Passionate Gen Z Educator Vows to Combat Human and Sex Trafficking | Anita Chen

It's far more prevalent than most of us imagine. We think of child sex trafficking, most of us think of a poor Guatemalan girl that got sold by her family to a brothel, when the reality of the situation is that the vast majority of child sex trafficking cases in the United States are of American youth. That means youth who are born in the United States or are here legally. What's the response from Congress or from authorities on this issue? It's easy for emotions to run high and use it as a talking point, but unfortunately these cases continue to happen and continue to proliferate. The political response, in my view, has not nearly been sufficient. Our guest today is Anita Chen. Daughter of immigrant parents from Taiwan, Anita struggled with the English language in middle school as it was her second or even third language. However, she decided to change her course of study and as a result, she ended up winning a national speech competition during her senior year of high school. How did this change come about and what prompted it? Anita is in the studio with us today and we will find out. We will also talk to her about her passion for children and education, as well as her deep desire to address and eliminate sex trafficking and human trafficking in the United States. This is Bay Area Innovators and I'm your host, Steve Espas. Anita, welcome to our program. Thank you so much. I'm glad you're here. So at 16 years old, you started your own company and then I know you struggled with English when you were young and then you made this kind of amazing change where you won national championships in speech and debates and there's other parents out there, I'm a parent. How did you go about this? What prompted these changes and how did you make it happen to improve your English and get to this level? Yeah, I think I always loved words. I loved reading. My parents read a lot to me as a kid but when the time came for me to produce those words on my own, to organize those words, to speak for myself, somehow it didn't come as naturally and I remember that frustration and that difficulty and having all these ideas and thoughts and wanting to share them but not being able to do so in a clear or compelling way. And so I think when I was finally able to meet a good teacher, I soaked up everything that she would teach me so much so that I was able to teach it to others and I think even today, I share that same love of language and desire to make language something accessible for people, my students especially, that they can find confidence in their own voice and knowing that their ideas hold great value. So the teacher made the most difference? Yeah, the teacher made a big difference for me but I think it was also this hunger to be able to master the language and take control of my own voice that compelled me forward. And then tell us about your high school and how you ended up with these competitions. Where did you go? Yeah, so I was homeschooled through high school and there's a national speech and debate league for homeschoolers and that's what I competed through. That's awesome. Tell us about how you feel about California's education system. What can be improved? What's going well and what's not going well? Yeah, I think it's easy to look at all the negatives but so I'll start with the positives. This generation is the most digitally savvy, most justice-oriented and most empathetic group of students that I've ever met. And I know this because I work with them on a weekly basis. And I think there's a lot of fodder there for intentional conversation. For example, I speak with my seventh and eighth graders about the pressures of inflation or what can be done as a city to address homelessness. These are not conversations that I could have had with my students maybe 10 years ago because they wouldn't have felt those pressures for themselves. But now I think there's a similar hunger, a desire to understand the world around them and see what kind of difference they can make with their ideas and with their voice. I think California education system, obviously there's a lot of areas in which there can be improvements. I talk with my students a lot about it but I prefer to focus on what positive impact we can have and what we can strive towards together. So from your experience when you were in high school, do you feel that something changed to now? Is it the same or it's improved or it's got worse? Well, I think when I was in high school, education was a lot more straightforward. It felt like we would study math for math and English for English. But now I think there's a lot more focus on interdisciplinary work and perhaps the extracurricular nature of it is useful for some students but for others, they really need to have a foundational grasp of the three R's, reading, writing, and arithmetic. How did your parents and your family feel? How did they react when you won the competition knowing that you were struggling with English? Yeah, I think that was a big moment for me because it was a predominantly Caucasian league. There were very few Asians and English is actually my second language. So to win a national competition among Caucasian peers was a big deal for me. Personally, I think a big shock to my parents. The speech that I won with actually was one that looked at the Chinese language, its origins, and how the characters came to be and the hidden stories in them. And I remember my mom telling me like, nobody's ever gonna vote for this speech. Nobody's gonna let this go to finals. But not only did it go to finals, but it won. So I'm very grateful not only to have won that title, but also to win with the speech that I did. So correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of Asian families focus more on math and science and computer science possibly. You looked into English. Why did you choose English to focus on? Yeah, so I think I had a fair bit of math anxiety. So it just felt like math was more difficult and I loved reading as a kid. So I think that was just easy for me. But I think if I had maybe the proper guidance to say that math doesn't have to be so scary, the same way that I try and do for my students now, that writing doesn't have to be so scary, I could have flourished in math as well. I think every student is gifted and talented in their own way and I just have a propensity for English. So you hired your former teacher. I did. With your company, was this the teacher