(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)
GAVIN: Growing up is so many things.
SINGER: We'll get through it all together
AMIRI: Growing up is unpredictable.
SINGER: This feeling's not forever
SAGE: Growing up is a chance to change the world.
SINGER: Your time is right now...
Growing up was... ugh.
SINGER: Tell me how you feel
Your scars will start to heal...
We have the power and responsibility.
SINGER: Tell me how you feel.
We're climbing up the hilll
Just don't keep your lips sealed...
We deserve to be heard.
SINGER: And just tell me how you feel
GAVIN: Growing up is...
-EMILY: Tumultuous. -VANESSA: Cringy.
-ATHENA: Confusing. -SOFIA: Messy.
-EMILY: Beautiful. -GAVIN: Mandatory.
-We did it! -(APPLAUSE)
(CAMERA CLICKS)
(THEME MUSIC ENDS)
ISABEL: I remember you calling me your best friend to someone.
Once I heard it, I was like...
Huh, I was like, "We are best friends," like it didn't hit me until you said that.
CLARE: We grew up together and we were just trying to figure our stuff out.
We were discovering together what we were passionate about, what we were capable of.
It really just makes you a happier person
just because you know that someone has your back.
I don't know, I feel like our friendship has always just, like, grounded me.
-Aw. -(LAUGHS)
Yeah, I definitely feel the same way.
FEMALE VOICE: Take one mark.
I can't. I can see my reflection in this camera.
Really? Oh, yeah.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
If I start talking too fast, give me a signal or something,
and I'll slow down.
Um, so, hi, I'm Clare.
Um, I'm 19 and, uh, I'm from Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania
and that's where I met Isabel.
Hi, I'm Isabel.
I'm also 19 and I'm also from Pennsylvania.
(CALM MUSIC PLAYING)
CLARE: We've been through a lot together,
like, growing up is, like, difficult and hard.
And, like, it's annoying and it's, like,
-awkward and... -Confusing. Yeah.
...awkward. All these cliché things.
We just had created all these, like, memories and shared experiences.
I think that really, like, solidified, like, our friendship.
ISABEL: And I feel like in the movies when you see best friends,
the best friend could just walk through the other best friend's house.
Like, sit down,
make themself food or whatever and, like, no one would really care.
And I feel like that's true for Clare and I's relationship too.
But a lot of people didn't understand why we were so close, I would say.
Yes, just because Clare is very loud, and I'm a bit calmer. And...
-I was... Yeah, sorry, Clare. -(LAUGHTER)
-She agrees, though. It's okay. (LAUGHS) -I do.
I think that's just the main difference, but we actually have very similar,
like, perspectives,
and, like, ideas about, like, what's going on. If that makes sense.
Did you have any fears about fitting in?
-Oh, my God. Yeah. (LAUGHS) -Oh, completely.
I think the both of us did. Um, mine started pretty early.
Growing up as an Asian-American in such a predominantly White community
was very tough for me and I always felt like an outsider growing up.
I remember getting to pre-school, my parents dropped me off,
spoke in Mandarin and Cantonese to me,
saying that they love me, and they want me to have a nice day at school,
and all this type of stuff.
And immediately from the start, all the kids and all their parents,
everyone just stops where they are, turns and looks at us.
Just, like, so appalled that...
I don't know, like, there's a foreign language being spoken.
It didn't help that I was the only Asian-American in my class as well.
Here I was trying to make all these new friends
that my parents have been telling me about,
and here they were all looking at me so weirdly. I hated the feeling.
I remember getting back home and they're like,
"Oh, how was your first day at school?"
I was like, "Why did you speak to me in Chinese?" I was like,
"Why? All the kids were looking at me." And I was like,
"Don't speak Chinese to me. Only speak English to me."
(CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYING)
VINNY: We all grow up giving her a choice,
but not really holding her hand.
I speak Cantonese and my wife speak Mandarin.
When she was little, I always spoke Chinese to her,
and I feel it's the way that she could carry the culture.
But we live in a small town where everyone speak English.
And she feeling kinda lost,
so we kind of let her do what she want to do.
Having immigrant parents, there's no way that the parents
could've, like, prepared us for that. Like, 'cause they... they didn't know.
