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Pramila Jayapal

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66

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2021-11-18

most recent

2021-11-18

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1

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1. “The ways in which Wall Street is really geared to, in many ways, drive out small businesses and reward investment bankers and lawyers and just a few people who make a lot of money on those deals.”

   2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “I learned a lot. I was one of only very, very few, maybe the only person of color there. I can't remember now, but certainly just a handful. And, you know, it was a tough life, really a lot of work, and you were defined by whether you worked a 20-hour week or 22 hour week, or 22-hour day. But I learned a lot about numbers. I got so comfortable with numbers and understanding spreadsheets and navigating spreadsheets. And I also learned that I absolutely did not want to do that for the rest of my life. And I always tell young people that experiences that teach you what you don't want to do are just as valuable as the experiences that teach you what you do want to do. And I just saw so many crazy things happening there, you know, leverage buyouts, companies going into bankruptcy that didn't need to go into bankruptcy.”

   2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Yes, that was sort of the deal that I made with my dad as he was unhappy with me. He said, how are you going to survive? What are you going to do with an English major? We cannot afford anything else. We've used all our savings. And I said, Papa, I called him Papa. I said, Papa, I will get the same job with an English degree that I would have gotten with an economics degree. And that's what I did. I got multiple offers from investment banks on Wall Street and went to work for Payne Weber at the time. It was called Pain Weber in the Leverage Buyout Department, which was a very hot time to be there mid-1980s. Mike Milken was king, John Bonds were huge. And, you know, and that was really to satisfy my father, to be totally frank.”

   2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “Just loved it. I loved words. My grandfather was quite influential in my life and he was, he loved words. He had every dictionary possible from everywhere. Every morning I would go for a walk with him and he would learn three new words from the dictionary. And then he would make a point to use those words all day long and he would argue about the etymology of words. And, you know, he was a bit of a he loved words. And my mom was, of course, an English literature major as well. And I just loved reading. I loved language. I felt like, and this is what I said to my father, he was unconvinced. I said, if I'm able to speak and write and read, everything else will be possible. And he was like, no, you need to be an economist, you need to be a doctor, a lawyer, you know, something with skills.”

   2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “They were not pleased. I got one phone call home a year. That's all. We didn't have Skype or anything. No money. And I used my one phone call to call my dad and tell him I was not going to be an economics major. I was going to be an English literature major. And then I had to hold the phone away from my ear. He screamed at me and said, I didn't send you to the United States to learn how to speak English. You already know how to speak English.”

   2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Then the person said, Oh my gosh, you must be a real live Indian princess, to which I said yes, thinking nobody would believe it until I went to a party a week later and introduced myself as Pramilla. And they said, oh my gosh, are you Princess Pramilla?”

   2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “They did it. They asked if it was my house, and I thought they were joking. So I said, well, no, my house is too big to fit on the poster. That's the servant's quarters.”

   2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Yes, there were, and I think at the time, I think I brushed over them as much as possible. You know, Georgetown, I was telling the dean, Jack DeJoya is a friend who was actually there when I was a freshman at Georgetown, but I was telling him that Georgetown is so different today. I mean, there are a lot more folks of color. There are a lot more clubs for people to express their different ethnicities and identities. That really wasn't there when I was there. And so it was this piece of like just trying to make yourself fit, but knowing that you were a bit of a square peg in a round hole. You know, people would ask me where I was from and I would say India. And honestly, even at Georgetown, there were a lot of people who didn't really know what that meant or what would ask me if I was a princess or if, you know, if.”

   2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “So, there are a lot of those experiences that I didn't really connect with until later. I think I just shoved them into a corner. And then there was the other part, which was, which I did remember and I did talk about all the time, which was how incredible was this to land up in the United States of America, this country that so many people think about coming to and can't get to. And the education was amazing. I was at Georgetown University. I felt like everything was new. And it was exciting, scary, but exciting.”

   2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “It was, I think, for a long time. I just locked away any part of it that was not great, you know, because I was here and my parents were sacrificing so much. And I just sort of felt like, and it's a typical immigrant story in many ways. You know, I felt like, okay, I gotta succeed. I got to do what they want me to do. I got to pay a pet forward. I got to make sure that I'm giving them what they wanted to see from me. And it wasn't until recently that I went back and read all these letters that I had written to my mother and my father that she had kept. And they were in a box and I was going through them and I realized how difficult it was. You know, I just realized I was here by myself. I didn't know the culture. I was trying to”

    2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “I think I felt like the world was a really small place. I was so interested in the rest of the world and I met people from all over and it definitely fueled my interest later on in working around the world. But mine was a very global perspective. I think there are a lot of people who feel like the rest of the world is very far away. And for me, it was very close. I felt like I could take my arms and just wrap them around the globe because I knew somebody from almost, well, not every country, but a lot of countries. And I knew them well. And we talked about international affairs all the time. We talked about what other places were like and people's experiences. And so that became very normal for me. And it definitely was a big change when I came to the United States and even in Washington, D.C., which is where I first landed.”

    2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Was one of the first OBG Boyans in the country, female OBGYNs in the country. In fact, she wrote the seminal text that is used in medical schools to this day on reproductive health. And she was really out there in the villages. And much, much later when I would go and live in villages in India for two years and people would find out that I was PK Davies grand niece, they would literally get down on the floor and want to want to touch my feet in honor of her. She was really remarkable. And of course, she has a connection there to our new vice president, Kamala Harris, because her aunt was a protege of my great aunt, if you can believe it. They ended up being deans of the same medical school. After each other with many years in between.”

    2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “My great aunt actually, so this was my grandmother's sister, my grandmother was amazing also. She just finished high school, got married very, very young, and was remarkable, you know, played tennis, did all these things that Indian women and saris were not supposed to do back then. But my great aunt was somebody who, this was my grandmother's sister.”

    2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “I went to school there at an international school for almost 10 years in between, spent two years in Singapore. And my family was a kind of a middle class family, but not a lot of savings. And for whatever reason, my father decided that America was the place that I was going to get the best education. And he always talked about America and what opportunity America offered. And so when it came time for me to go to college, he had actually gone through a really tough time. He had lost his job. But he always said, I'm going to send you to America for your college education. That is what he did. He took his $5,000 and he sent me over here by myself. So I landed at 16 years old with two suitcases in this new country.”

    2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “That's right, David. I was born in Chennai at the time it was called Madras, and I lived in India for about five years. And my mom is a teacher, teaches English, and my dad actually worked for an oil company then called ESO. And back then, this was 1969, 1970, there were very few people that left India. I mean, it was considered a, you know, kind of a crazy thing to do, but my father had the travel bug. And he said to his company that he would love to go what was called overseas. And so he was posted to Jakarta, Indonesia. This was 1969, 1970. There was one hotel, actually maybe two hotels in downtown Jakarta at the time. It was mostly Patty Fields, Rice Fields, not at all developed.”

    2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “I do, and I wish I could come back. You know, I lived in Chicago for a couple of years, so it has been home to me and hopefully we'll make that happen soon. But I'm glad I could do it virtually.”

    2021-11-18 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 467 — Rep. Pramila Jayapal · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source