The Moth Radio Hour: Kids Leading
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This autumn, fall for Moth Stories as we travel across the globe for our mainstages. We're excited to announce our fall lineup of storytelling shows from New York City to Iowa City, London, Nairobi, and so many more. The Moth will be performing in a city near you, featuring a curation of true stories. The Moth mainstage shows feature five tellers who share beautiful, unbelievable, hilarious, and often powerful true stories on a common theme. Each one told reveals something new about our shared connection.

To buy your tickets or find out more about our calendar, visit themoth.org slash mainstage. We hope to see you soon. From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jodi Powell, a producer and director at The Moth. A few weeks ago, I heard a child say...

People still get to eat blueberries. Yes! And it reminded me that children are on to something. Like the kid who initiated a friendship at the museum. Though we spoke different languages, he walked across the room and just said to me, Can we be amigos? Or the six-year-old in the book reading group that exclaimed how boring it was, even though everyone thought so.

Or the 11-year-old who felt the beat of Al Green for the first time and just did the movement his body and heart wanted him to. Children don't hold back. And what they say, they mean. At one point in our life, we dared to dance like no one was watching. And if they were, we did it anyway.

Today, we're telling stories from childhood. Kids taking the lead, defying the odds, and pointing out the things that we might have overlooked or just forgotten about. Our first story comes from Dave Stratton. Dave told the story at the Chicago Grand Slam at the Athenaeum Theatre, where we partner with the public radio station WBEZ. Here's Dave.

It was really foggy and there was a light mist in the air when we stepped out of the car in this empty trailhead parking lot in this New Hampshire State Park. But that wasn't going to stop Leah and I from enjoying this great new adventure: nature hiking. I consider it a fatherly duty to introduce my daughter to new activities and new experiences. So let's go for a hike.

So, of course we made every newbie mistake a beginning hiker can make. We didn't tell anyone we were going hiking. I didn't tell the lady at the visitor's center who recommended the trail that we were going that day in the fog and mist. And that my hiking companion was eight years old. Probably should have. I'd never been on a trail like this before. There was no path to follow. There were just paint marks on trees about every hundred feet.

And in this fog, you sometimes had to walk forward on faith until the next paint mark came into view. But we made our way through the forest. Then you started up this small mountain that was just bare granite with the trail marks on the rocks. And now, by the way, in sneakers, wet granite is about as slippery as ice. We kept on going. And at one point, we kind of veered off the trail. We lost track of the paint marks.

And we're looking around and Elia just very calmly looked up at me and said, "I think it's time to start screaming." I said, "No, no one's up here anyway, so let's just go back to where we last saw a paint mark and try to find the next one and get back on the trail." And we did. We made it back on the trail. We made it to the summit. We had our peanut butter sandwiches and drank our juice boxes. We were hikers now.

Then we started the second half of the hike. But we noticed we were still going uphill. And as each new rise came out of the fog, we thought, oh, oh, that must be the summit. Then we'd climb over that, and then there'd be another rise, and there'd be, oh, well, that must be the summit. And so realizing we're not at the halfway point yet. Now I'm starting to worry about time because it's already past 1 o'clock, and at 3.30, we're going to start losing light. It's going to be hard to see these trail marks.

and at 5:30 it's going to be dark and we're going to be stuck up there. If we're stuck up there, then hypothermia can be an issue. We had no kind of survival gear at all. We had no blankets, we had no extra jackets. I had a cell phone but no coverage. I didn't have a lighter and everything's wet anyway and there's no wood so there's no way I'm rubbing two sticks together to start a fire. And who knows what kind of wild animals are up there? Bears, wolves, raccoons. I don't want to find out, so we've got to keep moving.

But now the footing is really getting treacherous. At one point we have to cross this landed section of slippery rock that's like the roof of a house, but over the edge it's not 10 feet down to a lawn, it's like 100 feet down to jagged rocks. So we crawled over that section and I was scared shitless. Now if you're wondering, "Well Dave, why didn't you turn back at that point?"

