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Great Immigrants, Great Stories: Three Tales of Becoming an American


Three of the naturalized citizens featured in our Immigrants: The Pride of America campaign shared their stories in a Huffington Post article this week.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Liz Balmaseda, business leader and philanthropist Aso Tavitian, and novelist Monique Truong all wrote movingly about their experiences in America in The Huffington Post. The three were among the 43 naturalized citizens featured in this year's Immigrants: The Pride of America campaign. I grew up in America's most Cuban city - Hialeah, Florida. The municipality's tagline, "The City of Progress," far more often was quoted in Spanish. The cheering section at local football games brought conga drums. The Catholic saint statues that often adorned front lawns concealed Afro-Cuban alter egos. And the "fries" at fast-food drive-thru joints were made of yuca. But the city was fiercely American, just as my parents were fiercely American. — Liz Balmaseda In expanding and developing Syncsort's business internationally, I have come to appreciate the fact that there is no other place in the world where an immigrant has the kind of opportunities that one has here. The term "land of opportunities" is not an empty phrase for the U.S. — Aso Tavitian Immigrants are optimists at heart. War refugees — the subset to which I belong — are even more so. We believe that we can change our circumstances and change them for the better. — Monique Truong

Read the full article at The Huffington Post, and we invite you to share your own stories on our website.