My parents worked hard. They denied themselves even the smallest luxuries like sleeping in on Saturday morning, going to the movies . They denied themselves those pleasures so the children in the family could have a better life so I could have a better life. Every time I m with my parents, I remember what a huge privilege it is to live in the United States. To have the right to own your own business to have the right to work 365 days a year to have the right to have a goal and work towards it to pursue a dream.
Every family here has a story.
Whether you re a first-generation immigrant or sixth, or if you ve been here from the beginning because you re Native American. Our journeys vary, but our dreams are shared dreams fueled by the promise of freedom, hope, and opportunity. You know, not long after I was elected governor, our entire family Mom, Dad, my brothers and sisters and their spouses and Mona and I we all made a pilgrimage to our ancestral village Jilong in the Guangdong province of southern China. It was like stepping back into the 1800s, when my grandfather left China to come to America. My Mom and Dad had not set foot in the village since their wedding day fifty years before.