The American Dream story of my family started when my parents decided to immigrate to America in the late 1980s. Aspired by freedom that the United States represented, they believed that if they put in the hard work anything was possible in the Land of the Free. My dad’s career had experienced many ups and downs. He went from teaching at the University of Minnesota to a paperboy delivering Star Tribunes to make the ends meet. Later he became a journalist for a local newspaper, interviewed Governor Jesse Ventura at the State Capitol; and joined his international delegation trip to China as a news reporter. My mom is a pioneer in the Chinese medicine and acupuncture practices in the State of Minnesota. She organized a team of eastern medicine doctors to go to Washington DC convincing the legislators to have acupuncture treatments covered by insurance companies.

When I was still a little kid living in the Communist China, I wasn't certain when I would be able to join my parents in the US. But every time when I saw the stars and stripes waving in the sky, I knew in my heart that flag symbolized Freedom! But the Chinese CCP government refused to issue me a passport to leave the country as a way to make my parents return back to China. My parents reached out to the State Auditor Mark Dayton for help and he did all he could persuading the Chinese government to release me. Eventually, I received my passport after Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of States in the Nixon Administration wrote a letter to the Chinese government. When I was 12 years old I flew across the Pacific Ocean by myself leaving the communist state behind. Upon seeing the shiny cars dashing on the freeways while landing at LAX, I realized that I had arrived in the land of the Free, and thus my journey in the free world began.