They didn't grow up here. Like, you go home to your parents
and they don't know what to do.
You're raising these girls in a White world
and you just, like, don't know what to do about that.
(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC PLAYING)
ISABEL: On the outside, I was just, like, this Chinese-American girl
that everyone went to school with, but on the inside,
I felt, like, so alone, like no one could really relate to me.
I saw the kids were looking at me different,
so my solution in my head was, "Don't be different
"and be like everyone else."
And asking them to throw away, like, the part of their culture
that they wanted me to grow up with.
I didn't want to enjoy my culture outside of my home life,
and I wish I knew in that moment how badly I would regret that
later on in my life.
I didn't have barely any friends.
I felt like I had no one I could relate to, whereas Clare...
I'm an only child.
I'm very close with my parents just because I am an only child.
PATRICK: All right, tell us how old you are.
Eight.
PATRICK: And what do you want to tell your future self?
-Never smoke. -(PATRICK LAUGHING)
It was very much about learning and growth and, like, independence and, like,
taking charge of your own self.
PATRICK: Clare is a very outgoing person.
She always wanted to participate in what's happening.
She's always been very driven.
She's somebody who'll organize things and bring people together,
but driven at the same time. Yeah.
CLARE: I definitely have, like, a more in-your-face personality.
And when I was younger, I didn't really know how to temper that.
And I just am a little bit in my head more.
My parents always, like, were including me in their conversation.
They just, like, talked to me like I was a little adult.
INTERVIEWER: Tell me the first memory you have of each other.
First memory that I have of Isabel is just, like, her coming up to me
and being, like, "Hey." It was when I, like, first got to the school.
Because I transferred schools in the sixth grade.
And I was trying to make friends, like, my first week
and she was kind enough to come up to me and chat with me.
-It's such a nice story. -(BOTH CHUCKLE)
You, uh, were not afraid to challenge the teacher or anything.
And I really respected that.
I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Wow." like, "This girl is so cool."
Seventh grade, we were in the same homeroom,
but we'd never hung out outside of school before.
In the beginning of eighth grade,
I was planning on going to Comic-Con in New York City.
Isabel and I, like, talked about, you know, superhero movies together.
CLARE: (ON PHONE) Hello, Isabel?
(NARRATING) I'm like, "Hey, I know this is crazy.
Do you want to come to Comic-Con?
"I have this extra ticket, you can go for free."
Yeah, surprisingly, like, my parents said yes.
So, she slept over, 'cause we left really early.
My dad has very much gotten into Eastern philosophy.
And Isabel came over my house, she's, like... like,
-"What the heck is this?" Like... -ISABEL: Well, okay...
...giant painting of Buddha doing in this, like, White girl's house right now?
I was so confused because... I mean... And none of my other friends
growing up, did they have anything resembling to, like, Eastern culture.
And I walk into Clare's house,
there's, like, mini Buddha statues around her house.
It was more of like a mini culture shock for me,
just because we have a lot more in common than I thought.
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
CLARE: And that was the first time we, like, had really hung out,
and we, like, got along really well.
ISABEL: Both of our dads grew up with comic books,
so we also bonded over how both of our dads connect with us through that.
Yeah. My dad is, like, a huge comic book fan.
We own, like, 3000 comic books.
I have a large collection of comic books.
Comic book is one thing I love.
And I used to collect them. Imagine I'm Spider-Man.
It's a great connection that me and my daughter have.
Clare got interested in them.
And then Comic-Con was the thing that brought the kids together.
We went and we got to meet Carrie Fisher before she passed away, actually.
So, that was really cool. We met Mark Hamill.
I was just excited to, like, make a new friend
and share this, like, experience with her.
We had a great time. It was really fun.
And so, basically, then, like, by the end of eighth grade,
we were, like, best friends. And then, like, you know, in high school
we just, like, continued that friendship.
Our high school was very stereotypically Americana.
It's very cliquey.
Everyone's always trying to make a really big impression.
Everyone's always trying to fit in with the popular kids.
I definitely hid parts of my personality to try to fit in
because all I wanted to be was one of the popular girls.
And so, we joined, like, a million different things.
I was the assistant editor of yearbook.
-I was in the student council. -President of Student Senate.
-Science Olympiad. -I was the captain of the Mock Trial team.
