I expected to wake up to the first female president.
Well, today I learned America’s general attitude toward women, minorities, immigrants and the economy, and I’m here to say this:
I believe in my own ability to influence over any president.
As an Asian female immigrant entrepreneur, I work on helping smart and educated immigrants unleash their potential every day.
Part of the reason why I started The Successful Immigrants was because of my sadness over conversations with cab drivers who had foreign Ph.D.s.
But the other part of me started my movement because EVERYWHERE I looked, it was immigrants kicking ass and starting amazing businesses that powered the economy:
The Turkish jewelry shop owner that replaces my watch battery
The Korean grocery store where I shop for my veggies
The Chinese restaurant owners who start franchises
The Thai landlady that owns multiple properties
The Persian lawyer who handles my immigration cases
Not to mention my clients who reach the highest levels of education and become GIS analysts for the government and software engineers for booming companies that need their talent.
I’m not scared at all, because you know why?
Any time you want to find the most fearless motherfuckers of any country, you look at their immigrants.
You look at people who are brave enough to give up their ties to everything familiar to start a dream.
They’ve had to risk being embarrassed because of their English skills.
They’ve had to risk literally the enjoyment of their lives because it hurts too much to not give their dreams a shot.
You look at people who get called chink, gook, wetbacks, terrorists and worse, doing jobs that no native-born American would, reaching educational levels that they don’t manage to reach.
I’m not worried about them, because we thrive under any economy, in any country, regardless of what is externally happening we are crazy enough to give our dreams a shot.
I will never tell my clients to move out of this country because of one person, because I know they can succeed here.
Because there will never be one person who can block your success path.
And I will never give any one person so much power.
Because I have seen people who started literally from the bottom and were able to prosper in this country.
And everywhere you look around you see people like this:
Sergey Brin, Russian immigrant who co-founded Google.
Carlos Slim, the richest man in Mexico with a Lebanese background.
Arianna Huffington, who came from Greece to the U.S. and started The Huffington Post.
As well as the 40 percent of immigrant- and children-of-immigrant-started Fortune 500 Companies.
You can hate immigrants, go ahead.
You think they’re taking jobs?
It’s jobs that nobody wants.
Starting a small business because of discrimination and working years and years to make it successful.
Doing the dirty field work that no American wants to do.
Studying for years to land a high tech engineering job that America lacks.
Go ahead.
The playing field is level.
One of the smartest things that America does is to attract the best and the brightest.
And this year was no different ― this year, six of America’s Nobel Prize winners were immigrants.
No matter what the political climate is, I believe that each individual person has 100 percent more power over their lives than anyone at the office.
Remember in 2008 where we chanted “Yes We Can”?
Well, guess what, you can, any time you want, regardless of the election.
It’s funny to me how much faith we put into any one person over ourselves.
What have we done OURSELVES in the past four years?
We can laugh and mock Hillary and Trump all we want, but they gave it their best ― can we say that for ourselves?
Still optimistic and sleeping well tonight knowing that I know TONS of kickass women, minority, immigrant entrepreneurs being amazing EVERY DAY, not just once every four years.
x
Li
P.S. Don’t want the government to run the next four years of your life? If you are a Successful Immigrant who believes in their American Dream, join the Successful Immigrants Facebook group here to support each other through the next presidency and beyond!