The Education of an Idealist: Samatha Power Discusses Memoir at USC

By: Sumaya Hussaini ‘22

Academic, author, diplomat, and former UN ambassador Samantha Power joined USC students and faculty in Bovard Auditorium to discuss her new memoir, The Education of an Idealist, Tuesday night. The event was presented by the USC Speakers Committee and Power was accompanied on stage by USC Center on Public Diplomacy director, Jay Wang.

All attendees received a free copy of Power’s new memoir, which chronicles her transition from an outside activist to a government insider and details all the lessons she has learned along the way.

Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, served as the 28th United States ambassador to the United Nations and as a member of President Obama’s cabinet. She is an advocate for governmental reform, women’s rights, LGBT rights, reducing human trafficking, and promoting democracy. Currently, she is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of International Affairs.

Wang began the discussion by asking Power what made her choose the title of her book. What does it mean to be an idealist?

Power admitted that she debated over the title for a while, but knew she needed to go back to the beginning of her life to show where her ideals came from. Her early experiences in Ireland, a country that dealt with sectarian conflict and a refugee crisis, had a great impact on her current views.

Her education taught her how to advance her ideals, build coalitions, and make a difference in the world, even if that difference is quite small.

“To me, idealism is: Are you happy with what you see right now? Not so much? Chances are you have a set of ideals you want to work toward,” Power said. “Do you feel like you have a part in making the change you would like to see? More people are hesitant about that [question].”

Power was raised in Ireland and immigrated to the United States at the age of nine. She admitted that her transition into America was smoother than most immigrants, given that she already spoke English and was raised Catholic.

However, her Irish identity did pressure her to adapt to American culture. She quickly became fond of sports in an attempt to fit in with society. As an undergraduate student, she attended Yale to study sports marketing, and recounts on the moment she had an epiphany that she wanted to do something more impactful with her life.

“I was furiously taking notes at a San Francisco Giants game as a sports intern and was startled to look up and see a CBS live footage on the other screen where Chinese students had been protesting peacefully in Tiananmen Square… I saw the crackdown of the Chinese tanks,” Power said. “My resolve was very incremental: I’m going to go back to college so I can study more and see if I can put what I just saw into more context.”

After graduating from Yale as a history major, Power got an internship for Carnegie Endowment and eventually went to the Balkans to become a war respondent. After returning, she explains how she got caught up in the self-oriented dimensions of the career she was embarking on and wanted to do something that would allow her to tangibly change the law and impact international justice systems.

Power decided to attend Harvard Law school. In a class about American responses to international crises, she wrote a lengthy paper that she was passionate about and dropped out of law school to try and publish it as a book, A Problem From Hell.

Despite facing dozens of rejections, she was relentless and eventually found a small publishing company interested in the book. Her refusal to take no for an answer was a decision that changed the course of her life.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama, a newly elected senator at the time, read Power’s book and reached out to her. He wanted her insight on war crises and what U.S. foreign policy should do about it. Her scope of knowledge impressed him so much that he appointed her as the senior advisor for his National Security Council when he became president four years later.

Former president Barack Obama has described Power as being “one of our foremost thinkers on foreign policy.”

Power went on to recount a comedic experience from her Senate confirmation hearing for her ambassadorship to the United Nations, where she was grilled by members of Congress. Part of the confirmation process was going over the most controversial things she had written, which put her at a disadvantage given that she was a vocal journalist, activist, and author.

Thankfully, she survived the confirmation hearing and went on to utilize her skills to advance American foreign policy for the United Nations. She explained how her identity as an Irish immigrant played an important role in using public diplomacy to benefit other countries, rather than to only advance U.S. interests.

“I never stopped thinking about the world through the eyes of a small country perspective. We are so big in America that you can take for granted so many aspects of the bounty we have,” Power said. “As an ambassador, I always remembered what it was like to be one vote among 193 countries rather than being the host country, the powerful country, the rich country.”

Power’s journey is fascinating, remarkable, and inspirational. It’s no doubt that she left an impact on the hundreds of students who gathered in the Bovard Auditorium to hear her speak about her new memoir. 

Krishan Patel, a sophomore studying Political Science and Communication, stayed after the event at Bovard for the book signing and a chance to talk to the former UN ambassador. “Become a diplomat, Krishan,” Power told Patel. “We need more like you.”

“I find Ambassador Power’s story inspiring,” Patel said. “She went from an activist and journalist to one of the most important diplomats on Earth.”

Personally, hearing Power speak about the obstacles she has overcome made me realize that there is no singular path to success. Just one individual can have an enormous impact on the government, foreign policy, and human rights — as long as you stay true to your ideals, you can be part of the change you wish to see.

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