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Donna Shirley
Mars Exploration Program
The feminist movement, the women's movement in this country, has been very powerful for people like me. The whole language, the whole environment, has changed so much in the last 35 years while I've been doing this stuff. I mean, when I first came to JPL it was de rigeur for everybody to smoke cigars. And, we literally had our meetings in cigar smoke-filled rooms, and that was a very macho thing. You know, you lit up your cigar and all this sort of stuff. And, there was just a lot of macho around the Cold War. The Cold Warriors were very macho. And now, you know, Vietnam and the '70s and the women's movement and everything, there's just a whole different climate about the opportunities for women. Aerospace is still one of the weaker places in opportunities for women, but Silicon Valley I mean, they are so desperate for talent that they don't care what sex you are. You just go in and do it.
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Alan Simpson
Statesman and Advocate
There were 2.9 million human beings who were brought out of the dark, who were living in an illegal society -- they were living illegally in a legal society, and nobody knew they were illegal. They were working in jobs. Some of them were businessmen. So when we put together the Simpson-Rodino, Simpson-Mazzoli bill, we said, "Anyone here before the date -- we set the date -- January 1st, 1982, is hereby given amnesty, and can remain in the United States. Come forward, get temporary papers. Then temporary resident, then permanent resident." And about once a month one of those 2.9 million people from somewhere come up to me in a cab and they say, "Hey, I'm here. Here I am. And you did that. " And I saw at Harvard the other day, beautiful couple, boy and a girl, different race, and this young man said, "My two parents were legalized under your bill." And she said, "My two parents were legalized under your bill, and we're just here to thank you." And they're both Harvard students. I said, "God, I've taken a lot of crap in life, but every time I get one of those, you know, that's it." So that is truly the most gratifying. And it happens quite often. Cab drivers jump out to say, "Hey Simpson, is that you?" I say, "Yeah." "Well, I was living the life of Reilly, except I wasn't legal, and now, since then " and then they tell you what they're doing.
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Alan Simpson
Statesman and Advocate
The American Dream is still there, and don't let them equate it with greed. Because if you stop to think about it, I always say, "Don't forget what makes American great." They say, "What?" I say, "Greed." Now stop a minute and think what happened in the toughest times. Robber barons, child labor. Carnegies, Mellons, Rockefellers, but what did they do? When they got it, they realized, "Wait a minute. There is a social obligation here." Carnegie put a library in every country in America, a Carnegie library. Mellon took his money and put it into America, and the Rockefellers put their money into America. But in the early generations it was guilt about their accumulation that made them do that. Now you've got the new guys, and Gates is feeling the heat. Like, "What are you going to do with all that money? Why don't you get off your fanny?" So Turner set the tone for that. Turner's put up a billion bucks. For what? The U.N. or something. This is great. This is the new guys who have scored it up and now they're getting heat. These kids ask these guys, "Well, now you all made a ton of money, what are you doing with it?" "We're plowing it back in the business." I know, and what's that for? "That's for jobs." They hear that, but they want to see them do a little something charitably and socially, and they are. So the wheel goes around, and it's still the American Dream, and it's still about capitalism and freedom, and doing crazy things, and building goofy things and whatever. But you've got to be about half goofy, and it's fun to do that.
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Carlos Slim
Financier and Philanthropist
Carlos Slim: I think everyone is an immigrant. If you go to the glaciation, people moved around every place. There were nomads all around. America, including the Indians that came to America maybe 25 or 30,000 years ago. Everyone is an immigrant in one form or the other. And I think immigrants are very strong people. When you left your country without knowing the language of the other country, without knowing the culture, without knowing where you are going, and you are only 14 years old, you should be very strong and you get stronger with this. I think immigrants in general are very, very hard workers and very strong inside themselves. They should be very strong. I admire immigrants from anywhere.
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