Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Chasing the American dream
Newport Beach Merage Foundation honors immigrants and their goals, accomplishments.
By BRITTANY LEVINE
The Orange County Register
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WASHINGTON – The American dream isn't just for Americans anymore, at least that is what a Newport Beach foundation demonstrated Tuesday night at a dinner honoring 17 immigrants—five who have already achieved that dream and 12 recent college grads starting to think about theirs.

The Merage Foundation awarded $20,000 stipends to each graduate, known as American Dream Fellows, and honored the five already accomplished immigrants for lifetime achievement. The awardees are meant to be role models for other immigrants and the young graduates represent the future leaders of America, said Paul Merage, an Iranian immigrant who invented "Hot Pockets" and created the foundation. The organization recognizes immigrant contributions to society and aims to foster nonpartisan discussion of immigration issues in the United States.

"These are some of the best the immigrant community gives us," he said. "They show other immigrants that look other people from your background, your country came here and succeeded in this country and you can too."

The common thread that tied the awardees together was hard work and determination to live the American dream.

"Like crazy I worked my whole life since I can remember," said Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, who hopped the fence at the California-Mexico border with $65 in his pocket "like Spiderman" in 1987. He is now a professor of neurological surgery and oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and performs about 240 brain tumor operations a year.

"As long as there is poverty in other countries, as long as people are dying for lack of health care or human rights, people are still going to come here, no matter how big the fence is. It's very difficult to stop people from pursuing their dreams," Hinojosa said.

The four other awardees included: Zbigniew Brzezinski , former U.S. National Security Advisor and Foreign Policy Scholar; Edwidge Danticat , author and National Book Critic Circle Award winner; Kati Marton, journalist and human rights activist; and Hamid Moghadam, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of AMB Property Corporation, a global development firm.

The student fellows, who came here from as close as Mexico to as far as Iran and Lithuania, have dreams of becoming surgeons, infectious disease researchers, experts on climate change and immigration law experts. After the speeches made by the awardees, the fellows introduced themselves and shared their goals. Most had strong desires to give back to immigrant communities or underdeveloped countries.

The symbiotic relationship between America and its immigrants was also a common thought.

"Immigrants represent the lifeblood, the oxygen of this country," said Marton, who fled Hungary after her parents, two journalists, were imprisoned by communists after World War II. "This event reminds us what America still stands for; we are an America of immigrants."

Contact the writer: (202-628-6381) or blevine@ocregister.com






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