Girls' Varsity Tennis.
I played Varsity Tennis all four years of high school.
-Symphony Orchestra. -Marching band.
Spanish Club.
PATRICK: She's always been involved in a tremendous amount of activities.
I think society puts that pressure on kids now to perform in that way.
She definitely got overwhelmed.
She's very involved with all these organizations.
I don't even know how does she have time to sleep.
I was spreading myself out so thin and never really being true to who I was.
CLARE: You're 13 years old, you're just trying to figure yourself out,
and I overextended myself immensely.
I was putting all of this pressure on myself.
Having a million things to do gave me a way
to channel the unreasonable amount of anxiety that I had.
And all throughout high school, I would have panic attacks so bad,
that I would, like, vomit. And I just, like, didn't tell anyone.
I didn't realize at the time that I was dealing with an anxiety disorder.
She joined all of these clubs and had all these activities,
so it did seem like the pressure was coming from
participating in all these things.
CLARE: There was definitely, like, a reckoning for me, like,
"Who am I doing this all for?"
Like, "Why am I getting involved with all of this?"
So, that really made me re-examine things I was doing
that didn't bring me any sort of joy.
I wasn't living, like, the fullest life that I could've.
(POP MUSIC PLAYING)
Around sophomore year of high school, I, like, scrolling through social media
and I see a post by a youth magazine
It was about period poverty.
I had never heard of that term before.
I click the link and it was just an article about this non-profit,
um, called "Period" which fought to end period poverty.
Which means not having the proper access to menstrual products
due to, uh, financial constraints.
And so, I'm reading this article and they have all these, like,
very, very alarming statistics.
I think one of them was, like, one in five girls have missed school
due to period poverty.
And I learned that because of all of the stigma,
people were ashamed of periods,
and so they didn't talk about the fact that it was affecting their lives so much.
Feminine products in schools for students who might need them
or can't afford them.
FEMALE VOICE: We shouldn't be made to keep it a secret.
Everyone's, like, just kind of grossed out and then embarrassed to talk about it.
CLARE: And so, it was just not something that I had ever thought about.
And definitely, like, a checkup on my privilege.
(SIGHS)
You know, if you have the ability to give back, you should,
and, like, that was something that was instilled in both of us.
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
(PHONE RINGING)
-ISABEL: (OVER PHONE) Hello? -CLARE: And I was like,
"Let's start a chapter of this organization at our high school.
"Let's start raising money
"to get period products to people who need them in our community."
What do you think?
Um...
Well...
-Hello, Isabel? -Yeah, let's do it.
We didn't realize how many people this affects.
We can help anyone in our community with this.
Okay, let's do it.
(UPBEAT MUSIC CONTINUES)
(CURSOR CLICKS)
When I brought the idea to Isabel, like, I knew that it would not go over
easily in our high school and in our community.
MARILYN: I will admit to being a little concerned
about how it was gonna play in her high school.
PATRICK: I had a lot to learn.
She taught me about the stigma.
CLARE: I mean, I was just like every other teenage girl.
We were all hiding our tampons when we went to the bathroom.
We were all hiding our pads.
Like, when I was first getting my period the first couple of times,
I was always so embarrassed.
It'd be the middle of a school day, and there'd be nothing
that I could do about it until I got home.
I was a bit "Don't want to talk about it,"
because of the culture I was growing up with.
ISABEL: These are just very tough topics for them to talk about.
I definitely had my own stigma surrounding menstruation
just because when I first got my period,
I went to my mom and, I mean, I thought I was dying at the time.
I was, like, "I'm bleeding," like, "I'm dying."
My mom was, like, "No, you're not dying."
She was, like, "This is very normal." Just handed me a pad
and that was... that was the end of the story right there.
I learned from other people that, like,
it wasn't really a thing you should be talking about with others.
CLARE: I really felt this need to confront this stigma in order to help other people.
MARILYN: And she was really passionate about this and I was, like,
"Go for it," and you... you were basically the same way.
I was all for it because it was totally punk and I loved it.
(LAUGHS)
-(INDISTINCT CHATTERING) -ISABEL: It was scary in the beginning,
'cause I just wanted to, like, fit in so badly. I was like,
"What do I have to lose at that point?"
