If we grow up in these communities where we have gangs, well, what do you think we're going to belong to? That's what happened to me and what's still happening to hundreds of thousands of other individuals.

I didn't know that I could be an actor until I was 25 years old, and now I continue to go back to the prisons and probation camps and the inner city to say that you don't have to go through the violence, through the trauma like I did.

I think 98% of gang members in Los Angeles would agree that being a gang is just like being part of a community.

Being an artist, being an actor, it's about telling stories that could heal, that could open up discussion that could make the community better.

It's such a stress always trying to get bigger houses and larger cars and better schools. Of course, parents want to give their children the best opportunities in life, but sometimes that can stifle them.

When I was 11 years old, my family had to leave East Germany and begin a new life in West Germany overnight. Until my father could get back into his original profession as a government employee, my parents operated a small laundry business in our little town. I became the laundry delivery boy.

Adults sometimes think children don't think. That's what propels them to order children around. But children do integrate thoughts and make sense of them. When I was a child, I thought about everything in the universe.

At the federal level, we must help, not hinder, local school boards, parents, teachers and administrators as they make decisions about educating our children.