Madam Speaker, as we celebrate Thanksgiving, a uniquely American holiday, I rise today to remind this Congress that we are all one people, one family, one America. We all come from different backgrounds, but in millions of homes across the…
Madam Speaker, as we celebrate Thanksgiving, a uniquely American holiday, I rise today to remind this Congress that we are all one people, one family, one America. We all come from different backgrounds, but in millions of homes across the country, our celebrations look very much the same. We will gather around our dinner tables with family and friends giving thanks. This day is a reminder that we are all together in this American experiment, that we should celebrate our diversity, but also recognize our shared values.
I commend to every family the publication called America's Table: A Thanksgiving Reader. The pamphlet is short and simple, and it is meant to be read at the Thanksgiving meal or as people contemplate the meaning of Thanksgiving. This booklet tells the story of American people by sharing profiles of men and women of diverse backgrounds. I am honored to be one of the people profiled in this year's publication.
The American Jewish Committee began publishing America's Table annually on the Thanksgiving after the 9/11 disaster. They partner with ten human relations organizations, including the NAACP, the National Urban League, and the National Council of La Raza to distribute this wonderful pamphlet.
We all have our stories of how we came to this great land. We must use this opportunity to celebrate our differences and our oneness as Americans. I submit a copy of this year's America's Table for the Record, and I hope and pray that Americans will continue to use it as a way to help build the Beloved Community, a nation at peace with itself.
America's Table
A Thanksgiving Reader
celebrating our diverse roots and shared values
You are holding the eighth annual edition of America's
Table.
As in past years, the brief narrative on the white pages is
intended to be read aloud at the Thanksgiving meal. It helps
us express gratitude for living in a nation where each of us,
regardless of background, is entitled to a place at the
table.
The facing pages contain profiles of eight accomplished
Americans. These profiles can be read at the Thanksgiving
meal or whenever you have time. Five of the profiled
individuals arrived in America recently. Another is descended
from slaves. All are deeply engaged in helping America fully
achieve the promise of opportunity and mutual respect.
By reading America's Table on Thanksgiving, we add new
meaning to our most beloved and universal holiday as a time
to celebrate our diverse roots and shared values. In some
homes, a leader designates the parts to be read. At other
gatherings, people simply go around the table, switching
readers at each sentence, paragraph, or page. Do whatever
feels right for you and your family and friends.
And enjoy a warm and peaceful holiday.
November 2008
Adams Costa Spencer Lind Tanaka Carney Schultz Pucinski
Leibowitz McLaren Gonzales Szymankiewicz Giannini Humphreys
Zimmer Poulos Tinley Kahn Trugglio Singh Sandbuig Jackson
Kogovsek Smith Rivera Acosta Demetrios Nemec Schwartz Nwaguru
Rosenbaum Kimura Peck Teters Foulks Koproski
We are each on a journey
These are the names of the generations that came to
America.
They reveal individual lives that represent the story of
our nation.
These are the names of the generations that built America.
They recall our parents and grandparents and mirror
ourselves.
These are the names of the generations that will care for
America.
They remind us why we gather at this Thanksgiving table.
Calderon Lew Durley Branovan Sharma Hassan Montalto
Paterson Jordan Cheng Gioia Noriega Ellison Josephs Kassab
Phillips Pun Letona Linares Brooks Gilchrist Mineta Levine
Patel Tsosie Yuo Meghani Verdeja Aoun Parens Al-Suwaij Morris
Rangel Hong Lafley Nganji Ahuja Totenberg Lewis Shamim Padron
Chung-Wha Hong ``We were watching the presidential debates
with Jimmy Carter, and I remember my mother saying, `He's
going to be the president and he does the dishes' ''
Growing up in South Korea, Chung-Wha Hong gained her
impressions of the United States from black-and-white TV.
America is heaven for women and children
Hong was eleven when the family arrived in St. Louis, in
1977. Local people were welcoming, she recalls, but the
schools offered no programs for students like Hong who spoke
no English. ``I went to school and slept all day.''
Her immigrant experience and the influence of her parents,
both religious leaders and social reformers, shaped her
career choice. After graduation from the University of
Pennsylvania, Hong returned briefly to Korea, where young
activists inspired her.
Back in the United States, she worked in Washington, D.C.,
for Korean and Asian organizations before moving to New York
to engage at the grassroots level ``on work that flows from
my identity as a Korean-American immigrant.''
As head of the New York Immigration Coalition, Hong now
helps immigrants of all backgrounds cope with what she
describes as a convergence of issues facing new arrivals,
including: poverty, lack of English language skills, and
limited access to government services. These challenges, says
Hong, are compounded by anti-immigrant sentiment.
``Part of my job is to challenge people that this is not
what this country is about, to tap into people's better
instincts of generosity and justice.''
The insightful questions of our children, innocently asked,
compel us to reconnect with our past.
When our families came to America.
How they got here.
What they found.
Why they came.