I'd say, well, smartass, you didn't see the trail map that seemed to indicate that the way down from the mountain was a little shorter, was much shorter than the way up the mountain. So we kept forging ahead. It was eerily beautiful up there, though, in the fog. And if I saw someone else's pictures of it, I would say, wow, that's really cool. But I wasn't taking any pictures.

At one point we were walking on this ridge that kind of disappeared in the fog in the distance and the slippery rock just kind of sloped down on either side like oblivion. And Leah's in front of me, I've got my hand on the back of her jacket in case she slips, and I'm literally watching every step I take because there's no one to catch me. And so my every thought is focused on

getting this little girl, this one of two people I love more than anyone else in the world, off this mountain. But with every step, I'm beating myself up for not turning around. The very moment I realized this was more dangerous than I thought it was going to be, Leah told me when it was time to start screaming. Now, during this part of the hike, Leah was talking nonstop. She was telling a story to herself.

It was about a detective, or maybe she was the detective, and there was an alien, and there was a spacecraft in the woods that she was trying to find. And it was very convoluted, which was unusual for her because her stories are usually pretty coherent and pretty good. But I didn't care. I was just so glad that I didn't have a frightened child to deal with. I could concentrate on getting off the mountain.

So after a while we started going downhill and we made it back in the woods and we followed the paint marks on the trees and suddenly we stepped out of the woods into a clearing and it was the parking lot for the trailhead and there was our car. And in my head I'm thinking, yes, we made it! Oh my god, we're not going to die tonight! I kind of kept that from Leah. And I just casually said, well, what was up with that story you were telling?

And she said, oh, that was nothing. I was just really scared we were lost. And telling the story was the only way I could keep from crying. So I got down on my knee, and I hugged her, and I told her I was really, really sorry. I put her in a situation where she didn't feel safe. And she said, that's okay. I know you didn't do it on purpose. I could tell you were scared, too. So maybe we didn't start a father-daughter tradition of nature hiking that day, because we never went on another hike like

But it was kind of a new level of our relationship, and instead of always telling her what to think and what to do, I started paying a lot more attention to what she thought, because her instincts about that trail were a lot better than mine. So Leah's a grown woman now, and she's still a lot more trustworthy than me. And in all these years, she's never mentioned that time I almost got us killed on a mountain in New Hampshire. And I appreciate that. Thank you. applause

David Stratton is a retired advertising copywriter. He is the author of the novel Lifelike, about a 19th century memorial photographer. He's also a co-author of a country western called Lust and Rust. He and his wife Ginny enjoy living in what he says is a fun and charming town of Dunedin, Florida.

Our next storyteller, Carolina Ureña-Ruez, takes us to the first day of school after the summer holiday. Her pencils were sharpened and her book bag loaded, but she did forget something. Carolina told this story at our New York City Story Slam at the Bronx Museum, where WNYC is the media partner of the month. Here is Carolina. So I learned at a very young age when it was okay to cry.

My parents made the very difficult decision when I was eight to move from Dominican Republic into the States. Immigrant kids, you have to work your ass off when you're here. So I worked my butt off and I made it into a special program. I was in a gifted class, which I think is not allowed anymore in New York.

So I was in a gifted class by fifth grade. And for those who've been in gifted classes, I didn't know this, but they give you homework during the summertime. And I had no idea. So I was in DR for the entire summer. So I was in Dominican Republic getting my tan on. And I had no clue that I had homework due when I came back. So on my first day of school, I'm like rocking my Caribbean tan, all happy, like, oh, my God, I'm in, you know, a

gifted program, I'm so smart. And I'm sitting down and the director of the gifted program walks into our classroom and says, well guys, so I'm here to look at your summer projects. I'm here to see your autobiographies. And I was like,

"No, no idea that I was supposed to do that." So she's going in looking at everybody and the girl next to me, we grew up in the same block in the Bronx and she just starts bawling her eyes out and I'm like, "I'm gonna join you, I'm just gonna cry."

