Two grateful Americans.
After meeting with Murat Guzel and touring his company in Allentown, Pennsylvania, I was overwhelmed with inspiration.
The founder of Nimeks Organics, Mr. Guzel runs a company that offers a rich cornucopia of organic food and drinks. Arriving in the U.S. from Turkey over 30 years ago, he is every inch the American Dream: a self-made CEO who built a sprawling enterprise from scratch. This business magnate is the consummate gentleman, personally showing me and my father around his brand new facilities and showering us with extraordinary kindness. He was so gracious towards us that the my father was proud of me for having such an incredible friend. The professionalism and warmth displayed by his staff speak volumes about his own leadership and the amount of respect that they have for him.
Recently I received a powerful letter from Mr. Guzel, which he sent to a group of his civically minded friends. In it, he recounted the famous scene in which Benjamin Franklin declared that after months of vacillating, he finally decided that the sun etched on the back of George Washington’s chair was not setting but rising. Indeed, that is the vision of America that illuminates the minds of first-generation immigrants like me and Mr. Guzel. Life is all the sweeter when you’ve experienced the alternative. Liberty versus oppression. Freedom of speech versus suppression of speech. Tiananmen. Jailed journalists. Scars on the countries that bore us and that we have left behind.
We don’t take America for granted for a second.
Last summer alongside Mr. Guzel, I spoke at an event with Kathleen Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy’s daughter and President John F. Kennedy’s niece. Prior to my speech, I had told him in confidence what my dream job was, thinking that my secret would be safe with him. As I divulged my secret hope to him, a hologram of my mother’s disapproving face loomed in my mind, given the heartbreaking reality that I, a Chinese-American woman, was raised to shun ambition and strength as unwomanly traits.
With Kathleen Kennedy and other luminaries in the audience, I began my remarks only to be gently interrupted by Mr. Guzel, who then proceeded to announce to the entire crowd the aspiration that I had shared with him moments before. His exposé dashed fear into my heart, as I worried that the audience would ridicule me for even entertaining such a dream.
But that’s not what happened at all.
Before I knew it, Kathleen Kennedy had rushed out of the audience, embracing me. Others responded with similar graciousness, with one kind soul quipping, “If you don’t ever tell us what you want, how can we possibly help you get there?”
Mr. Guzel made this unforgettable moment possible. His revelation allowed me to see once again the beauty and magnitude of American democracy. Whatever the challenges our country faces, the granddaughter of illiterate rice farmers is allowed to dream with abandon in America. And so is he.
Immigrants have a deep gratitude toward America that is especially poignant. We are here to give and to empower — in the spirit of John Winthrop — this shining nation upon the hill, with the eyes of all people upon us.
For me, Mr. Murat Guzel, with his boundless vision, is the quintessential American.