Julissa Arce on why success isn’t worth her assimilation

How to Be a Better Human

TED

Self-improvement, Education

4.2 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When do you feel like you've reached "success"? Julissa Arce is an acclaimed social justice advocate, the author of four books, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, and was named a 2019 Woman of the Year by the City of Los Angeles. But if you ask her, she’s still redefining what success looks like, and if it matters. Julissa immigrated to the United States at 11, and was undocumented for almost 15 years. In her latest book, and in today’s episode, she rejects the idea that assimilation can create belonging and brings success – and asks what we can do instead to reconnect and celebrate all that makes us unique. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective.
0:02.0	Audio Collective.
0:04.0	You're listening to How to Be a Better Human.
0:10.0	I'm your host Chris Duffy.
0:12.0	One of the trickiest parts about success and chasing success
0:16.0	is that everyone has a different definition in their mind.
0:19.0	And sometimes when we get the thing we've been striving for, we realize that it isn't actually
0:24.9	what we want at all. It's just a story that's been fed to us by someone else.
0:29.5	Today's guest, Julisa Arse, is doing her best to redefine success for herself, and to get the rest of us to do the same.
0:37.0	Because Julisa has achieved several different visions of success and still has found them unsatisfying.
0:44.0	For example, by many people's definitions of it,
0:47.0	Juleza has lived the American dream.
0:49.0	She moved to the United States from Mexico as a kid
0:51.0	to join her parents who had a business here.
0:53.7	And then when her visa expired,
0:55.4	Juliusa became undocumented.
0:57.6	Despite that stress, she worked hard, she graduated college,
1:00.6	and she got a high-paying job on Wall Street. But it didn't feel like success to her.
1:06.2	So she left her job. She wrote a best-selling book. She became a US citizen and still
1:10.9	there was something missing. In her latest book you sound like a white girl
1:14.5	Julisa explores the meaning and the cost of success particularly when it comes to
1:19.6	having to assimilate to achieve it. To me, assimilation, this is sort of absorbing
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -700 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.