Let's just do this together. We'll just hold hands. I don't want to go home. So, but I was like, you know, maybe they'll give us a pass because it's the first day. So I see her in the first table up the front and she's like, oh, you didn't have it? F. And I was like, no, I cannot go back to two immigrant parents with an F. I come from a household where when I would come home with a 95, my father would be like, y los otros cinco puntos, which is like, where are the other five points? And I was like, what the...

He was like, there was no extra credit. I'm like, oh my God. So I was like, all right, well, I'm not going home. I'm going to just like walk around the Bronx and figure it out until I find another household that wants me. So...

I wasn't going home. But then I was like, okay, so I have two choices. I can either hold hands with my classmate and cry our eyes out, or I could figure this out. So I was like, well, my last name is at the end of the alphabet. She's going in alphabetical order. I got at least 10 minutes...

Until she gets to me. Meanwhile, I'm looking at the snotty, like, extra nerdy kids, which is a lot to be called nerd in a nerd class. So I'm like, all happy, showing off their autobiography. So I'm like, all right, I could do this. So I open up my book bag. I take out pink construction paper. I take out my crayons, and I take out glue. I was like, I'm making this shit happen right now. So I put four papers together. I draw myself. A little plain, because, you know, we flew to the States. Uh.

And my story, it wasn't that long, I was only 10. So it was really short and I got to it really quickly. So by the time that I finished, the director got right in front of me and she's like, "Oh, the one crying, I'm sorry, F." And I'm like, "And then to me." And then I just kind of slip it and I was like, "I hope she doesn't notice." I just literally did this right now. So I slip it to her, she's reading it, she puts a little note on it and she passes it back. And I look at it and I'm like, "Yes!"

So this may sound like a really silly story to most of you, but 30 years later, that is what guides me. That 10-year-old girl who was like, I'm not going to let something put me down, and I'm going to move forward, and I'm going to figure it out. So to this day, when I see my choices as do I ball up in a corner and cry and give up, or do I take out my construction paper, my crayons, and get it done? Thank you.

Carolina Ureña Ruiz is an executive director of a global investment bank and financial services firm. She lives with her husband and two young children in Westchester County, New York. Carolina says it was that moment that changed how she handled failure. She continues to look back to think of that little girl.

She's failed many times after that or found herself at a crossroad. She told us, "That moment in time in grade school to this day still gives me mental clarity to move forward with conviction and resolve." Coming up, more stories about kids leading the way when the Moth Radio Hour continues. ♪

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jodi Powell.

Our next story comes from Amber Wallin. Amber told this at the Mesa Art Center in Arizona. Here's Amber live at the mall. Growing up, I loved to perform exclusively in front of my family and friends. And even though I had siblings, baby, I was a one-woman show. If I was performing Annie, I would be Annie, Miss Hannigan, Daddy Warbucks, Sandy,

If there was a stage, I wanted to be center and solo. But senior year of high school, I decided to audition for my first school play. I was walking past the auditorium and I saw an audition flyer for Roger and Hammerstein's Cinderella. Or as we in the African American community like to call it, that's the black Cinderella. You know, the one with Brandy. Woo!

And even though I didn't really want to act with these other actors and perform with them, I felt immediately called to audition for this role because first of all, I look like Brandy. If you squint a little bit. And I could sing, or at the very least, I could command a stage. And lastly, I had played that VHS tape no less than a thousand times because Brandy made black people believe in fairy tales.

As you can imagine, my parents were thrilled that I would no longer be hijacking their dinners and Saturday morning with my one-woman shows. Another big reason that I really felt called to audition for this show, because it would mean for the first time in a long time, our school's production would be diverse. Y'all know we didn't have Hamilton. So I looked at this audition flyer, and I realized that the audition song for the production would be Getting to Know You from The King and I. I don't know nothing about The King and I.

I know the king and lion, the lion king. But nothing about the king and I. So I went home. I start rehearsing this song, learning it, feeling it in my bones. But then I said to myself, Amber, now wait a minute. Everybody is going to be auditioning this song and you want to be the lead. You got to give them a little something different in this rendition. I need to do a version of Getting to Know You that helps the judges get to know me.