that Yeah, this is the teacher that made a big difference for me. Is she still with your company? No, not right now. It was just for a couple summers, but yeah, it was really good to have her on the team. That's an amazing experience. Thank you. So next, I want to change gears and ask you, you're involved in politics now. Yes. How did you get involved in politics? You're running for office and this is obviously pretty different than what you've done before. Right. How did the change come about? Yeah, so about last summer, I started researching about child sex trafficking in the United States for a long time. Whenever there were stories of women or children globally that were abused or exploited, I always knew it triggered something for me. But I always felt that I couldn't do anything about it because I lived in California and they were so far away. But I started researching about child sex trafficking in the United States and realized that it was far more prevalent than I had ever imagined before. And because I live in the Bay Area, a lot of these cases were happening in my backyard. And as I read these heartbreaking statistics, it became clear to me that the children in the statistics that I was reading about were not very different than the children that were sitting in my classroom. And if I were to remain authentic and honest with my students when I told them that the purpose of communication is to inspire change by conveying the truth, if I was gonna be honest to what I was telling them, that their voice mattered, and that they should use their voice to speak up for themselves and for others, I needed to do that in a more vocal way. And so as someone who's watched politics from the sidelines for a really long time, I felt that it was for me to throw my hat in the arena and be willing to speak out for myself and for others. And I noticed your face change just now when you were talking. You became much more serious. You know, you have this passion for you. This is something you believe strongly in. I think a lot of people are not as familiar as they probably should be with what's happening. Tell us more about what you discovered that's happening with human trafficking and sex trafficking. It's far more prevalent than most of us imagine. We think of child sex trafficking, most of us think of a poor Guatemalan girl that got sold by her family to a brothel or through cartels and now she's being trafficked through the border. And, you know, it's a very sad story, but we really can't do too much about it. When the reality of the situation is that the vast majority of child sex trafficking cases in the United States are of American youth. That means youth who are born in the United States or are here legally. According to the FBI, that number is 80%. So if you just imagine 80% of those who are exploited through child sex trafficking are American citizens. Can you give us some numbers, some numbers? Sure. I mean, can I pull it up? Absolutely. Native Americans make up, and this is according to thorn.org, Native Americans in New Mexico, which is the state that I was born in, make up only 11% of the population, but they're 25% of child sex trafficking victims or human trafficking victims rather. African-American youth account for over 40% of all Commercial Sex Act arrests of minors, while Hispanic or Latina youth account for nearly 20%, according to the FBI. And 91% of girls appearing in the Los Angeles Star Human Trafficking Court are African-American or Latina. So we see an over-representation of African-Americans and Latina youth. And finally, studies consistently report that 50 to 90% of child sex trafficking victims have been involved in the child welfare system, such as the foster care system. I mean the numbers, also what I'm interested in, the numbers, how many? Total. Yeah, how many we're talking about? So according to Love Never Fails, the number is between 100,000 to 300,000 in the United States. At any one time. Right now. Right now, wow. What's the response from Congress or from authorities on this issue? It's very tepid. The response has been very tepid. I think it's easy for emotions to run high and use it as a talking point. But unfortunately, these cases continue to happen and continue to proliferate. There have been former traffickers who've testified that the reason why they continue to engage, had continued to engage in trafficking is because it was such a profitable commodity. If you think about, for example, the drug trade or arms dealing, there's a constant question of where are you going to get the supply? But for human trafficking, child sex trafficking in particular, the supply is always there. You can sell drugs once, but a human person 10 to 15 times a day. And I can understand how it's difficult to look at an issue like this. It's difficult to have political clout with an issue like this. But I think it's so important that we do look at it because to me, the most accurate measure of justice in this country and in any country is the way that we treat the most vulnerable. And unfortunately, the political response in my view has not nearly been sufficient. I have seen reports and even critics who say, oh, it's not that bad or things are misrepresented. The way I look at it is, it's almost like you have a fire in your house, right? And then you say, the fire is not that bad. You guys are making a big deal of it. Let's cover it up because it's really not that bad, right? If you have a fire, you want to put it up right away. Immediately. Immediately, you want to throw water, you want to find out where it is first and then put water and dry it away, not hide it. And I personally think that hiding things make things continue and not able to eliminate. Yeah, I think that's secrecy that allows it to proliferate. For anyone who might say, well, it's not that bad, I would have them imagine a child that they love, whether it's their own child or a niece or nephew, and imagine that sort of horrific abuse happening to them. Even if it's one child. Yeah, would we still argue that it's not that bad? Well, next I want to ask you, recently I watched the movie, Sound of Freedom. I didn't watch it for a long time. I felt that it's too hard to deal with and too depressing. And I'm really glad I watched and I would encourage our audience to watch it. It's an amazing movie. It inspires you. It's very powerful. And even though it has a very sad story, but has a good ending and it inspires hope. What do you think is the solution for kind of addressing