Founder and President, Journal of democracy; Democratic Party of former President, Arizona; Author of "The next deal" and "Candy bombers"
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At this time when Washington is convulsed with discussions on reviewing major immigration laws in a generation, the life and work of a man named Paul Soros, who spent last week at the age of 87, is not only enlightening, but inspiring.
Born to a Jewish family in Hungary, Paul Soros fled from the Nazis and escaped from a Russian prison before coming to the United States with 17 dollars in the Pocket in 1948. The engineering firm that established a few years later came to dominate the industry for the construction of ports and help make the world economy possible.
All this would be, to the passage of this gentle man, remarkably courtesan. But in the final chapter of his long life, Paul Soros launched another effort which, even with his past, leaves a major say in the current debates.
Fifteen years ago, along with his wife Margarita, Paul Soros established a "scholarship for new Americans" to support studies of postgraduate of immigrants and children of immigrants. In the obituary from the New York Times last week, the scholarship was an afterthought; a single sentence in the second to last paragraph. However, in the context of the current struggle for citizenship and immigration, it serves as a vital reminder.
In the last fifteen years, 475 Americans have been awarded the grant of Soros. They and their families come from all corners of the globe, often escaping persecution and poverty only to find more difficulties and fight after arriving in this new land. However reading through the biographies of these men and women is more stories not only of new Americans but of the ideals America antique is reborn again.
These are the men and women who grew up sharing a single room with their entire families and are now brilliant physicists and doctors, the ambassadors of United States and Government officials, great poets and writers, pianists and violinists, executives, corporations and the public school systems in large cities, Ivy League professors and producers of the Emmy Awardpublic interest lawyers and leading nonprofit.
In short, these men and women represent much of the best of America--our ability to serve not only is a magnet for people from all over the world, but to provide opportunity for them and their children.
However, their stories have sometimes been lost in the current struggle of immigration in Washington. That debate often gets boiled for nativist voices concerned with the construction of a fence with Mexico on one side and urged greater openness highly qualified worldwide by other scientists. There are some calls to push more doors of United States open to refugee families tired, poor, without education of Haiti, Cambodia and Yemen.
But Paul Soros understands that the most important thing is not just degrees of higher education institutions, but the degree of determination and effort of an individual. That's what immigrants, even without skills highly valued technology and prestigious diplomas, historically bring with them to America - if they landed on Ellis Island or LAX. -Much more than the $17 in your Pocket - what Paul Soros brought with him to America 65 years ago. And an infusion of this perspective takes charge, brave - even more than engineers, and certainly more fences - is what America needs right now.
The New York Times called Soros "the invisible Soros." And it is true that it was not a figure of the world in the form of his younger brother, George. However, in his unassuming way, work and generosity in the Foundation and financing of this scholarship for immigrants and their children it makes visible the stories that have always been at the heart of the American experience. It is a powerful legacy that will live for generations to come.
Andrei Cherny of follow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/andreicherny
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