So a couple days later, I walked into that audition and I gave them a rendition of this song that could best be described as a cross between Christina Aguilera and a Southern Black Baptist Church choir. If there's a difference between those two. I confidently walked into that audition. I said, Getting to know, getting to know all about.

A few days later, the cast sheet was posted outside of that same auditorium. And my friend, she auditioned for the show as well. So I was like, "After lunch, girl, let's go check this cast sheet." But in my mind, I was thinking like, "Why are these other girls checking this sheet?" We know who's going to be cast as Cinderella Jones. So the cast sheet was about four pages long. I went up to this cast sheet. I see my name immediately. And I discover I had been cast as the Hat Lady.

in the village, a member of the ensemble. And my friend, my friend, she was cast as the cheese lady. And that's fine for her. I was devastated. I ran to the bathroom. I started crying for two big reasons. One, I don't even perform outside of my home. I took a chance on something. I was cast as the hat lady. And two, I realized this cast sheet was four pages long because everybody who had auditioned for the show had been cast. So this was really like receiving a participation certificate.

And I'll be completely honest with y'all, the girl who got the role of Cinderella, her name's Kendria, I mean, she can sing. She can sing the pipes off this place. They heard that audition that I did and said, "Godmother? No. Step-sister? No. Hat lady." Because we all remember all those fedoras that Cinderella wore.

But that's fine, it's my first production, so I accepted the role as Hat Lady, but a couple weeks into rehearsals, I just start feeling a little less content in the role of Hat Ho in these streets. So naturally, I did something about it. I went to our high school drama teacher, her name was Harriet, she went on a first name basis,

And I said, "Harriet, you know, I love being a part of this show, but I am bursting open with passion and talent. And this role, this whole story really resonates with me. Surely there's something bigger I could do to contribute to this production. I know all the roles have already been cast, but is there anything additional I could do to contribute?" And Harriet says, "Yes, there is something." You know, I'm like, "Good."

You know that scene, it's the denouement of the production, the ballroom scene. Cinderella enters at the top of a grand staircase. It's the first time everyone lays eyes on her, the prince, the villagers. She's right in the center of the stage. Yes, I do. I'm very familiar with the story. Say more. She says, Amber, you could be the person that rolls that staircase out and places it right in the center of the stage.

I now know that Harriet was giving me busy work, but honestly, at the time, I heard "Center Stage" and I didn't really hear her say anything else. I was like, "Harriet, you know, I don't know what a denouement is, but I'm gonna take your denouement and I'm gonna put a hat on it, okay, girl?"

So we're a couple weeks into rehearsal. We're running the show. We would run act one. And Harriet would say, Amber, it's intermission. And every time she said, Amber, it's intermission, this staircase was huge. So I get a couple friends to help me roll it out, put it right in the center of the stage. And a couple more friends the next day, picking different people every single time. But it was ultimately my responsibility to make sure that piece was set right in the middle of the stage. It's opening night. I kill it in act one. You know me. The prince is giving a ball. Accessorizing everybody with hats, everybody.

Then we have intermission and it's the top of act two, the grand ballroom scene. We're all in our long gowns and we stop mid-waltz to turn and see Cinderella at the top of that grand staircase. It was at that moment I realized I forgot to put the staircase in place. You know what tipped me off was the gaping hole in the center of the stage where you could see all backstage.

So we're all frozen with fear on stage like, well, what happens now? Unless she grows wings, there's no way this show can keep happening. So we stand there for at least two solid minutes like...

And then out of our peripheral vision, we uncomfortably turn to see Cinderella walking in from the audience and then slowly make her way on stage. And as you can imagine, Cinderella is visibly just frazzled, completely shaken. And she's trying to keep it together, but she's so upset. And when I look down in the tulle of her dress, she's like shooting a bird, you know, to everyone in the show. She doesn't know who's responsible, but she's like this. And I'm like, uh-oh.

