►聽美國史上最強第二夫人娓娓道來她的成長故事◄

I've got to be very candid with this group. I'm looking forward to this interview tonight so much. I hold you in such high esteem. I've watched what you've been able to accomplish. And you strike a balance in life that is a role model for all of us. Perhaps the first question around your growing up in San Diego, if you could share a little bit your growing up time period. How did it shape your life? When did you decide to be a lawyer? How did this all come together? Of course. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me here. And please call me Usha. Thank you, Usha. It's such an honor here to be with this group. I know it's a very, very accomplished crowd. So I'll hope to keep you guys interested for a few minutes. But thank you for inviting me. To answer your question, I did grow up in San Diego. I was born there in the mid-'80s. And I was there until I left for college. My parents had actually moved in the 80s and 70s to pursue higher education. So my parents both have their PhDs from UCSD, which is a fabulous university. And they just loved the weather so much that they stayed. That's sort of what happened, as I think it does for a lot of Indian-Americans. They come, they find a community and an educational institution, and they find a real home in those places. So for me, it was just a wonderful, wonderful place to grow up. Well, you can't beat the weather, of course. True. I grew up in a pretty Asian-American community with people from all over the world. But we had a lot of family friends who were Indian-Americans who had come at around the same time and were also teaching at UCSD. And we had friends from all over as well, from every kind of background. So it was really a community, I think, where everyone felt a sense of purpose and a sense of working together. Everyone was really invested in being a part of this country and pursuing the American dream for themselves and their kids. So I just felt like it was a time of limitless possibility and encouragement. And I'm really grateful that I've grown up there. So I left after that to go to Yale in New Haven, rather different climate. But I really, it was also a wonderful time to be a Yale student. And that sense of possibility continued. And unfortunately, I haven't been able to live in San Diego since then. But we do spend a lot of time there with family and with all of these wonderful people that I grew up around. You know, as parents, we often care so much about our kids as they grow up. At the same time, we selflessly would like for them to go to school close to where we live, because we know they will often meet somebody halfway across the nation and stay there. Were they 100% supportive of you and your independence on this? They were, actually. It makes such a difference. Yeah, my parents are surprisingly free with their children. Sort of defying stereotype, their attitude was, as long as you're putting your best into everything that you do, and as long as you really care about what it is that you're working on, then we support it. Now, that's not to say that they didn't think that flying all the way across the country when there were some very good universities close to home wasn't something that you had to think kind of seriously about. But once I had a real reason to go, they were all in. And you know, as you suspected, or as they probably suspected, my life sort of veered towards the East Coast after that. And I married someone who's from the eastern half of the country. And obviously, I'm here today. And they've been very supportive of all of those steps. You know, when you think about the relationship between the US and India, the people in this room believe it's the most strategic relationship in the world between the two countries. We're a little bit biased. And when we first said, eight years ago, that our goal was to create not only the most strategic, but to change the lives of every citizen and every state, all 50 in the US, all 29 in India, and go way beyond trade into health, into standard of living, job growth, et cetera, I fell in love with this concept because of the people of India and how close it could be. When you think about the US-India relationship from your personal perspective, what comes to mind in terms of your views of it and your thoughts, because you see it from an angle literally none of us do. Well, of course, it is a very personal relationship because I have family members who are in India and I have many family members here in the United States. And I did grow up visiting India and visiting those family members, and they grew up visiting me. So that's always been a relationship that I've personally thought of as very important. The way that I think about it more broadly is I think this is a time of great opportunity. And I think if my husband were here, he'd say the same thing. Obviously, the United States and India, their relationship has ebbed and flowed at times. There are times when one country's needs and one country's goals are different from the other. But right now, I think in the next four years and in the future, the fact that there is this established Indian-American population here and so many people in India who know the country and know the people who are here doing great things, having great opportunities. When we were visiting recently, I was struck by the number of people who came up to me to say how much they loved our country, how they visited family, how they visited just for pleasure, that they were hoping for a close relationship looking forward. And I think these personal ties actually really have something to do with it. If you'll allow me to ask some personal questions. And you, of course, very effectively would dodge any you don't want to answer. Tell us about how you met the vice president. And we read about it, but often what you read isn't necessarily what occurred. And who knew first that this was going to be a great relationship for life? What do you all do together? Tell us a little bit about your personal life. And I know what that's like when you've got three kids trying to raise them plus two jobs at the same time. Absolutely. Well, we met in law school. So by the time we'd met, we'd followed sort of radically different paths in life and converged in the same place. JD, of course, had grown up in Ohio. He had been in the Marine Corps as an enlisted Marine. He'd kind of raced through college in Ohio State and then made his way to law school. And I'd taken the kind of diligent, progressive