To try to get members, Isabel and I would go into classrooms
and be like, "Hey, guys. Can we just have your attention for a minute?
"Here's what we're doing. Here's what we're trying to start.
-"We'd love to have you." -So, sign up.
-No. -Gross.
It was very rough from the start because even hearing the word, "period"...
Have you heard of period poverty?
(LAUGHS)
-People were, like, "Ew, what?" -I don't care about this.
That's for you to deal with on your own.
In private.
Mostly teenage boys, boys in our high school would be like...
What are you guys even gonna do in this club? Just cry and eat chocolate?
Some of the students were not so receptive.
(COMICAL MUSIC PLAYING)
That sounds really bad, but it wasn't that dramatic.
No one was gonna slushie us.
Would they try to make fun of us in front of their class
to get people to laugh? Sure.
(LAUGHS)
But no. No slushie-ing.
ISABEL: So, we went on to establish the club,
-and our first meeting was kind of a flop. -(CHUCKLES)
Um, we started off with two members. They're right here.
-(GIGGLING) -ISABEL: First two members are here.
I mean, it's not like all at once you could just
stop having a stigma towards something
as big as the stigma surrounding menstruation.
I feel like you, kind of, are forced to look at
how you view yourself, just because you're throwing yourself
so out there. But because I had someone that had my back, like Clare,
I was like, "Okay. I might as well just work on breaking out of my mold
"at this point. Like, I'm already so far deep.
"Might as well just see where this takes me."
Especially because we wanted other people
-to not feel that stigma, right? -Right.
So we, ourselves, had to, like... we had to be held
-to that standard as well. -Mm-hmm. I completely agree.
But that never really deterred us from our goal. We kept on working hard.
Our club is tri, it has three pillars.
Uh, service, education and advocacy.
We serve our community by providing free period products to women in need.
We also... (CHUCKLES)
I'm sorry. Wait, I thought you were gonna say...
-A service... -Eventually, like, with more effort
and more dedication and work, people started taking notice.
They were like, "Oh, this is, like, pretty cool. Uh, we should... join this."
Just by really word of mouth, we really started to get
a little bit more membership.
We give young girls, um, menstrual education
and we also try to end the period stigma.
And the school board administration, like, loved all the effort that we put in.
And finally, we advocate to, uh, ending period poverty, uh,
through systemic ways by lobbying, uh, the Pennsylvania state government.
Our superintendent, he didn't know this was a problem.
But once we brought it to atten... his attention, he was, like,
"Let's do this. Let's get it fixed."
We were able to lobby them to put, uh, free period products
in all of the high school, middle school bathrooms.
Which was, like, a huge win for us.
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
So, all of a sudden, girls would have their period
and they would be, like, "Oh, my gosh. I forgot a tampon."
And then someone else in the class would be like, "Oh, my gosh, no,
"there's tampons and pads in the bathroom."
CLARE: It was so cool to be, like, "Hey, like, oh, you forgot one?
"Well, don't worry. It's not a problem. Like, we got you covered.
"And we have your back."
Helping someone and making sure that they were able to stay in class was just, like,
it was the coolest. It was really the coolest.
-And now, it's normal today. -Yeah, and now it's just normalized.
-It's so normalized. -Which is wild.
SINGER: Everybody look
You ain't seen nothing like this
Nothing like this Nothing like this
You ain't seen nothing like this Nothing like this before
Hey
Yeah yeah yeah
Hey Nothing like this before
You ain't seen nothing like this
Nothing like this Nothing like this
You ain't seen nothing like this Nothing like this before
Yeah yeah yeah
Nothing like this before
CLARE: We got a lot more membership after we got the period products
in the bathroom.
SINGER: Nothing like this before
Yeah yeah yeah...
CLARE: I think a lot of how we got people to care in our community,
was really just linking it to the intersectionality.
This is an educational issue. This is a health issue.
This is a civil rights issue. And there are nonbinary folks
and trans men who need those products.
(MUSIC ENDS)
Everyone is affected by it somehow, someway.
I find it so amazing that you all see
the menstrual equity movement as so intersectional
and not limiting menstruation just to folks who identify
as women and girls.
The work that you're doing is so important.
