Another Email received from Don in Kansas City, MO on another take on the contribution of immigrants to our country writes….
”As you were talking on the show recently about immigrants coming over to the America on the boat to find a better quality of life for their family…
I was reminded of my family coming over on the boat back in 1850 from Ireland during the famous potato famine which lasted from 1845 to 1852. It also led to the death of 1 million people thru starvation and disease and caused a million more to emigrate to foreign shores.
The deaths and emigrations reduced the population of Ireland by 25%.
My own ancestors emigrated to America just to be able to survive. They dreamed of a job, a roof over their head, and food to eat. They also wanted a safe place to raise their children. Times were tough for the Irish in America as they were at the bottom of the ethnic chain in the 1850’s.
However, thru hard work, perseverance, and the advantage of equal opportunity, unlike the caste system in Ireland which was essentially those that have it and those that don’t, my family was able to prosper with each generation. Today, our family is spread out all over the U.S.
All of us are successful and have achieved our ancestors vision of the American Dream. As you were saying on the show that with each generation becoming more successful than the previous generation by taking advantage of the opportunities America provided the early immigrants and, of course, citizens today.”
Thanks, Don, for your inspiring story of your family and their multi generation pursuit of their American Dream.
You see folks, anyone reading this right now has the God given ability and the opportunity to take action and transform yourself into a successful person. All it takes is hard work, a single minded focus and belief in your Dream and it can happen to you as it happened to Don and his family
As my College English Professor used to say, “Success is a journey, not a Destination” and I would propose that the American Dream supports this statement.
There is absolutely no limit to what anyone can accomplish in America. Becoming successful is certainly part of that ultimate dream.
The right to be free to choose your own path and to be guaranteed equal opportunity to pursue it has helped forge this great country of ours into the melting pot that it is today.
And that “inalienable right” still brings immigrants to America today who believe in the American Dream in the same way as Don’s family did 160 years ago.
From Emma in Myrtle Beach, who wrote the following email…..”I am sending you an inspiring story I read about an immigrant from Czechoslovakia who became a citizen”
Many hurdles await those trudging the path to legal U.S. citizenship, and thousands of immigrants – 680,000 in 2009 – successfully scale them each year.
On the weekend of the nation’s 234th birthday, more than 3,800 candidates were sworn in at 55 ceremonies, including one Friday at Middleton Place in Charleston, home of Arthur Middleton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, according to Ana Santiago, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman.
Among the hurdles tackled by virtually all of those candidates was an exam designed to test their knowledge of America’s history and government.
Some, especially those born and educated here, might be tempted to think that’s no big deal. After all, applicants must answer only six of 10 questions correctly. But here’s the catch: They don’t know which 10 of the 100 possible topics in the study booklet will appear on the exam. Plus, it’s administered orally, which means you must answer the examiner directly.
For Jan Dobr, however, it was all just an opportunity for the aspiring American to learn more about his adopted country.
“It starts with Independence Day, covers political parties, has questions about history, the first president, the Founding Fathers,” said Dobr, who took his oath as an American citizen during a Charleston ceremony in September. “I enjoyed it because I learned so much about the history. It tells you how this country really works.
“Personally, I wish there had been 1,000 questions, that means I would know much more,” said the 36-year-old, whose desire to be an American blossomed in 1994 when he came as a tourist from the Czech Republic to visit his uncle.
He said he read the study booklet several times and took notes as he did. “I tested myself, took it to work and gave it to everybody,” he said. “They questioned me. They were learning, too.”
It took Dobr almost a decade of applications to qualify to take that citizenship test. But all the paperwork and years of drives from Myrtle Beach to the regional office in Charleston were nothing compared to earning the priceless right to call himself an American citizen.
Dobr said he loved being in America so much when he visited Myrtle Beach in 1994 that he overextended his stay and wasn’t allowed to return for four years. He returned in 1998.
“I applied for a student visa so I can stay here legally,” he said last week. “I went to golf course management school at (Horry-Georgetown Technical College). I graduated in 2001 with a 3.96 GPA.”
Dobr also fell in love while going to school, and married an American woman a few months before graduating. By then his student visa was expiring so he began the application process for a green card, a critical step for citizenship eligibility. Being married to an American could have shortened his citizenship wait, but the couple divorced, he said.
By 2004, he had his green card and was eligible to apply for citizenship in five years.
“I waited until June 2009 and went to Charleston,” he said. “I told them I would like to get naturalized. They said ‘OK, fill out the application, pay the fee.’ It costs money, of course.”
He came back with his application and all the required papers a few weeks later. “They invited me for approval and said come back Sept. 8 or 9 to take the test. A week later, Sept. 17, I was sworn in as a citizen,” Dobr said.
