'Ask My Husband Some Tough Questions, All Right?'

The US first lady at President Obama’s Town Hall Meeting with Students in Mumbai at St. Xavier College
 
Hello, everyone. Namaste. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here in India. Everyone, please sit, who can sit. Rest. It’s warm. We are thrilled to be here and to have a chance to spend time with so many outstanding young people from St. Xavier’s College and so many other schools across Mumbai.

Now, this is my first trip to India, but it is not my first exposure to India’s wonderful culture and people. See, I grew up in Chicago, which is a city with one of the largest Indian-American communities in our country. And of course, last year, as you know, we were proud to host Prime Minister Singh and Mrs. Kaur for our very first state visit and dinner. It was a beautiful evening under a tent on the South Lawn of the White House, and we got to hear some pretty great Bhangra as well. I danced there, too.

So I have really been looking forward to this trip for a very long time. The time that we spend with young people during our travel is very special to both me and to the President. When I was your age, I never dreamed of traveling to countries like this and meeting with young people like all of you. In fact, there were a lot of things that I had never imagined for myself growing up, including having the honor of serving as my county’s First Lady.

My family didn’t have a lot of money. My parents never went to college. I grew up in a little bitty apartment in a working-class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. My parents worked hard to pay the bills and to keep a roof over our heads. But even though my parents couldn’t give us material things, they gave us something much more precious -- they gave me and my brother strong values. They taught us to treat others with dignity and respect. They taught us to push for excellence in every single thing we did. They taught us to be humble and to be grateful for everything we had. They taught us to put every last bit of effort into our education and to take pride in our work. They taught us that our circumstances didn’t define us, and that if we believed in ourselves, if we made the most of every single opportunity, we could build our own destinies and accomplish anything we put our minds to.

And I try every single day to take those lessons to heart. And the fact that all of you are here today tells me that we all share these same values, that we all learn these same lessons. You’re here today because, like me and my husband, you believe in your dreams and you’re working hard every single day to fulfill them. More importantly, you’re here because you’ve committed to something greater than yourselves. You’re here not just because of your academic and extracurricular activities and achievements, but because of what you’ve done to give back to your schools and to your communities.

Your willingness to serve is critical for all that lies ahead once you finish your education. Because the truth is pretty soon the responsibilities for building our future will fall to all of you. Soon we’re going to be looking to your generation to make the discoveries and build the industries that will shape our world for decades to come.

We’ll be looking to you to protect our planet. We’re going to be looking to you to lift up our most vulnerable citizens. We’re going to be looking to you to heal the divisions that too often keep us apart. And I believe that you and your peers around the world are more than up to the challenge, because I’ve seen it firsthand right here in India.

Just yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to visit an organization called Make A Difference. It’s an amazing program designed and run by young adults who recruit other young people, outstanding college students like themselves, to mentor and teach children who, as the founder said, haven’t had the same chances in life as many of the mentors have had.

These young volunteers understand and believe in something very simple, that all children, regardless of their circumstances, deserve the same chance to get educated and to build productive and successful lives. And I know that many of you here today are doing equally important work in your communities and your schools -- everything from holding camps for kids in need to teaching computer literacy skills, to finding new ways to conserve energy.

And let me tell you, this work is amazing, and it is vitally important. And that is why, as First Lady, I have tried my best to engage young people not just in the United States but around the world, letting them know that we believe in them, but more importantly, that we need them. We need you. We need you to help solve the great challenges of our time.

And that’s also why when my husband travels abroad, he doesn’t just meet with heads of state in parliaments and in palaces. He always meets with young people like all of you. That’s why he’s been working to expand educational exchanges and partnerships between the United States, India, and countries around the world.

Right now, more Indian students like you come to study in the United States than from any other country. And I’m proud to see that so many American students are doing the same thing right here in India, building the types of friendships and relationships that will last a lifetime. Our hope is to provide more Indian and American young people with these types of opportunities to continue to connect and share ideas and experiences.

And finally, my husband is also working to encourage young entrepreneurs everywhere to start businesses, to improve the health of our communities and to empower our young women and girls because it is never too late or too early to start changing this world for the better.

So I want to end today by congratulating you all -- congratulating you on everything you do. We are so proud of you. I want to encourage you to keep dreams -- keep dreaming big huge, gigantic dreams -- not just for yourselves, but for your communities and for our world.

And finally, I want to urge you today to ask my husband some tough questions, all right? Be tough. He loves doing events like this. This brightens his days. But you got to keep him on his toes, all right?

So if you promise me that, without further ado, I would like to introduce my husband, the President of the United States, Barack Obama.