 - Ready?
 - Okay.
Hi, I'm Jennie Pierson.
Okay.
Hi, I'm Jennie Pierson
and today,
we'll be talking about--
today?
Hi, I'm Jennie Pierson
and today,
we're talking about Maya Lin.
Cheers.
 So it's 1980
 and the people at the Vietnam
 War Memorial Fund
 are like, I got an idea:
 let's have a competition
 to see who can design
 the best Vietnam War Memorial.
 [burps, laughs]
 Sorry.
 - You're okay.
 - So they get
 1,500 submissions
 to this contest.
 They're walking by,
 they're like,
 that one's too tall.
 I think this one
 is a little too political,
 thank you very much.
 And this one
 is too disgusting.
 Then they--
 they walk up to one,
 wow, this is
 [bleep] beautiful.
 Right, guys? Yeah, yeah,
 yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
 We're--we get this.
 We love it.
 We love it. Let's--this one.
 This is it!
 This is the one!
 We love this one!
 Whose is it?
 Reveal the winner.
 And they're like, okay,
 are you ready for this?
 It is a 20-year-old college
 student named Maya Lin.
 And they're like, what?
 It's just a college student?
 That's crazy.
 Cut to Yale and Maya Lin is
 sitting in her
 architecture class.
 And they're like,
 sorry to interrupt your class,
 but is Maya Lin here?
 We have something to tell her.
 And he's like,
 whatever, fine.
 Maya!
 Maya!
 And she's like, huh?
 I--I'm over here.
Uhh!
 And they're like,
 you won the contest
 for the Vietnam War Memorial.
 We're making your sculpture.
 Can you imagine?
Um--and Maya was just like,
guess what?
 I won. I won!
 I guess I'm drunker right now
 than I thought I'd be.
 I'm sorry.
- You're--don't be sorry.
- Okay.
- You're doing so good.
- I thought I would be
more normal at this point.
- You're fine.
- Okay.
So all of these war veterans
are saying
 this memorial has
 no military symbolism,
 there's no weaponry,
 we don't get it.
 It's a black gash of shame.
 And we are not
 on board with this.
Ross Perot, he was
gonna donate $160,000
to the building
of this memorial.
 He walks up to them
 and he's like, hold on.
 This is a woman?
 And she's Asian?
 She's a young, Asian woman?
 I'm not gonna give you
 any money to build this thing
 if you don't stop--
 [laughs]
 I don't know--
 Hold on. You better
 pick someone else.
 I'm pissed, I'm pissed,
 I'm pissed.
 I'm running for president
 in 12 years.
 [bleep] you guys.
 I'm pulling my funding.
 The committee
 that had chosen her,
 they heard all of the--
 this backlash.
 And they went to Maya
 and they were like,
 okay, so listen, a lot of
 people are pissed off.
 We have a couple
 of compromises.
 We'd--we'd like to put more
 military symbolism into it.
 We'd--we'd like to
 have a bronze--a bronze statue
 of a solider carrying
 an American flag
 um, placed in the center
 of your--
 of your memorial.
Uh, and then also,
 what if we paint
 the black marble white?
 How does that sound?
And Maya is like, hell no.
 No, no, no, no,
 no, no, no, no.
 Not in a million years.
 And they were like, [bleep].
 [laughs]
 All right, you know what?
 Let's bring it to Congress,
 bitch.
 We're bringing it to Co--
 no, that's dumb.
[laughs]
 - ♪ Underdog ♪
- Um, okay.
What do I wanna say next?
Okay.
 So at this
 Congressional hearing,
 politicians, veterans--
 all testifying against her.
 I don't like that it's
 the color black!
 I don't like that
 it's abstract!
 I don't get it!
 What is minimalism?
 I don't like that
 it looks like a pee sign--
 a pee sign?
 [laughs]
 I don't like that
 this looks like a peace sign
 because those damn hippies
 are always
 flashing a peace sign at me
 and I don't like it!
 The chairman is like,
 all right,
 we've heard all
 this shitty stuff.
 Maya, you wanna come up here?
 Maya gets up there
 and she's like,
 okay, guys,
 this memorial should
 rise up out of the earth
 like a wound
 that can be healed.
 This is supposed to
 feel personal
 so families and friends
 of people who have died
 can come to the memorial
 and feel the loss
 of their loved ones
 as if it was a gravesite.
 It's not
 a political statement.
 It's just a sense
 of togetherness and community.
And the chairman is like,
I get it.
 I wanna feel sorrow, too.
 Everybody just wants
 to feel something.
 And okay, we're gonna do it.
 We're gonna do it.
 We're gonna do it.
 [uplifting music]
 ♪ ♪
 So this memorial goes up.
And when it went up,
there was, like,
this big celebration for it.
And 10,000 veterans marched to
the wall in commemoration.
 But they were like,
 you know,
 this is gonna
 be shitty, right?
 This is gonna be crap.
 This is gonna be, like,
 just dumb
 and we're not gonna care.
 And they get up
 to the memorial.
 The granite is
 sort of reflective.
 So what happens is
 the Veterans would walk up
 and they would see themselves
 reflected in the names
 of the fallen soldiers.
 And it was a very emotional
 experience.
 And they were like, whoa.
 This is beautiful.
 Maya was, like, watching
 all of this shit go down.
 And she was like,
 I [bleep] told you.
 I told you you would cry.
 See all these people crying?
 I told you they would cry.
- Yeah.
- She probably
wasn't that mad.
 Maya was able
 to see this outcome
 and say, oh, this really did
 have a really cool impact
 on everybody.
 So Maya Lin goes from
 this B student at Yale
 to one of the most
 prominent architects
 and artists of our time.
 So Maya Lin's design style
 made a difference.
 On all the memorials
 going forward.
 It all became more abstract
 after that.
She really influenced
a lot of designers
and architects and artists.
 So in 2016, President Obama
 presented her with the
 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
 Obama was like, uhh,
 good job.
 I love your work.
 Hope to see more of it.
And he kissed her on--
right on the lips.
[both laugh]
[kissing sounds]
I just made a fool
of myself right now.
