Opportunity to Make America a Better Nation.

¶ … opportunity to make America a better nation.

MLK

I left my home country of Indonesia when I was 23 years old. I didn't leave because I wanted to; I left because I had to.

See, as a Catholic growing up in a Muslim dominated country I was exposed to discrimination and religious persecution. Threats of violence against my family and I were not uncommon.

I say this knowing that not all Muslims are bad people. In fact, growing up some of my best friends were people of Islamic faith. However, when religious extremism begins to dominate a society and inform the cultural milieu, it's bad for everyone who lives there, but it's often particularly hard on women. This is what happened in my hometown. Things got ugly, really ugly.

So my parents saved up every dime and nickel they had and bought me a one-way ticket to America. The hope was I would be able to make a better life for myself in America. And, if I got lucky, I would even be able to send for my younger brother who was also being victimized for being a Catholic.

When I arrived in America my definition of luck changed. I recognized that luck wasn't something you waited on; it was something you made. I made my own luck. I worked hard to learn English. I worked even harder to find a job. And when I found my first job, I worked as hard as I possibly could to do it well. All this hard worked paid off, as I eventually "got lucky"

I "got lucky" because I started to make enough money to support not only myself, but my younger brother as well. I sent for him. He was thrilled to come to America.

And, so, when I read that Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "We have an opportunity to make America a better nation" I knew exactly what he meant.

See, I believe that we make America a better nation by making ourselves better people. When we are productive, when we are educated, when we are in a position to help others, we can make this nation a better place.

Here, in America, we have something precious. We have freedom. We have an opportunity to make ourselves better people. In Indonesia and in other parts of the world, that opportunity, that freedom, doesn't exist.