“They had a choir, uniformed soldiers, it was really nice,” he said. The timing of the ceremony also connected him to family thousands of miles away.
“My older sister was building a squash center in the Czech Republic to European Union standards,” he said. “It took her five to eight years to build. Her grand opening was four minutes from when I was sworn in as a citizen. It was a nice feeling.”
What did he do to celebrate?
“I told everybody,” he said. “Today my life is one big celebration.”
When he returned to America in 1998, Dobr had just graduated from school, where he’d studied hotel and restaurant management, he said.
“I had just got out of school and it made sense to come here,” he said. “My uncle, he owns a restaurant and I’m supposed to know how to work in it.”
His uncle owns Martin’s Restaurant at 73rd and North Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, where he worked while also attending classes at HGTC.
Dobr learned plenty at the college, but the lesson his uncle taught him in 2002 provided a real turning point.
“He fired me,” he said.
Why?
“I wasn’t doing my job. I thought I knew everything. In everybody’s life there’s a point when everybody thinks they know everything,” Dobr said. “I was at that point that I thought I knew everything and was irreplaceable.”
He learned otherwise.
“He taught me a lesson. I’m glad he did it,” said Dobr, who spent the next four years working at a golf course.
Now he’s back at the restaurant, where his business card lists his title as “Nephew (Manager).”
“That means I do everything,” he said.
After earning his citizenship, Dobr bought himself several American flag neckties.
“I wear them all the time,” he said.
He also is a member of the Grand Strand Optimist Club and is frequently called upon to speak to groups about his experiences in becoming a citizen.
“I tell them my best life achievement is becoming a citizen of the greatest country in the world, the United States of America,” he said. “It’s just wonderful how people respond to that. … Almost everybody says, ‘A lot of people take this for granted.'”
Many members of his native-born American audiences also wonder aloud how they’d do if they were tested on their knowledge of America and its government.
“A lot of people say they couldn’t take the test,” he said.
Santiago, of Homeland Security, said applicants can try again if they don’t make it the first time. But they have to wait six months to take it again.
“I might not be able to answer all the questions now,” Dobr said, “and it’s only been a year since I took it.”
Thanks, Emma, for the great story about Mr. Dobr. It seems that people who immigrate to America have a perspective that many of us who were born here don’t have. They become such Super Patriots because they appreciate all the freedoms they enjoy in America that we tend to take for granted.
What’s more, to acquire their citizenship, they are required to study American History extensively to be able to pass the required test.
I think it would be a great idea if all natural born Americans were required to take a similar citizenship test when they reach legal age. Schools would be required to teach American History in much more detail to all students. The effect of that requirement would be a country full of Super Patriots!
My name is Walt Cameron….and I’m the host of Our American Dream Show…simulcast every week on your internet and local radio station.
I received an email from John in Richmond,VA who said…”I wanted to share a success story of a Lady with a great American Dream success story…..”
Lurita Doan…who is a former Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration and a commentator on Federal News Radio…as she related her story to Fox News …..
Twenty years ago, in November 1989, I found myself in Berlin with a rented hammer and chisel, chipping away at the Berlin Wall.
My husband, a captain in the U.S. Army, was deployed to Germany. Jobs for military spouses were hard to come by. I come from generations of Southern, Black entrepreneurs, so, I decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge, start a business, as a sole proprietorship, doing what I knew best, installing and repairing mainframe computer systems.
Success was a long shot; my prospects weren’t great. I had no investors, no employees, no significant assets. Like most entrepreneurs, what I did have was hope, a big dream and a willingness to tackle difficult jobs.
A Dept of Defense mainframe had crashed in Berlin. A large defense contractor needed a technician quickly and they couldn’t find anyone willing and able to get there quickly.
I was already in Germany, and was willing to travel through the night, from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where we lived, to Berlin. I could be there faster than any consultant flown over from the U.S., and at less cost, so I got the job. It was my first big opportunity.
I was not the only one pursuing a dream and an opportunity. Berlin was abuzz with rumors flying.
West Germans were wondering if Gorbachev and the Soviet Politburo were going to relax draconian travel rules and allow East Germans to travel across the Iron curtain for the first time? No one knew the answer, but everyone was asking the question.
Hungarians were already fleeing Communist control. Berliners wondered if they would be allowed to follow. Or, would the Warsaw Pact crack down and stop the trickle of people crossing the borders before it became a flood? No one knew the answer, but everyone was asking the question.
Lots of Berliners talked of Ronald Reagan’s speech, delivered in Berlin, almost two years earlier, when he demanded:”Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall!” Was President Reagan’s dramatic call about to happen? Some Berliners worried the soldiers would take charge. No one knew.
