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In our country, being from immigrant parents, growing up black in the South, coming out at 16 years old, being a teen parent... you would assume that my life would amount to nothing. And here I stand today. So, if I can do it... you can, too!
I came here as an immigrant. We were poor. We went to flea markets to sell gifts to make ends meet. Just the mere fact that I can be running for Congress is something that can only happen in a place like America. It's such a wonderful country.
I always saw my role as getting LGBT to support the immigrant rights movement - which they did - and getting Latino organizations to support the women's movement, for reproductive rights. So that's kind of the work that I've always been doing.
I come from a family of Russian immigrant Jews who were all big storytellers, who would get together, and one would try to top the others' stories, and stories would get bigger and bigger. And the lying aspect, the exaggeration, would get large.
I have been a foreigner all my life, first as a daughter of diplomats, then as a political refugee and now as an immigrant in the U.S. I have had to leave everything behind and start anew several times, and I have lost most of my extended family.
I became an immigrant, civil and human rights advocate, then the first South Asian elected to the Washington State Legislature and the only woman of color in the Washington State Senate, and then was elected in 2016 to the United States Congress.
One way to quantify the immigrant contribution to the overall economy is to measure their share of the U.S. economic output. One such examination for the years 2009-2011 found that immigrants contributed 14.7 percent of the total economic output.
My father was an immigrant who literally walked across Europe to get out of Russia. He fought in World War I. He was wounded in action. My father was a great success even though he never had money. He was a very determined man, a great role model.
In Washington State, the immigrant population has grown by 42 percent in the five years between 2000 and 2005 - which is an increase from 8 percent to 10.6 percent of the overall population - and the jobless rate in the state has hit a 6 year low.
To the European immigrant - that is, to the aliens who have been converted into Americans by the advantages of American life - the Promise of America has consisted largely in the opportunity which it offered of economic independence and prosperity.
Our universal message of access to economic opportunity resonates with the ironworker in northeastern Ohio and the immigrant in South Florida. And we sometimes have a relationship deficit with our voters, because we're not communicating that message.
When you look at what's written under the Statue of Liberty, it's the immigrant story. It's about 'bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' It's not about 'only bring me only your rich, your wealthy, your smart.'
In a country built on the dreams and accomplishments of an immigrant population, a particularly severe wound is inflicted on that principle when an immigration matter is not conducted in accord with the best of our tradition of courtesy and fairness.
An estimated 7 million illegal immigrants were residing in the United States in January 2000. This is double the size of the illegal immigrant population in January 1990 and constitutes 2.5 percent of the total U.S. population of just over 281 million.
And you have to remember that I came to America as an immigrant. You know, on a ship, through the Statue of Liberty. And I saw that skyline, not just as a representation of steel and concrete and glass, but as really the substance of the American Dream.
I see the Conservative party becoming more and more attractive to people from all different backgrounds, particularly because so many of the immigrant communities are people who work hard and get on in life... so I think they are naturally Conservative.
When you're a part of any protected class, whether it is being a woman, a person of color, a part of the LGBTQ community, or an immigrant, we're expected to get everything right and be the embodiment of perfection when it is not expected of other people.
I came to America, and I made good. It's an old story, but it hasn't been told in a long time. Usually, it's, 'I'm an immigrant, I came here and got persecuted.' My story is I came here, I worked hard, and it worked out all right. So it's still available.
I was the one that in a very overconfident immigrant way thought I knew exactly how to raise my kids. My husband was much more typical. He had a lot of anxiety; he didn't think he knew all the right choices. And, I was the one willing to put in the hours.
Of course, everyone in the New World is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants, and immigrants have built America and continue to do so. Legal or illegal, they are almost universally good people who work to better their lot and that of their children.
The sole literary presence from my childhood was my grandfather, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia, who eccentrically copied poems into the backs of his books. After he died, when I was 8 years old, my grandmother gave his books away, and his poems were lost.
I have an immigrant story. Most people come here for economic reasons, or religious reasons, or racial reasons, or gender reasons, or one of those things. I had a good job in Paris, but America was, and still is, the golden fleece. And I've done very well!
Donald Trump has shown no interest in working toward increasing the minimum wage, no interest in doing anything but immigrant baiting, no interest in doing anything but filling the swamp with a band of billionaires who are simply trying to help the wealthy.
Part of the reason why my folks - why any immigrant family - wants their kids to go into law or medicine is because there's the promise of reliable work. That's a powerful idea that got hammered into my head growing up: Be this thing, or else you'll starve.
I've already made some changes. I have suspended certain things. Certainly, opening bank accounts, and whether you can or cannot as an illegal immigrant, I'm not sure that the data that we have is accurate enough, so I have suspended that for the time being.
We cannot shun our values as an immigrant nation. This is a wrong path. And while possibly it is a short-term political victory based on division and based on creating a wedge issue that splits people in this country, it is a long-term defeat for this Nation.
