with my dad still alive and drug-free and I'm taking care of him now and why I went back to New York. Things have gone well, things have genuine really well. We'll get into it if you have questions. The . is not that. 149 Successes is not having a movie, success is not about Harvard. That just makes you pay attention. What I have to say now that you're paying attention, it's more about creating a system inside of yourself where your beliefs are different, where you learn how to actively participate in the formation of your own identity by asking yourself better questions. If I pick this goal, and I work as hard as I possibly can, where will I be in six months? This is what I asked myself, not what welfare office can I go to open up my thing. Some people do that. I'm not blaming them, I'm 150 not saying that. If you have it in you where you know better, don't do that. That's all I'm saying. I knew better, something I did get lucky, I knew better. where would I be in six month, one year or two years. I would ask myself. two years later I was on the stage with Bill Clinton and two years before that I had been begging for change with Chris. It was big difference. I brought myself there because of those kinds of decisions. I'm looking at people and when they say something is impossible, you don't judge with a blanket, people are 151 at different levels and want different things. That's fine. You know, I can't look at you and know. You know what you're supposed to be doing. that voice in the back of your head speaks to you, that's what I'm talking about, on all different levels and forms, before I ask you if you have any questions, I say pay attention to that voice. If I hadn't and I was standing there with the pizza money and that kind of decision and I didn't have that check system with I said to myself, be honest with yourself, I would have picked the pizza and I would have forgotten about it 152 They were hiring at Macy's that week. That's what else I was going to do. that's it. I say to you, look for those moments where you're at a fork in the road and you're about to go to the wrong side and ask yourself can you honestly do better? f's is it legitimate you have a wall, right? Ask yourself those questions ask yourself if you picked a goal and dedicated yourself and worked full time, where would you be in Fisk months? A year, two years, how drastically could you change your life if you stepped up in that way. That's all I ask you do and 153 listen to that voice inside of you. That's completely what I'm here for. Thanks for listening. I would love to take questions. unless people cuts me off, I will listen to questions. Also, could you please do me a favor, please don't be shy. Ask a few questions and let me know how you really feel. I speak in public high schools in New York City. can you imagine the questions I've been asked. did your mother do drugs when she was pregnant with you. ask me that. The answer is yes you from the Bronx, you know J.Lo? 154 The answer is no. There are some mikes right there. Tell me when I only have two questions left or maybe that's all I have now. Please, somebody get up and be brave. I'd love to hear from you >> mine I don't usually ask questions either. In that environment where you probably had access to things that could have perhaps made your thinking less clear, whether it be drugs or alcohol or maybe other violence or something, did you have turning points? or you always had a really hard line where you never slipped for a few months or years or into a certain 155 really irtrieveable destructive behavior? >> are you asking if I've ever done drugs? >> yeah, did you ever lose yourself? is that something that you lost yourself, ever became part of you that could have made your life go wrong? >> I've -- I'll start with the drug thing and then I'll address the area you're asking about if I can hear you write. I've never done drugs, never been drunk, never been high. That's sort of not important. I know that's bad and people say you should do an anti-drug campaign, that's fantastic. I would be a liar if I did 156 that. I've never wanted to do drugs. if you see your parents do that in a hard way, you can go one way or the other. I went the other It's if someone had a rotten sand workmanship in their hand, don't you want a rotten sandwich with this rotten meat. maybe I would have if I wanted to. In terms of I think you're kind of asking, have I fell into points of despair, where I didn't feel I would 2 forward? I don't just go forward now, it's not like I made a decision and now I plow into the night. It's nothing like that. I screw up. 157 I mess up. I do, I mess up. I pick myself back up. I know now not to be devastated when I mess up. Did something wrong, I have to get up, dust myself off and have the courage to confront myself and just say, why kid did you mess up? What could you have done better? Where did you go wrong? From those kinds of questions I found out it's important to almost celebrate your mistakes. you screw up, it's fantastic. it's material for you to not screw up in the future, right? You do something wrong and hurt yourself, you've 158 learned something if you're good about it You say, why did I do that? what went into it? you ask these kind of questions. I have a system tearing apart my mistakes and trying not to repeat them. take two steps backwards and one forward. Drugs are not the pointed, there are all types of addictions. People have addictions to food, people have addictions to oversleeping, you know, and not getting up in the morning, people have addictions to relationships that are destructive. I did have addiction in the area of my friends. Didn't want to do anything 159 by myself. I had addiction in that area. Did break free of that. Addiction is the ., not drugs. No, I don't only go forward, I screw up all the time and go back. >> yes. I'm sorry. >> Hey. >> I just want to say, partly, thank you very much for coming. I truly enjoyed your presentation. >> I sincerely appreciate that very, very much. >> My question for you your compassion, your drive and your will to succeed was due in great part to your situation. 160 Now that you are -- you're living large now. >> Am I? Hey! >> what is it now that drives you and compels you to go to graduate school and to just continue succeeding as you are SH >> what compels no keep going on even though it's not out of dessperration because before it's do or die? that's a great question. when I got to Harvard, I just thought to myself, what now? I got there and I said, I have no idea what to do. And suddenly, I had this, you know, campus idea, campus ID, I could swipe it for a meal. 161 I could eat any time I wanted. people cared about my opinion, wasn't shut out anymore. it was the complete opposite, getting letters from across America, people mailing care packages. It became easier. I went through and identity crisis. I really did. I went through this crisis at Harvard especially socially more than anything else. I thought to myself. thanks a lot for your question. It's a good question. My identity had been to survive things. Now that there was nothing against me, I had to 162 reinvent myself. That was process. I suffered a lot. I didn't know what to do. I became very unhappy for a while. I was really fortunate to be pulled out of that by a friend of mine who's sort of like one of my two very best friends in the world. He's actually I don't know where he is, I think he's backstage and travels with me, he's like my partner in crime now, Ed, went through similar things where he had grown up and went to college and made good choices. He helped show me there was something more. You know what it is? he help med feel valid. I always felt I was 163 crashing the party. I was at Harvard because they took pity. I didn't really belong where I was. he put things in perspective for me and said you belong here as much as anyone else. Once I didn't feel like the outcast anymore and I didn't need to feel like the outcast anymore, what began to drive me was, first of all, finding out what I wanted to do. I don't know if you're interested in hearing that or anything, realizing what was in my future and feeling as though I was deserving of that. Even as much as I didn't want to believe that line was there, it was still 164 there and didn't feel valid and now I do. Once I realized I was valid and I realized what I wanted to do, that's what started to drive me. Is that interesting, I don't know what I want to do. I got to Harvard and I thought, I'm at Harvard, so it's time to be a lawyer or doctor. In other words, don't blow this because its a your ticket. in survival mode. I realized I didn't want to be a doctor or lawyer as much as I