TEDx: The Opposite of Broken Is Not Fixed. It’s Connected

Jose opens with his own story: a mother who came from Mexico at eleven and picked melons while other kids learned multiplication tables, a father whose drinking came before the rent, and a house where silence screamed louder than words. The question he asks is not how he survived, but how many kids like him are still being left behind.

The talk argues that trauma rewires how children see the world, that punishment and labels do not heal it, and that what worked for him was a person: a teacher who said 'You're smart', a friend with a couch, a foreman who said 'You don't have to be your father.' His call to action: stop asking what cause to donate to and start asking whose pain you are willing to sit with.