And the rest of the show after that was absolutely horrible. We're high schoolers. We don't know how to recover after major mistakes are made. So the singing was off key, the blocking was bad, the choreo was missed. I mean, I had single-handedly ruined this production. And after the show, obviously all the actors were gossiping about stage. Like, what happened? Where did we go wrong? And Harriet was furious. And I will tell y'all right now,

80% of me that day genuinely got nervous. It was my first production, my parents were in the audience, I might have missed a couple cues. I was so nervous. But 20% of me was still harboring some resentment that I had not been chosen in the role of Cinderella. So the next night we did the show again, everything went fine because I was, you know, recast in the role. I was stripped of my staircase duties.

And I learned so much from that very first performance that I did. It's okay to audition for something and not be cast as the principal role in your first show. It's okay to get on stage and get nervous and miss your cue. But the biggest lesson learned that day was this: If I can't be Cinderella, no one can! Thank you.

Amber Wallin is an LA-based comedian, host, and filmmaker who's amassed over a million followers on TikTok and Instagram, where she annoys her family, sings to her indoor plants, and creates characters inspired by her wig collection. Amber says this experience marked the beginning of her anti-hero origin story. Her quirky personality that she was once picked on for is actually her superpower.

To see pictures of Amber and her family, please visit themoth.org and go to extras. Our next story comes from Pedro Haro, who told this at our main stage live at the Hawaii Theatre Center in Honolulu. So when I was eight, I used to be obsessed with being taken seriously.

I used to force my friends to play Ghostbusters or Transformers, because those were my favorite cartoons. And I always had to be Egon or Optimus Prime. And if they questioned why I had to be either of those two, or if they didn't take my instructions exactly like I told them, they couldn't play with us anymore. That's... I was a little, like, tyrant. I was so wound up. But my brother, Armando, who was 14 years older than me and with three siblings in between us,

He never took anything seriously. He was always making fun of me or my sisters or himself. He used to make us listen to these cassette tapes that was him and his friends singing at the top of their lungs, these Mexican rancheras, completely off pitch. And everybody who would listen would laugh and laugh and they would think, oh, he's so funny. And I was mortified. I used to think, why would he want anybody to listen to this? And

So when my parents told us that they would be leaving Mexico to work in the United States and we would be staying back and my brother Armando was going to be in charge, I got worried. My dad had lost his job about a year earlier when the Pepsi bottling plant that he worked at had closed and everybody was fired.

And he had tried everything and as a last-ditch effort, him and my mom got visas to come and work in the United States and they were going to work in Kanapali, at the time, the brand new hotel area and they needed lots of workers. And to this day, I can't understand why the United States would give them visas but not their children to make sure that they couldn't visit.

But I had one stipulation. It was that they had to leave while I was sleeping in the middle of the night because I didn't know if I could bear to see them leave. And then two weeks later, that's exactly what they did. They like, I woke up one day and they were gone. And I thought, crap, I was just being dramatic. But, you know, I was a good kid. I didn't complain. I didn't, you know, I did my job. I thought my parents are doing the best job that they can. So I have to just not cry.

My brother, Armando, the best job that he could do was opening up his own automotive shop, which was just an abandoned house, like in a residential neighborhood with like no floors or ceilings. It was just like dirt with walls. And they would sit outside like waiting for customers, even though there was no sign, him and his friends, like they would just sit there. And then by the end of the night, they'd be like drinking rum and Cokes, like waiting for customers to come. And I know this because I was inside the house. That's how he would babysit me.

It's like I would be inside playing with my G.I. Joes, and they would be outside. But, you know, it passed the hours. It was, you know, days and weeks and months, and that quietness sort of turned to anxiety when my parents said that they had raised enough money to hire a coyote to smuggle us across the border through the mountains. But my...

brother, Armando, would be like guiding us through Mexico to meet this coyote and then, you know, get across the border and then get us to LA and then on a plane to Hawaii and I thought, "How is he going to do this when he can barely take care of us at home?" Whew, and the anxiety got worse and worse. When we were going through the trip, it was, you know, well proven. We were hungry, there were all these things that went wrong and it felt like that anxiety started kind of becoming like a rock that was pressing against my stomach and it would create this kind of physical pain.

