Today we step away from “Blogitics” and remember why we should care so much about the fate of our country.
Our afternoon producer, Martin Untrojb, has officially become my countryman and I am so happy to call him one. The essay below is from him:
The father of the late Tim Russert used that phrase a lot to describe this nation of immigrants, where anyone can be anything he or she wants to be.
The recipe is simple: hard work, dedication, and your dream is within reach. What a country indeed.
It may not seem like much if you were born here, unaware of what goes on in other parts of the world. But for the countless number of people who left behind family, friends and possessions behind in search of a dream, this country is like no other.
Where else can a man born in Germany escape restrictive schools and Nazism to become the greatest science mind of the 20th century?
Where else can a woman born in Czechoslovakia grow up to become our first female Secretary of State?
Where else can a music composer Born in Russia create classics like “God Bless America” and “White Christmas”?
Where else can an Austrian bodybuilder with the thickest imaginable accent become not only a movie star, but the Governor of the most populous state in the U.S.A.
Where else can a woman refuse to give up her seat on a bus, and become a symbol for a civil rights movement that eventually led to the first African-American to be sworn in as President earlier this year.
The stories are countless, the limits non existent, in a nation where the promise of a future is always there. All it asks in exchange is for each one of their citizens to do their best.
My story in the U.S. dates back to the final days of 1986. I came in to the United States as a teenager with my immediate family, having lost all our possessions in the collapse of the Argentinian economy.
For years, I felt like an uninvited guest. I guess that’s the way many immigrants feel when they come here seeking a better life. You fear you will get deported. You fear you will not make it. You fear going back to a place you left knowing this was better.
There are numerous barriers along the way. Language and culture are just two of them. But the carrot that keeps you going is the same one that has been bringing immigrants to this nation for centuries now. Do your best and you will succeed.
Today I sat in a room with 256 other people from all corners of the world. Our stories couldn’t be more different, and yet we all had the same goal, the same dream. It’s amazing how people so different can have so much in common. That room represented this nation. Men, women and children, all religions, languages and races imaginable. So different, and yet so much alike.
What other nation has the power to do that? To bring so many together, while offering each one the freedom to be an individual. The freedom to politically agree or disagree. The freedom to believe in a god or none at all. A nation of laws with no one above the law.
The judge who administered the oath said it best. It all sounds good on paper. But along with the rights of citizenship comes the responsibility to make the promise of this nation become a reality. It is our responsibility to participate in the political system. To defend the rights of all, regardless of race, religion or gender.
As politicians fight over health care, wars, and petty party differences in Washington, I wonder if they ever stopped to see this country the way so many immigrants see it.
As a place like no other in the world, where the real American dream is not to own a home, but to be free to choose your path. The freedom to succeed. The freedom to be who you are.
It’s what our forefathers came looking for more than two centuries ago. It’s the dream that became reality for me and 256 other people in a Brooklyn courtroom this morning.
What a Country….
- Martin Untrojb