We are all human beings, immigrant or non-immigrant. We all feel fear. We all love and become confused when we don't act as well as we would like to. We all get depressed and have feelings of uselessness. All of these things are true and have always been true.
In my essay for 'The Good Immigrant,' I write about how concerns about race and immigration crept up on me a bit because of how I grew up and my background - I was quite fortunate, really; I never got the rough end of the stick with a lot of that kind of stuff.
'First Gen' is kind of the ode to my parents and to really all immigrant children who come here with kind of a preemptive expectation placed on them, and then they get there, and they realize the American dream is bigger than, sometimes, what our parents dreamt.
If you had asked me growing up what a stylist does or what a magazine editor does, I would have had no clue - how do you research something like that when you are a first-born child of an immigrant who only grew up knowing doctor, engineer, and lawyer as careers?
Arranged marriages are big business in the U.K. Second- and third-generation immigrant families, with no extended family structure, limited networks and religious restrictions on acceptable ways to meet future spouses, are turning to external matchmakers for help.
I am the executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which is the country's only national immigrant rights organization for black immigrants and African Americans. Being the daughter of Nigerian immigrants really drove me to do this type of work.
My dad was an immigrant kid and a Democrat and a Jew, and we didn't know any Republicans in our group. So I grew up Democratic. My dad was a labor lawyer - a very hardworking guy, a one-horse labor lawyer - and then I went to hippie college and lived in the bubble.
I was an immigrant when I came, and one of my biggest things was I really wanted to fit in. I didn't want to be, 'Oh, look at that guy;' I wanted to be part of the crowd. Which is a weird thing, because the more successful I got, the more out of the crowd I became.
Ben Carson was appointed to be the HUD secretary. He knows nothing about the mission of HUD. He doesn't care about people in public housing. He believes that if you are poor, it is your own fault. And he doesn't know the difference between an immigrant and a slave.
From my youngest brother to immigrant women to black queer folks, those are the people who keep me going. When I think about their various acts of courage, it reminds me that I am not alone and that we can do even more, and we deserve more, so we have to keep going.
Before the Civil War, the Negro was certainly as efficient a workman as the raw immigrant from Ireland or Germany. But, whereas the Irishmen found economic opportunity wide and daily growing wider, the Negro found public opinion determined to 'keep him in his place.'
My parents come from that immigrant culture that places a lot of emphasis on doing well scholastically. Being a comedian or an actor is such an American thing. The Iranian culture is not about dreaming. It's about taking over your father's business, falling into line.
The base of the party, the middle-aged white working class, has suffered at least as much as any demographic group because of globalization, low-wage immigrant labor, and free trade. Trump sensed the rage that flared from this pain and made it the fuel of his campaign.
The best way to prevent the homegrown-inspired attacks is literally positive engagement with Muslim communities. Making sure that any immigrant population that comes into America assimilates, becomes part of our culture. That has been our history; it has made us strong.
I was standing on a ladder outside the Homestead juvenile immigrant detention center outside Miami, looking over the fence, and I saw children lined up like prisoners. They had been separated from their families and put in this private detention facility. It was horrible.
Because I sidestepped all the stereotypical roles, in a way I've made a career out of not being Asian - a lot of my roles weren't written as Asian - so there's an impulse in me that wants to take a U-turn and play a very grounded, real Asian character, maybe an immigrant.
As an immigrant, I am grateful for the tremendous opportunities that this great nation has afforded me and my family. I am also aware of the ongoing challenges that immigrants confront, and understand that respecting law and borders is essential for keeping America strong.
For me, as an immigrant who didn't speak the language, when I would have struggles as a kid, my dad would say, 'Once you are able to communicate with people, they're able to connect with you beyond your otherness.' That is really the message I've carried throughout my life.
Mr. Trump of course feels sorry for what the Khan family has gone through, just, frankly, as he felt sorry for the victims that spoke before the Republican Convention who lost loved ones from illegal immigrant criminals coming in and being able to travel the country freely.
Even though I went to Exeter and Yale, and I enjoyed all the trappings of those places, I think at the same time - and maybe it's because I'm an immigrant kid and not white - there was always this other consciousness; that is, I was conscious of everything that was going on.
It is wrong to divide the nation white against black, native born against immigrant or one religion against another. It is also wrong to divide people by income. East Germany was not an improvement over South Africa. Obama divides Americans against each other. This is wrong.
I don't really consider myself an immigrant, because I was born French; I have always spoken the language. I never had the feeling of being a foreigner. I was very lucky: I came to France, and I had enough money to study and to rent a studio. So, for me, it was not difficult.
I think the biggest difference is that I've noticed Western parents seem much more concerned about their children's psyches, their self-esteem, whereas tough immigrant parents assume strength rather than fragility in their children and therefore behave completely differently.
I was raised by extremely strict - but also extremely loving - Chinese immigrant parents, and I had the most wonderful childhood! I remember laughing constantly with my parents - my dad is a real character and very funny. I certainly did wish they allowed to me do more things!