And it got just completely worse once we actually met the coyote and we had to cross. There was all these things that just happened. It was so dizzying. And we had to cross this multi-lane highway and it was pitch dark and it was raining and there was all this mud and there were helicopters above and somebody robbed us and they put a gun to my brother's head and I almost drowned in this raging river and

There was like no time to breathe, no time to think about the physical pain or anxiety. And before I knew it, we were up against this wall, this tall wall, and we just had to climb it. And as soon as we climbed it, there was the stillness. And it was the United States. And there were these beautiful houses and cars and yards. And I thought, you know, in that house, there's children that are my age,

that are sleeping next to their moms and their dads and their goofy brothers, just their goofy brother. They're not running away from immigration in the middle of the rain. And so that was the first time that I had this clear vision of, you know, that's what I can get. If I can just push away this stomach pain and all this anxiety and the mud and the hunger and all of that stuff, I can get that. I'll have that with my mom and my dad and my brothers. So I was laser focused.

So focused that when we got to this warehouse where there were like immigrants sleeping all over the ground, they were waiting for the next parts of their trip. Went to the bathroom and when I stood up, I looked in the bowl and there was blood. And even at age nine, I knew that wasn't a good thing. And I knew that that was probably tied to that pain that I was feeling, that it wasn't just anxiety.

And I had to make a split decision. Do I tell Armando? Do I tell my sisters that are coming with us? You know, what can they do? We're in a warehouse hiding from immigration, from the police. How is this going to affect our trip? So I just kind of wash my hands and I go lay down next to my sister and I don't say anything. And I don't say anything for the next few days as we make our way to L.A.,

And, you know, my brother's trying to joke with me and saying things and they're not landing because I'm so concentrated on the pain that is getting worse and worse and worse. And he starts asking me and my sister start asking me like, what's wrong? And I say, oh, my stomach hurts. And I just keep saying that. And when we finally get to L.A., I've gotten so weak that

that I asked one of my siblings to take me to the bathroom and when I locked the door behind me, the bathroom toilet seemed so far away that I kind of crumbled to the ground and I rest there and the coolness of the floor against my cheek feels comfortable. And I don't know how long I was there because the next thing I know Armando's knocking on the door saying, "Mijo, ¿cómo estás?" And I think I answer but I don't think there's any words that actually come out of my mouth.

And so I kind of crawl up to the door and I unlock it, but he doesn't know that it's unlocked. So he just keeps knocking and knocking and then he's pounding on the door like saying, "Open the door right now or I'm gonna knock it down." And he realizes that it's open. So he opens it and he doesn't miss a beat. He just kind of scoops me from the floor into his arms and he starts running into the streets to try to ask strangers for help. And I realize how sick I am for the first time because I've never seen my brother

panic like this and somebody drives us to the you know the hospital and it's like an episode of ER like 20 cc's and 10 or like whatever you know doctors say when they're you know doing stuff I don't know I didn't speak English um

But my brother's next to me, like, holding my hand and, you know, caressing my hair and saying, like, everything's going to be okay. And he leaves for a few minutes, and he comes back, and he's like, the doctor said you're going to be just fine. And he does this a few times. And he comes in one last time and says, you know, you're going to get this operation, and then you're going to be just fine. And this is when I find out that my appendix has burst. And apparently it has been burst for three days.

And that I'm very, very sick. So they wheel me into the operating room. And the next thing that I know is I wake up with like tubes coming out of my mouth and my nose and my stomach. And there is this bright light coming out of the door that I'm staring at. And through the door walks in my mom with my sisters on either of their side. And I know there was a lot of pain and recovery and all of that. But I don't remember any of that because to this day, those are the happiest memories of my life.

And you know, my mom has told this story so many times, you know, hundreds of times, and she's usually crying and like how the hospital wouldn't operate because they couldn't get my parental signature on the disability, not disability, liability forms. And, you know, but this doctor, this hero doctor comes in and signs the liability forms. And he's not even my doctor. He's not like my surgeon or anything. He just signs the forms for liability and that's how they can operate.

