You're walking down the street in a rush then BAM! You bump into someone, you look at them and apologize but to your surprise you get a dirty glance and a replay of: “Watch where you're going!” The man walks away without even looking back. Is this the community you want to end up in? Aggressiveness and no kindness? Well we are going in that direction, For you, me and the community it is our job to teach and encourage everyone around us to be respectful to everyone around them.

Respect is simple. Every human being should have the right of respect. No matter if you are black, white, tall, short, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindi, woman or man. All humans deserve respect. But what is respect? In fact, What is respect to you? According to the dictionary, respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something. But how is it portrayed in you, me, and our community?
I remember, one day I was walking down the street in sunny California. As I was walking, I saw two people - both male and looked like college students. At first, I thought they were just messing around but as I approached them, I heard one of them they say: “no one cares about Mexicans like you! You should leave my country!” Just witnessing it made me feel sick and at the time I said nothing, but ohhh I just wanted to shout at that guy. After that day, I couldn’t stop thinking of what happened - how some people are so rude. How some people are so insensitive. A community with no respect should not even be considered a community.

A community consists of leadership. A community consists of communication. A community consists of integration.
Without respect none of these can be successful and all the disrespect happening in our community creates negativity and discrimination between groups. Well let me tell you what i mean by groups well at least the ones in AIS-R. Each and everyone of you here has their own little community which is your group of friends. Friends who you would only socialize with.

Well imagine feeling proud of how you and your community have grown. Imagine walking into the cafeteria and finding your classmates sitting together, people that do not normally socialize. When people start to get to know each other and respect one another a whole world of opportunities opens up for them. I don't know about you but, Since I am part of this community I have gotten to know a whole bunch of nationalities and new learnings, adapting as well becoming a global person lead to the concept of RESPECT. BOOM. If you don't understand them you probably won't respect them.

So I challenge each and every one of you including myself  to go out your comfort zone and sit with a new group at lunch. At least for 10 minutes, get to know them, socialize you never know you might find out that you have more in common than you expected. Sometimes people may shock you. Let me tell you about something I experienced a few summers ago. I was attending a camp which some of you might know it “Summer Discovery” for the first week I only hung out with my sister and her friends because for some reason I felt uncomfortable talking to people that were not in our group. So the week passed normally until one day I had to go to a class by myself and I was really uncomfortable. So I walked in class and our counselor arranged groups for us to sit in. I did not know the girls but they introduced themselves. At first it was awkward but as time passed by it turned out we had many things in common, for example all three of us loved riding horses and later that day they introduced to their friends who also rode. I was also surprised of how it was so different there, but it taught me a lot about their culture and now I have friends who ride in China!

So to conclude my speech in order makes our minds more educated and more desirable   leadership, communication and integration are keys to make your community stronger, my community brighter and our community healthier which all goes back to respect and understanding, and don’t forget treat people the way you want to be treated.