this issue of child trafficking, which is shown through the movie by the other aspects? Yeah, well, one thing I really appreciate about the movie is the way that it launched a national conversation on child sex trafficking and the way that it created this spotlight on this issue in ways that perhaps it didn't have before. I think secrecy breeds this type of exploitation. And so the more spotlight and awareness we can bring to this issue, the better. I think I would also urge those who feel passionate about this topic to exchange their passion for long-term advocacy and education. Because I know when I first came into this issue, there was so much for me to learn. And because it's such a delicate issue, it's essential that we understand the reasons that it happens, what it looks like, how it shows up and the things that we can do that are actually helpful rather than hurtful. And without spoiling the movie, I want to mention a couple of things that were very important to me. And these were, when you have four people, you have like this DA officer and a former cartel member and the police person from Colombia and the billionaire, they get together and try to rescue these kids. So you see when there's the will, there's a way. When people want to make it happen, they will do it. And many times that's what it takes for people to make a spark and then to get things going. It's like I said in this conversation, it already brings it up to the public. Right, and I watched the movie too. And I think what's so wonderful about that collaboration is they each brought their piece of the puzzle to be able to make a full picture of what a rescue looks like, what safety looks like. And I think the more people understand this issue, the more we feel empowered to bring our voices to the table, our piece of the puzzle, the more we have a solution, a full solution to this type of exploitation. Now, if you get elected, if you get into Congress, how would you address this? But more importantly, how would you keep it in the forefront because with so many things happening every day, be it Ukraine, Israel, and all these things, things get buried. And something that's as important as this is doesn't see the light of day. So how would you address this? I think because this is one of the issues that I'm campaigning on, the reason that I began this campaign to be a voice for the voiceless, it will always be top of mind for me. I think at the federal level, it's so important to bring that type of publicity and exposure because unfortunately, if you look at the state laws right now, it's a patchwork of state laws, which means that for law enforcement, if the case moves from one state to another, there's essentially an entirely different set of laws that is governing its enforcement. And so I think at the federal level, not only providing support to local and state law enforcement, but also having a standard by which we measure and judge and enforce the law on these issues will be one of my goals. Speaking of that, am I right that a person who deals with trafficking kids and they get caught, it's only a misdemeanor in California? So in California right now, to purchase a child for sex is a misdemeanor, which is the same as driving on the highway with your phone in your hand. How is it possible? So the law evolves and it takes time. And unfortunately, this is not one that has been escalated to the level that it should have been. I know that Senator Shannon Grove is doing great work on this issue and I applaud her efforts in moving it from a misdemeanor to something far more severe. Please tell us briefly about your campaign. When you made the general election, what district are you presenting, who you're running against? Just give us a summary. Sure, I'm running for California District 17, which includes San Jose, Fremont, Newark, Sunnyvale, and Cupertino, along with a few other cities in the area. And this district is currently represented by Representative Ro Khanna. And your top priorities are, I know we already know that human trafficking is one of them. Yeah, so the three are dignity restoration, educational freedom, and community safety. And remember earlier I said, I prefer focusing on what positive difference we can make. Instead of it calling it like anti-child trafficking, the label that we gave it was dignity restoration, to restore the dignity of children and youth that have been taken away from them, to restore that through the justice system and a holistic system that allows them to reclaim their lives. Now a question I would have for you on that is, does it expose the crime the same by using those words? Do you think it gives the same exposure? I think it allows us to see it as a holistic issue. The prosecution will be only one part of that. For someone who has suffered from abuse, the prosecution is just the sense that, okay, there's a legal statute, or there's a legal decision that shows that something was taken away from me. But there's a whole process involved in allowing them to reclaim their life that includes therapy, education, and reentry back into the society so that they can be joyful, productive, flourishing members of the community. What would be your message to parents and to children to avoid this? First of all, the ones who have not been helped, how can they avoid getting in this situation? And for the ones who come out of it? As an educator, I think education is so important. I think once we know what something looks like, we can avoid it better. It's kind of like when we go hiking, and at the very start of the trail, they'll always have a picture of what a rattlesnake looks like, or poison ivy looks like, so you can be aware of what the signs might be or what it might look like. And so I would encourage parents not to be afraid of this sometimes awkward and uncomfortable topic, but starting those conversations young to say that this is your body, and you don't allow anybody else to touch it. That if somebody does, you come and tell mommy and daddy. For students to know that this is something that you can learn about, and once you've learned about it, not only can you help yourself, you can also help your friends who might be experiencing something similar. And I think educators, more broadly, to say that many students, actually 55% of students who have been trafficked reported being in school at some point. So for educators also to know the signs so that we can be a part of the solution by preventing these things from happening in the first