And when I tell the story, I usually concentrate about finding this doctor and how I want to tell him that he's my hero and I want to thank him for what he did for us. When my brother tells the story, it's usually about how so-and-so fell on this branch as we were running away from immigration or how the stupid Bermuda shorts that I was wearing were like 10 sizes too big because we had stolen all of our clothes and that's what I had to wear.

And I realized all of these years later that all of those versions of the story erase what my brother actually did. Because you see, what the hospital had actually told them was that there was nothing else that they could do for me. That it was too late. That the best they could do was to keep me comfortable until I passed. And he died.

pled with them to please please do something for his little brother and then he would go into the room and tell me the doctor said everything's gonna be fine and he would tell the same thing to my siblings outside and he would tell the same things to my parents on the phone and then he would go back into the hallway and plead with them and I don't know what he did if he you know told them jokes or if he cried or what he did but it was because whatever he did that that doctor signed those liability forms and you know

My brother kept me long, kept me alive long enough to make me realize the sort of goofy, unserious version of myself that finds infinite joy in embarrassing my nieces and nephews and my husband and my dog. And I have found a way to embarrass my dog. I'll tell you about it. And my brother, on the other hand...

has transitioned into being this loving, wonderful father and grandfather who still trolls all of us with TikTok videos and like on Facebook and all these things. He's gone high tech now.

You know, I realized not only that my brother saved my life in the hospital, but he gave me this model of how to be able to not take yourself so seriously, not to be so wound up that if you're going to live with the trauma, you might as well laugh at the funny parts. And, you know, I like to think that now if we were to play Transformers together, I might just let you be Optimus Prime. Thank you. That was Pedro Haro.

He lives in Hawaii, where he is a non-profit executive director. He received a master's degree in public health and has helped pass legislation to better the health of residents in Hawaii. He's married to Troy, and together they have a doctor named Minnie. Pedro's father passed away recently, and his brother is now the family patriarch. His brother has mastered their dad's style of being supportive, firm, and funny all at once to the entire family.

Pedro says there are times when they are on Zoom and he catches a glimpse of his brother on a digital square. And he thinks he's seeing his father from years ago. To see pictures of Pedro and his family, please visit themoth.org and go to extras. Do you have a story to tell us? You can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site or call 877-799-MOTH.

That's 877-799-6684. The best pitches are developed for moth shows all around the world. Coming up, a life-changing visit with a kindergarten class. That's when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX.

You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jody Powell. Our final story in this hour comes from Nestor Gomez, who shared this at the Chicago Grand Slam, where WBEZ is our media partner. Here's Nestor, live from the Athenaeum in Chicago. What am I doing here? I thought to myself, as a kindergarten class was taken back to the classroom.

I have been asked to tell them a story and it has been a disaster. A six minute story about my dog, which usually works really well with older kids, has been constantly interrupted with comments like, and this one kid that was saying, I, I, I ignore the kid. And when I finally acknowledge him, he say, I, I forgot what I was going to say.

When I was a kid, I used to be very shy because I stuttered. I thought a kid also stuttered, but he was just a kid, being an annoying kid. For half an hour, I tried to tell them one story with no success. To be honest, kids are my kryptonite. I have a really time getting their attention. It might be because they are easily distracted, or it might be because I get easily distracted when they start eating their boogers. At the next kindergarten, I started to feel like

the auditorium, I thought to myself, maybe I'm not good for this. I started to look for ways to excuse myself. I tried to tell the kindergarteners a story and they kept interrupting me. It was going to be another disaster. I look around the room, I'm feeling like I had nothing to lose. I decided to try something new. You know, when my kids were young, when they were babies, I taught them the ABCs.

"We know our ABCs!" The kids say, "Well, let me hear you singing." A, B, C, D, E, F, G. I let them finish. That's not the ABC song that I taught my kids. I started singing. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. That's the ABC in Spanish. "Does anybody here speak Spanish?" A couple of hands went up, just like I knew they would.

My people, la raza, we are everywhere. Do you know your numbers in Spanish? Do you want to come and help me teach them to the rest of the class? The kids that raised their hands came up onto the stage and we started saying the numbers in Spanish while the class repeated them in English. It was magical. When I came to this country undocumented at age 15, I didn't speak the language. And I didn't see myself represented anywhere.

