Thank You America!
Today, July Fourth, is a day which reminds me of all the good fortune that the United States of America has bestowed me. As the child of immigrant parents, who fled the Russian Army, became refugees in Austria and ultimately made their way through Ellis Island, I reflect upon this day how lucky I was to be born here. My cousins, aunts and uncles in Transylvania suffered decades of brutal dictatorship under Nicolae Ceausescu and Soviet domination. My relatives in West Berlin lived inside mortared walls crowned with concertina wire for 40 years. My parents, Hermann and Helena had the guts to leave everything behind, enter a new land, work their way up the ladder from chicken farmers and cleaning houses, learn a new language, take night classes for U.S. citizenship and after five years they proudly exclaimed that they too, were "Americans". They didn't receive welfare and didn't expect it either. That was for people who needed help. My sister and I were taught ...