path of college to, or high school to college, to graduate school and some jobs, and to law school. And Yale Law School, and I think there are other schools like this, but Yale Law School in particular, at the time was the sort of place where they would just pick someone from here and someone from there. And they'd bring you all together and kind of toss you in into this small community where everyone really got to know each other. So as it happened, he and I just had the exact same schedule for the first semester with another 15, 16 people. So we were just sort of stuck together whether we wanted to be or not. And I mean, we even had in, I think, our first semester, or our first couple of weeks, a paper that we had to write together that required sitting and working through all sorts of things. We didn't know each other at all. But that was a wonderful basis for friendship. And you think, we have these really different backgrounds and what would we have in common? The reality is that we had so much in common. And I think this experience of being in the same place and meeting in person, something that is all too rare today, just allowed us to really get to know each other. So we were friends for a while before we started actually dating. I think it's fair to say that JD was sort of the pedal in this relationship. And I was a little bit of the brakes because I was sort of focused on all the schooling part of it. But we both knew, I think, at the same time. When it's good, it's good. And you start to know that. It really is. When you meet your partner in life, you just sense it, don't you? Yes. When you think about your relationship with JD and you think about going to India together, can we talk about that trip a little bit? And what did it mean to you, to your family, to your kids? Key takeaways. What was the prime minister like? We hear there was a pup show. But you know what I'm really after? I'm after everybody in this audience getting to know you. Because I believe you're fantastic. I think you're going to be so good for our country as a role model in many ways. Share a little bit how that trip went in a way that everybody here gets to know you a little bit more, if we may. Of course. Well, I think I told an Indian publication this. It really was the trip of a lifetime for us. My children had never been to India. What with the pandemic and JD's entering into politics and all that. And so they'd grown up just knowing so much about this country, the stories, the food, the relationships with grandparents and friends. But they had never actually seen it. So it was just sort of mind-blowing from their perspective. And then for me and JD, I think it just could not have been any more special. We had the opportunity to see some of the greatest sites in North India. We're looking forward to our next trip and trying to get to the parts of the country where my family is from as well. And it just was sort of one hit after another, right? The most incredible food, the peacocks that we got to see everywhere we went, getting to see the Taj Mahal in the morning and appreciate it as the sun was just sort of coming up and the cool skies and blue skies over in the background. And of course, as you mentioned, meeting the prime minister. That was really very special. We'd actually had a chance to meet him before. And it's funny, my kids saw him. They were sort of sleep-deprived in Paris. And they saw an Indian man with a white beard and white hair. And they just put him in the grandfather category immediately. So they are very into him. They just love him. And he really cemented his status by giving our five-year-old a birthday present that day. So when we were able to visit his home, they just sort of ran up. They were hugging him. He was just incredibly kind and generous to them. And I think it was a very productive conversation for JD and the prime minister, of course. But also, I think it was a real opportunity for us to kind of cement that personal relationship that they have, which I think is only to the good. And as you mentioned, there was a puppet show. That was a particular highlight with sort of puppeteering from all over the country, including from Andhra Pradesh, where my family is from. There were bits from the Ramayana. There were sort of comedic bits with animals. And it was a huge hit. My kids have been trying to recreate a home with construction paper, which is going about as well as you can imagine. You know, your kids, if I remember right, are three, five, and seven years of age. That's right. If you can, share some of the takeaways, both during the trip and on the way back. I'm sure as parents, you said, what did you think? What surprised you, et cetera, on it? I know that Prime Minister Modi has an ability to form unbelievable relationships with people of all ages. And I happen to believe that's just because he's a very sincere person. Share some of the kids' takeaways, if you will, because through the mouth of young children, we learn so much about ourselves and others, how they view things. Well, I think J.D. has probably told the story at some point, but when we were at the Prime Minister's residence, our son was just so taken by everything. And then taken by the entire cart of mangoes. That was available for him to eat. That he announced to the Prime Minister that he thought he could maybe live there. And started making his plans. Dialed that back a little, and he remembered quite how hot he had been earlier in the day, but he just loved it. And our children, they talk about it all the time, actually. They've been all over the place, and they've had wonderful opportunities to see the world, but this was really special to them. You and our oldest was really taken by the sculptures in the temple that he visited. He just thought it was incredible craftsmanship, and of course showed things that he was very familiar with from stories, and from talking with me. And then Vivek, our middle child, was very excited to meet elephants, and peacocks, and a camel, and just any animal that he could kind of get his hands on. And then our daughter, I think, she's sort of along for the ride. She really enjoyed her time in an auto rickshaw. That was maybe the highlight for her. The Secret Service was very generous, and allowed us to kind of drive in an enclosed area for a few minutes, so we had a lot of fun with that. Awesome. If you enjoy this content, please consider subscribing to my channel to stay up to date with future videos. Thank you for watching.