At school, the classes, the stories that I heard were about people that did not look or sounded like me. Now these kindergarten kids were giving me the opportunity to give them a little bit of representation that I did not have when I was a kid. We spent time saying the numbers in Spanish and the class repeating them in English. When the Spanish lesson was finished, I looked at the time, I still got 15 more minutes to go.

I wondered how else I could entertain these kids. One little girl raised her hand. I know my numbers in Portuguese. I invited her to the front of the class, and she shared her knowledge with us. And then another little kid raised her hand. I know my numbers in Chinese. And then nine little kids came up to the stage without even waiting for me to invite them to the stage. We even had one little girl that spoke Arabic.

My immigrant heart was crying of happiness. Before I knew it, I looked at the time and it was time for them to go back to the classroom. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" A teacher was coming over, wanted to talk to me. "I have to tell you, I have to tell you, the little Portuguese girl, she's new in the class, she's very shy. This is the first time that we ever heard her speak."

The teacher started to cry and I had to do my best not to start crying with her. I started to walk out of the school and I remember that only a few years ago I used to cry out of anger and frustration and not having a voice because of my undocumented status and not knowing any English. By the time I got to the parking lot, I started to remember the look on the kids' faces.

so proud of themselves and so eager to share their heritage with the whole world and to accept everybody else's heritage. It was like a glance into the future of the kind of country America should be. When I got into my car, I couldn't hold it anymore and I started to cry unashamed because these were no longer tears of anger and resentment. These were tears of happiness.

and acknowledges me. Because I don't know if all my trials have been a blessing in disguise, but what I do know is that everything, everything that for years made me feel like I was being held back, my undocumented status, not knowing the language, my stutter, even my failure with the first class, everything led me to the magical moment with the kindergarten class sharing our languages.

And in the end, I would not have it any other way. I started to drive out of the school and with tears running down my face, I began to sing. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P.

That was Nestor Gomez. Nestor created a storytelling show called 80 Minutes Around the World, which features the stories of immigrants, refugees, their descendants and allies. If you want to listen or read some of his stories, please visit themoth.org for more info. Nestor keeps teaching workshops with students of all ages and loves any opportunity he gets to share his stories.

To see some photos of Nestor, one of which was from the actual classroom, please visit themoth.org. Remember, you can share these stories or others from the Moth Archive and buy tickets to the Moth storytelling events in your area, all through our website, themoth.org.

In this hour, we've heard all about childhood. But I thought one thing was missing, some wisdom straight from the source. So I asked a few special kids in my life what's one thing they wish adults would know or do. Here's what they said.

My name is Ethan. I am eight years old. I live in the UK. One thing I would like adults to know or do is be more aware of global warming and how it is affecting our environment. I am CJ. I'm 14 years old. I live in the UK. And one thing I would like adults to know or do is that children are different to other children and you shouldn't compare them to each other.

Hello, my name is Eloise and I live in Pennsylvania. I am nine years old. Something I wish grown-ups would know is to stop using cars so much. Walk over to a close friend's house instead of driving. It is polluting the earth.

Hello, my name is Nell and I am seven. I live in Pennsylvania. Irish grown-ups would not be so bossy and tell us what to do all the time. They could play more and let us do whatever we want.

I'm Gaimon from Jamaica. I would like to cook up the violence and killing. In case you missed that, my last friend Gaimon said he would like us to stop the violence and killing. And that's it for this week on the Moth Radio Hour. Thank you for listening. I hope you'll join us next time.

This episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Catherine Burns, along with Jody Powell, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show, along with Michelle Jalowski.

Co-producer Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch, additional Grand Slam coaching by Larry Rosen. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Ginesse, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Cloutier, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Caza.

Most stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Thanks to the children who helped out, Nell and Eloise Groter, Ethan and CJ Pennant, and Jimen Henry. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Richard Farla, Brad Meldow, Corey Wong, and Wolf, Cormac, Hermanos Gutierrez, and Darrell Besson, and Nelson Verraz.

We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.