place. Some of them are being kidnapped, right? So there's a few different types of trafficking. Some of them are being kidnapped. We see that more commonly among homeless youth, runaway youth, and foster youth because there's nobody coming to find them. But some of them are actually allowed to go home at night. So that their parents aren't alarmed, they're just threatened with secrecy. And they'll hear things like, I know where you live, I know where your family lives, so you better not tell anyone or else I will hurt your family. So again, it's a very complex issue and there's a lot of awareness and education that needs to be done. But I think it starts by having that conversation. Thank you for bringing this up. Next I want to ask you, you traveled a lot. Yes. And please tell us about your travel and what you learned from it. I think traveling is like a history book. Yeah, well, I've gotten to travel to different countries in Asia, in Africa, and in Europe, and of course, North America. I haven't yet visited South America, so I really look forward to that soon. But I think what you see is the ways in which there's beauty and brokenness in every culture. And no, sorry to say this, no country has it all right because it's made out of human beings and all of us have our imperfections and our flaws. But I think it's that striving towards what is most beautiful about the human character, the human person. That makes each country unique and special. And I think as women, even globally, we have this really special ability to hold in one hand brokenness and hold in the other hand beauty and build the bridge between the two. What are some of your favorite countries or places you've been to? Yeah, one very life-changing experience is when I went to Rwanda a couple years ago. Rwanda experienced a genocide just a few decades ago. And so you would imagine a place like that being war-torn, still developing, and people there generally being very sad. But what I experienced there was actually very different. It was a people that were filled with hope. They knew that genocide was part of their story, as part of their national history, but they didn't allow that to define who they could be as a country. And now you see Rwanda being one of the top tourist destinations in the world. The children, not only learning about the history of genocide, but the steps towards reconciliation in their school books. And people saying things like, we don't see ourselves as Tutsis and Hutus, we see each other as fellow Rwandans. And I think those are some of the lessons and gems, those special gems that I mentioned earlier, that I brought back with me from that culture. How about Europe, anything? Well, it's beautiful. It's so beautiful, the buildings, and the ornateness of everything. I mean, I didn't know that there were so many ways to make a croissant, right? But it's just that precision and beauty with which they approach everyday living that is the gem that I brought back from Europe. I'll ask you a couple more questions. I wanna go back to Sound of Freedom. Okay. So the Sound of Freedom was made in 2018, and then it was, I think 20th Century Fox bought the rights and then I think Walt Disney Company, they acquired 20th Century Fox, and then they shelved the movie. And then the filmmakers got the rights back. Why would you think Walt Disney would shelve the movie? I'm not sure. To be honest, I'm not sure about the production process or who bought the rights to what, but I do appreciate the current political and cultural climate in which it was able to be released. It was released on July 4th, the Day for Freedom. And I think with an increased spotlight with the Me Too movement and attention to sexual harassment in the workplace, this is a good time at which we can begin to have these sorts of uncomfortable conversations, really grapple with it and wrestle with it as a nation and see how do we want to respond to a group of people who have been exploited for a very long time and are now just starting to find their voice. Will we quash those voices? Will we silence them? Or will we elevate them to give them the justice they are due? Anything else you'd like to add for our audience? Any suggestions to parents? As I'm speaking with my constituency, there's a resounding voice that our participation doesn't matter and I can vote, but it doesn't matter. And what's gonna happen is still gonna happen. And I can understand that disappointment and the sense of helplessness. Okay, I can't do anything about it. I might as well just suffer here. But what I want to say is that we still live in a system in which our voices through our votes still matter. We could be in a dictatorship. We could be in a system in which everything is determined for us. But at least the system still allows us to register, to vote and to demonstrate what our values are by the propositions that we vote for or against and the politicians that we vote for into office that we elect. And so I would strongly encourage anyone who feel discouraged to consider the way in which your vote really, really does matter. And there are many, many example of officials who won by just a few hundred votes or even we had a really stark example in congressional district 16 where one vote would have made the difference. But I guess it's easy to be discouraged but it is when it is darkest that the light shines the brightest. And it's not just voting, right? It's getting involved in the community, right? We'll start with voting and then you can consider how you might get involved, participate. But another takeaway from my travels is of all the places that I've been to, I still think that the United States is the most wonderful and beautiful country in the world. And every time I have to pay my taxes or fill out some very difficult regulatory paperwork, I just think, wow, it's a beautiful honor to be a citizen of this country, a place where my voice still matters. And I'm very grateful to be an American citizen because I don't think my story could have been possible in any other country in the world. Anita, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your dedication to children and for the wellbeing of children. And good luck to you. Thank you so much, Steve. Appreciate it. Thank you for watching another episode of Bay Area Innovators. If you have a suggestion for a guest to be on our show, please let us know. We would love to hear from you. Please send us an email to sfbayatepochtimes.com right here. Thank you and see you next time.