At every table the answers are different, but much the
same.
Many of us were immigrants and refugees from all regions of
the world, fleeing the afflictions of poverty and oppression.
Drawn by the promise of a better life, we chose America and
she took us into safe harbor.
Not every journey was easy.
The first arrivals sometimes shunned those who followed.
Not every journey was voluntary.
The first African slaves landed in Jamestown a year before
the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth.
Not every journey was righteous.
Native Americans were devastated by a new nation's need to
conquer, cultivate, and build.
A.G. Lafley knows something about diversity.
On his father's side, Lafley is descended from a French
Canadian man who migrated to New England in the 1850s and
married a Native American woman. A few decades later, his
mother's family arrived in Boston from County Cork, Ireland.
``My mother was adamant about understanding the world and
people who are different from you,'' says Lafley. ``She was a
card-carrying member of the League of Women Voters. I
remember being dragged around in the '52, '56, and '60
presidential elections in neighborhoods we didn't live in.''
Lafley enrolled as a Ph.D. student in history before a
hitch in the Navy overseeing retail supply shifted his career
goals. After Harvard Business School, he joined Cincinnati-
based Procter & Gamble in 1977, becoming CEO in 2000 and
chairman in 2002.
For Lafley, diversity is a competitive advantage at a
company that employs 138,000 people from 140 nationalities
and ethnicities, and provides household and personal care
products for more than three billion consumers.
Lafley recalls a recent conversation with a young mother
and her family in a modest home on a hillside above Sao
Paulo, Brazil. ``We sit around the kitchen table,'' he says.
I learn through her story
``It may take a little longer to work across cultures and
languages,'' says Lafley, ``but we're going to come up with
more ideas and create something that will make a
difference.'' Sometimes the difference is big.
``We developed a unique and proprietary product that can
render any source of water anyplace in the world potable.''
Jean Nganji ``Are you Hutu or Tutsi?''
The question was raised by a teacher when Jean Nganji was a
seven-year-old schoolboy in Rwanda.
``Go home and ask your parents,'' the teacher commanded.
The next day, he recalls, ``I said, `I am Tutsi' ''
Nganji's parents then pushed him hard to excel academically.
``Why?'' he asked.
``Just listen,'' they said. ``Don't ask questions.''
The answer soon emerged, as Nganji was forced to repeat
grades, despite his competence, because he was Tutsi. When he
realized that a Tutsi admissions quota made it difficult to
attend college in Rwanda, he was accepted at a small school
in Massachusetts with the help of his friend Andre, who had
moved to America.
The two young men became college roommates soon after
Nganji arrived in the United States, in October 1989. But
Andre was Hutu, and a year later, with the outbreak of war,
the friendship ended.
The genocide started on April 6, 1994. On April 15, Nganji
learned that his parents and youngest brother were killed.
The daughter of his eldest brother, who perished, was saved
by her nanny, a Hutu woman who claimed the four-year-old was
her little sister.
Today, Nganji lives near Boston. He tells his story at
schools in America and travels regularly to Rwanda on a
project that helps Tutsi and Hutu youth tell their stories
through film. ``I have found therapy and peace talking to
young people.''
Do not fall into the traps of ignorance, bigotry, and racism
We are each part of America's journey
We did not leave history behind, like unwanted baggage at
immigration's door.
Our particular pasts and our shared present are wedded in
hyphenated names:
African-American,
Irish-American,
Italian-American,
Korean-American,
Polish-American.
We are not always on a first-name basis with one another.
But we quickly become acquainted in playgrounds and
classrooms, in college dorms and military barracks, and in
offices and factories.
We feel at home.
In some parts of the world, our differences would be
threatening.
We feel enriched.
In America, our differences resonate in our names,
language, food, and music. They inspire art and produce
champions and leaders.
We feel free to disagree.
We are a family, and what is a family gathering without
debate?
Gurpreet Singh Ahuja was completing his residency in New
Delhi, in 1984, when Indira Gandhi was assassinated.
Reports that the prime minister was shot by Sikhs set off
reprisals throughout India. ``As a physician in the hospital,
I saw the charred bodies of those young men and women.''
The violence contradicted his experience growing up. ``As a
Sikh, we're reminded to respect all faiths. They're all paths
to the same central truth.''
He and his wife, Jasjit Singh, also a doctor, moved to New
York, in 1986, where they continued their medical training
before moving to Washington, D.C., and then to Southern
California. They visited family in India annually.
``Every time I stepped foot back on American soil it would
give me a great sense of exhilaration and liberation.''
That feeling was tested in the aftermath of 9/11 and the
rash of hate crimes that began with the murder of a Sikh
living in Arizona. The events evoked memories of 1984. Says
Ahuja,
I never lost faith in the system in America
He helped establish the California Sikh Council to promote
tolerance and educate
people about the Sikh faith, and now serves as president of
the council. Jasjit Singh is vice president of the Central
Orange County Interfaith Council.