Ironically, the worst source of information was the media, perhaps because in 1987 so many had underestimated the importance of Reagan’s speech. The New York Times declared that Reagan had “lost the air of authority” and suggested that Reagan’s Berlin Wall speech was “surreal” and indicated that the “presidency had ceased to function.” The Washington Post, and U.S. News & World Report had also been highly critical.
But, in November 1989, Berliners remembered the power of a U.S. president calling for the hateful wall to be torn down. Each person to whom I spoke, seemed to know someone, a family member or friend, who had been trapped on the other side of the wall. Hope was alive, powerful and focused on tearing down the Wall.
Nine hours later, the DOD mainframe was operational, and my first job was done. I was tempted to crash at my hotel, but the air in Berlin was electric. I’m still not sure how the whole thing started.
Maybe someone finally got tired of waiting for someone else to act and decided, on his own to pick up a sledge hammer and start whacking the wall. Others soon joined. Within hours, thousands of Berliners were tearing down the wall.
I was one of them.
The Berlin Wall was solid, reinforced concrete. Chipping a piece wasn’t easy. I banged on the wall for 30 minutes before it yielded the smallest of pieces. Here’s a lesson: Anyone thinking that monumental change occurs without hard work is a fool. Change is hard.
Change is also scary. Even as we were chipping at the wall, folks around me were skittish, their glances darting nervously left and right, as if expecting the Volkspolizei or the military to order them to stop. But, no one objected.
After an hour, I joined the curious and crossed into East Berlin to look around. I had never been to East Berlin, but I could see that 40 years of Communism had left the city impoverished, dingy and unkempt.
This side of Berlin was crowded too, with people were pushing, moving towards the crossing. I was so engrossed that I did not realize that East Germany guards were slowly moving to exert some control and border restrictions were once again being enforced.
Unfortunately for me, the decision to restrict movement across the Wall found me trapped inside East Berlin and big, East German goons would not let me cross back over to the West. Jubilation quickly turned to fear.
How long was I going to be trapped inside the Eastern bloc? Would the Volkspolizei round us up and send us to a gulag? Most pressing of all….. how in the hell was I going to get back to the land of the free and home of the brave?
Another great lesson: when you’re stuck in a bad situation overseas, nothing looks quite as good as a young, American sergeant in the U.S. Army. I called out to a young American soldier, still manning his post at Check Point Charlie, who seemed as confused as I. He said he couldn’t let me through, but he told me not to leave the crossing.
About an hour later, the crossing reopened. I moved quickly with the crowd to enter the West. Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” which had been blaring all day, never sounded so appropriate.
What did I learn?
First, never underestimate the power of a focused and easily understood dream. When Reagan demanded “Tear Down this Wall”, Berliners understood the message, even if the media missed it.
Reagan’s call was clear, focused and specific. He didn’t make some vague reference to “Change” but instead focused attention on the exact nature of the change desired –“Tear Down This Wall!”
There is an important lesson there. Vague calls for “change” can’t be implemented and certainly can’t animate the population. Reagan knew that.
Second, people demolished the wall on their own, without any type of official, government sponsored event.
Today, our actions might have been called a Tea Party. Change happens spontaneously when folks get tired of waiting.
One guy picked up the first hammer, and soon thousands of hammers demolished the wall. Yes, one man can make a difference.
Third, the United States truly is the greatest nation on earth, and the freedom of democracy is most definitely worth the fight.
Lastly, I was in Berlin because I was pursuing the American dream of entrepreneurship.
Dreams, whether the American dream of entrepreneurship or the dream of a unified Berlin, have their own power and can take you far.
They certainly can take you to places and events that you never thought possible.
My own company, started on that fateful day in Berlin, would eventually grow to employ 200 people and countless small businesses.
The trick to success is to have the courage to go, the willingness to pick up a hammer when you get there, and the good sense to be grateful for strong, American soldiers, not far away, should things get scary
Wow! I want to thank John for this great, true story of one woman’s courage to start her own business in a foreign country and, taking advantage of an opportunity, not only started on her path to success and the fulfillment of her American Dream of owning her own business, but
she became part of something bigger that.
She was able to witness in person the unification of East and West Berlin which had been separated by a wall, infamously called the “Iron Curtain”, for many years!
We have lots of stories like this. Some told in third party and many are told in person on “Our American Dream Show”.
If you want to hear more great stories like this and learn how to make your own American Dream come true, just go to our website at:
www.OurAmericanDreamShow.com
And we’ll look forward to seeing you on our next broadcast!
