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The
White House
Join the
conversation
Hi,
all --
A
couple weeks ago, I was in a
meeting with a group of community leaders and President Obama here at
the White
House. Before the discussion kicked off, one of the women in attendance
handed
me a letter. It was written by her dad, a 90 year old college professor
from
Cleveland.
He
was born in China in 1923, and
he came to the United States with $24 in his pocket. Two years later,
he'd
earned a masters in electrical engineering. Five years after that, he
had
completed his PhD. In 55 years of teaching, he's trained 180 graduate
students.
"I
fulfilled my dream,"
he wrote in that letter. "I light up a spot on the great nation of
opportunity."
His
letter reminded me of my dad, who
came here from Bolivia to study engineering, and lived his American
dream in
Michigan, where I was born. So many Americans have stories like these,
and
they're all powerful. Each personal history is an important asset in
the fight
to reform the immigration system. To win the debate, we need more than
statistics in a fact sheet or the rhetoric in a press release. Every
time we
put a face on the push for reform, we take an abstract concept and
makes it
real.
Which
means your stories are
crucial in this effort. Join the conversation now:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/immigration/stories
Thanks
so much!
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