``As a relatively recent immigrant, I am very appreciative
of the opportunities that this country has given me,'' says
Ahuja. ``Our value system must remain steadfast. That's what
distinguishes us from most any other country in the world.''
Nina Totenberg ``Ninotchka, we're proud of you.''
Nina Totenberg still cherishes her father's words. She had
just endured a period of intense scrutiny after her reporting
led to testimony by law professor Anita Hill, during the
confirmation hearing of Justice Clarence Thomas.
Her father, Roman Totenberg, a world-renowned violinist,
performed across Europe by age eleven. A Polish Jew, he left
Europe in 1935. ``He saw the rise of Hitler,'' says his
daughter, ``but he came to America because it represented a
kind of equality and meritocracy that did not exist in
Europe.''
Nina Totenberg's mother, Melanie, shared her interest in
American politics. ``I remember my mother watching the Army-
McCarthy hearings on TV all day every day, explaining to me
what was going on,'' says Totenberg. ``I knew who all those
senators were and I was eight years old.''
At 16, reading The Making of the President, the classic
book about the 1960 election, Totenberg confirmed her
childhood desire to be a witness to history. ``I wanted to be
a reporter from the time I realized that I couldn't be Nancy
Drew.''
For the past three decades, Totenberg has reported for
National Public Radio and is best known for her coverage of
the Supreme Court. ``There are a lot of injustices in the
world and in this country,'' she says. ``The ones that I can
do something about--I will try to do something about.'' She
credits her father, who still teaches at age 97.
You can't get my dad to do something he thinks is not right
We believe in fairness.
In America, the loudest voice does not always have the last
word, and every voice has a right to be heard.
We act with hope.
Not because life is perfect, but because we are free to
face life, and all its imperfections, on our own terms.
We rely on faith.
In a sturdy and tested framework of law and government that
works because of the confidence we place in it and in each
other.
We are each responsible for keeping America on course
``Are we there yet?'' the children ask.
We know the answer.
We pursue justice.
But still have a way to go.
We celebrate freedom.
But endlessly debate what it means to be free.
Our table is brimming.
But not everyone receives a fair portion.
John Lewis Growing up in a large family on a small farm in
rural Alabama, John Lewis cared for the chickens.
When his parents wanted to sell or trade chickens, or have
one for dinner, ``I would protest,'' Lewis recalls. ``They
were creatures of God, and we didn't have a right to abuse
them.''
Lewis was fifteen in 1955, when Emmett Till, a black
teenager, was brutally murdered in Mississippi, Rosa Parks
refused to move to the back of the bus, and Martin Luther
King, Jr., organized the Montgomery bus boycott. Listening to
King on the radio, ``It was like he was saying, `John Lewis,
you can do it,
You, too, can make a contribution
Lewis went to Nashville, to study nonviolence and become a
minister. He participated in sit-in demonstrations, Freedom
Rides, and the creation of a campus group called the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
``Even when I was being beaten, I saw these individuals
almost like the chickens,'' he says. ``They were innocent
creatures and something happened to them.''
As chairman of SNCC, at 23, Lewis stood with King and other
civil rights leaders on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
during the March on Washington in August 1963, preaching,
``Wake up, America.'' He has exerted leadership in Congress
since 1986, representing the district around Atlanta. ``We've
made progress,'' says Lewis. ``The world is so different from
the world I grew up in.''
Still pursuing his vision of a ``beloved community,'' Lewis
asserts, ``We need to turn toward each other to create a
greater sense of community and belonging.''
Tasneem Shamim. In the late 1990s, at about age 40, Tasneem
Shamim began to feel spiritually empty.
She missed a sense of compassion and universality, which
she remembered from her childhood in India and could not find
in the mosques in New Jersey, where Shamim, a doctor, lives
with her husband and three children.
``One of my early memories is going with my grandmother to
the small villages. My grandmother started organizations to
help women out of poverty and oppression.''
To help reconnect with her feelings, Shamim visited the
holy sites in Mecca and Medina, and she decided to cover her
hair. Her mother and sister were concerned about potential
antagonism, and one friend asked, ``Do you have to go to
chemotherapy?''
For Shamim, the head scarf is an opportunity to prompt and
answer questions about Islam. Most important, it makes her
more conscious of her roles in life.
``You become a doctor mostly to please God. God says, `You
cannot help Me, but help the creatures that I have created.'
''
Shamim also began studying Sufism, a spiritual strand of
Islam. At the urging of a Sufi leader that she express her
religion in good works, Shamim established the Muslim Women's
Coalition, a national organization devoted to community
service and mutual respect.
People accept that America is a quilt
Progress can be slow as we propose and protest, argue and
advocate.
But we are grateful to be part of this vigorous democracy.
We enjoy its unparalleled privileges and accept its
obligations:
To pursue our dreams while helping others.
To advance our convictions while respecting others.
To prepare our children for the gift of the American
journey.