July 6, 2007
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America, the Beautiful
When we lived in Arkansas, we would take occasional trips to Long Beach to visit my grandparents and my great-grandmother (and everyone else on my Mom's side of the family who lived in the States). I remember my great-grandmother complained to my mother once, "Why don't you visit more often? Maybe I will drive to see you." She had no clue, and we probably couldn't even explain the concept to her, that the distance from Long Beach to Arkansas is over 1500 miles -- many times the length of her home country.
Even now, I still remember one of my cousins in California asking me to visit more often, and myself thinking, unless someone pays me for the plane trip, it ain't happening.
There's still plenty of wide-open spaces here. If you don't like one place, there's plenty of room to move over.
I've been to a number of countries (mostly in Asia), and some in Europe, but nowhere do I feel more at home than in the middle of the United States. China is too crowded. Singapore has too many restrictions. In Thailand, people hate my mother for being Philippino and dark. In Philippines, people only like my dad because he has money.
But here in my little town, people don't care that my parents are from two different countries, actually three. My next door neighbors are Caucasian -- an RV salesman and a housekeeper with 6 kids -- but I know they're more than that -- they have a mix of German and Irish and all sorts of European countries in their own mix. The neighbors across the street are a Mexican-Greek couple with 3 kids and their own chain of restaurants in town. Down the street is a couple with 3 kids who immigrated from California, and I suspect they're independently wealthy. We tolerate them Californians just fine!
At work, one of my colleagues who is Sikh just called me recently to congratulate me on finishing my residency. My coworkers are also Muslim, atheist, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, and agnostic. We do not impose our religion on each other. At work, we save kids. That's our job, and religion or not, we all agree to do our best.
People who are focused on helping others. A better working environment, I cannot imagine.
So, I am grateful to my parents that they immigrated to America over 30 years ago. America is still the land of opportunity to me, and anyone who wants to get off their butt and do something good with his/her life.
I'm also grateful to the men and woman of the Armed Forces, who do their best to make sure we can continue to do our jobs, and do them well. I still remember, when I was in the NICU, a soldier who had come home on leave was learning to feed his formerly 24-week baby. I thanked that soldier for protecting our country, and was told, "Thank you for saving my baby."
While the Armed Forces work, the medical services work. We have different jobs, but our goals are still the same.
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