CLARE: It didn't matter how you identify or what your gender is,
make sure that people feel dignity
and they can go out and focus on whatever they need to focus on.
We need all of you. Sign our petitions. Call your local legislators.
There are things that you can do to get involved.
-Thank you guys so much for coming. -(CHEERING)
Me and Isabel, we were doing it together.
We were seeing the real impact that we were making in our community.
VINNY: It is something that is a learning lesson for all of us
in the older generation.
Having her doing this, make us more accepting
and more understanding, and not a taboo thing anymore.
CLARE: There were so many other people who were involved,
but even, like, my small part
made me feel good and, like, it helped my mental health.
I started to go to therapy.
I really, like, learned practical techniques.
And, like, having my friends and family be aware of it and, like,
they're better able to support me so I don't feel so alone.
Isabel particularly, she has been so accepting of me,
like, my flaws and my issues.
ISABEL: It's really nice to have someone that has your back
because you don't have to be, like, alone all the time,
thinking your thoughts and I would say that's the most important thing
Clare's ever taught me.
Clare is essentially the first person that I met that really made me
feel comfortable in my own culture.
Growing up, I was so focused on what everyone else was thinking.
And I would say as I started to become de-stigmatized to periods,
I also started to reclaim my heritage at the same time.
So, uh, I started asking my parents more about, like, my heritage, my culture,
and I started to want to talk to my grandparents more.
I have grandparents in China, and they don't speak English.
So, once I started losing the language and my culture,
it became harder to even communicate with them,
to the point where I stopped talking to them.
And I was, like,
"Do I want to have regrets about this in the future,
"or do I want to know that I tried my best?"
(POP MUSIC PLAYING)
In my first semester, I started taking Mandarin lessons,
and I've slowly been able to talk to them.
So much so that I recently had my first call with my grandparents
without my mom.
I was, like, "Wow. I can't believe I was missing this for,
"like, so many years."
If I just went back in time and told my preschool self to continue
keeping my heritage with me,
I could have saved myself all this pain. And I felt so lost for years, but...
once I found my heritage again,
it was a feeling I really just cannot describe.
I just felt, like, so complete.
VINNY: We also were very proud to see her starting to
appreciate her root.
I was amazed by how fast she learned Mandarin.
She carried our...
our tradition very well, which we're very happy about it.
MARILYN: The two of them together are just so funny, I mean,
to have the same best friend
through those formative, uh, years, I think is pretty special.
-(LAUGHING) -I wish I had something like that. A BFF.
CLARE: We are both now at different colleges,
doing different things.
We went from seeing each other, like, basically every day, right?
Um, to, like, not seeing each other in, like, a year.
Going away for college, it was tough to say our goodbyes. That was really sad.
CLARE: I think that we'll still be... continue to be friends.
Like, as the years go by just because we both, like,
dedicated to that friendship.
-Will we always stay this close? -Of course.
(POP MUSIC PLAYING)
SINGER: Feel it all Feel it all
Feel it all
(POP MUSIC CONCLUDES)
ISABEL: While we were both away for college,
we learned that we don't have to be talking to each other 24/7
in order to still be best friends.
It's just tough finding those moments we can speak to each other.
-Yeah. You have to make time. -Yeah.
(PHONE VIBRATES)
ISABEL: While we're both on campus, we're all busy doing things.
But once we catch up...
(LAPTOP CHIMING)
ISABEL: Hi.
Oh, my God. I got approved to study abroad today.
Did you... It's official?
-Yeah... -Oh, my gosh, congrats!
Will you come visit me? I'm being, like, so serious.
CLARE: Having someone who you can actually rely on is very rare.
My growing up experience would not have been the same if we hadn't met.
So, I'm eternally grateful for her.
I mean, me too. (CHUCKLES)
(INDIE MUSIC PLAYING)
CLARE: What if we never met? Like, who would I be friends with?
We hung out with each other so much, like, what would I have done on Saturday nights,
-like, I don't know! -No, I think...
-I would've just been alone. -I think I honestly would've been
-a completely different person -No, me too.
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
SINGER: So right
So right
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
SINGER: So right
We don't have to read the Bible
You taught me everything that I know
It's a hard pill to swallow
When you're running in a circle
So right
(MUSIC ENDS)