Bossing has a core group of friends from work who became my own good friends also. One of the couples in that group is Min and Myra. Like all of Bossing’s friends, I love these two. Min and Myra’s relationship is particularly special to Bossing because he was instrumental in them getting together, falling in love and finally, getting married. They’re now blessed with two boys, the eldest of them is Bossing’s godchild.

I am fond of Min right from the get-go. He’s very warm, animated and funny. He can belt out a Filipino song and make it seem effortless the way he would pronounce the Pinoy words. That’s a feat, considering that Min is Burmese. But he is well-adapted to the Pinoy culture and he has adopted a lot of Pinoy words as part of his everyday speech because, Myra, so happens, is Filipina.

About two years ago, Min went back to school. We’ve always egged him on about it and joined him in counting the days till he finishes. And just recently, he has finally graduated and now has an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) certificate tucked under his belt. Oh, and I need to mention, just because it made us extra proud of him, he graduated Cum Laude. That’s a huge accomplishment by itself but it was all the more sweeter with 2 toddlers in tow, a full-time job and his school about an hour’s drive one way from where we are. Cum Laude. A distant-cry from the Min of a few years back…

Min Aung, with his parents and brother, fled the military-controlled country of Burma (Union of Myanmar), to have a better and freer life here in America. Here, they pursued the American promise and, with a lot of good work and high hopes, now live the American dream.

America. Where everyone, I would like to believe, has a “decent shot at life, and the doors of opportunity remain open to all”. A “tolerant America” where a name like Min Aung will be “no barrier to success”. An America that declared “all men are created equal”, “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” like “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The kind of America where “we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody’s son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will he counted or at least, most of the time.”

Yes, this is the place where Min and a whole lot of immigrants can pursue their dreams if living in their own countries could not provide for that. Not that we have no love left for our own countries because there is still nothing better than to live in the land you were born in. If we can grow and prosper in our own countries. If the circumstances there would allow us to be successful.

But what if the government that swore to protect you would be the same government that would infringe your basic rights or would think more of their own pockets than think of the welfare of their own people? So for most us, if and when the opportunity comes to live where aspirations can be fulfilled, we go and live there. And for most, THE country is the United States of America.

This morning, I just finished listening to the audio book “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” by Barack Obama. It’s a very inspiring book for an immigrant like me. I know that Senator Obama was born American, but his diverse cultural heritage pointing back to Ireland and Kenya and his young life in Indonesia make me think that he can relate well to immigrants like me. How his being different in color and racial background has made me realize more how adaptive this country really is. It made me feel more positive that people like Min, or the Laotian couple we met while fishing last Sunday, or the Indian guy who sits in the cubicle next to mine at work do have a chance to make life better for themselves in this country.

At the epilogue of the book is a speech made by the Senator as a Keynote Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention and that’s where I got most of the quotes I have in this entry. And while looking around the internet, I found out that there’s a website chronicling all his speeches from way back 2002. If you want to know more about this great man, you might want to read his speeches to know what he wants to happen WHEN he becomes president. And I have to tell you, this book would convince you on how good a president he will be. How he has our soldiers, our environment, the health and welfare of our old and our young, these whole UNITED States of America in his plans. How he would take care of the grass roots and not forget about them. When you read the book, it would make you see that Barack knows the grass roots because he is one of them, he dealt with them, he ate with them, went to church with them, lived with them. He knows what the poor people are going through because he also struggled. He wasn’t born rich. He was born in an average family, with an average income. He knows the real American people. He knows how it is to live the American Dream from the ground up.

The same American dream our friend, Min, has.

(I know Min will get a good kick out of this because I had him and Senator Barack Obama together in one blog entry. So when the Google search engine crawls, there’s a big possibility that both their names will appear in Google at the same time. There goes his 5-minutes of small internet fame. Just a little gift for the new Cum Laude.