Happy Birthday, Mr.President
Dear Mr.President,
Happy Birthday!
OFA suggested each of us who is on its presumably 300 million-strong mailing list and actually reads its emails (who doesn’t? They are great!) share “a favourite moment” to make your special day extra-special for you. As many great things in life come and should come in doubles, double-scoop ice cream, two-term presidency, President Clintons…I thought I might indulge in sharing two moments, one in 2008, and the other in 2012.
In fall of 2008, I was a college senior, taking the GRE and preparing graduate school applications. I watched your first TV debate with Senator McCain: at the end when each of you were asked to make a closing statement, you talked about your father, and his efforts to come to the United States from Kenya to study, because “there was no other country on earth, where you can make it if you try”.
That line hit me like no other.
I was born and raised in China, in a medium-sized city to a family of teachers and academics. In 1999, as a nine-year-old I had my first contact with the United States, when my father, a professor in mechanical science and engineering, worked as a visiting scientist at UCSD and we spent nine-months in sunny La Jolla. My father’s appointment at UCSD was temporary, and when it was time to leave, all of our Chinese friends tried to persuade my parents otherwise. They told my parents, citing their own stories, that they should make whatever sacrifices necessary to stay in the US, FOR ME:
because “if you go back to China now, in ten, fifteen years, your daughter would be going through the same struggles as you are now, to try to come to the US, and to stay”.
I did not quite understand the statement at the time, but it carried such power and weight that it’s seared into my memory.
It was a difficult decision, but my family returned to China on August 26, 1999. A lot happened in the months and years since, but not a single day passed by that I did not long for a life on the other side of the ocean. I knew education would be my only path, and as I started my senior year of college with my mind set on pursuing a PhD in elementary particle physics, my American dream finally felt within reach. It was very stressful, nevertheless, with the competitiveness of the process, and the unfolding financial crisis made the prospects even more uncertain especially for international applicants.
Hearing the nominee of a major party for the presidency of the United States recall a similar personal endeavor of his father, at that moment I felt I was not alone. I felt understood. I felt encouraged.
I landed at O’Hare International Airport on August 22, 2009, to start in the physics PhD program at the University of Chicago, almost ten years later to the date of the day my family left San Diego.
I lived in Hyde Park, on 51st and Dorchester, a few blocks away from your Woodlawn residence. Just around the corner on 53rd and Dorchester is a Subway shop, which used to be Baskin Robbins. A few years after I first arrived, a plaque was placed there, reading “On this site, President Barack Obama first kissed Michelle Obama”.
Living in Chicago, for the first time in my life I felt free. Personal elements aside, I was also finally free to learn about politics and world affairs without the filters of censorship and propaganda. I gradually realized I’m a liberal, with a firm belief in the role of government and progressive social values. When the year 2012 came around, and I got an email from OFA asking for volunteers to help out with the campaign, I signed up without hesitation, even though at the time not quite knowing what it meant.
Sometime later in the fall, I got a call from one of the OFA staffers: I explained that I was a foreign student and could not vote or donate, but I would be very happy to contribute my time as a volunteer if that’s allowed. A few days later, I found myself at the field office on 51st and Lake Park, dialing voters in the battleground states of Iowa and Wisconsin.
My role in the 2012 campaign was miniscule, an epsilon at best, but the impact of that experience to me was profound. For the first time in my life, I was not a mere bystander in an electoral process; I had an active role to play, albeit small as an individual, when accumulated enmass truly made a difference. Every second I spent at that office space, jam-packed with enthusiastic volunteers and dedicated staff, was among the most inspiring moments I’ve ever experienced.
I was witnessing democracy in action at ground zero.
This is an embarrassingly long-winded way to come to the second moment I would like to share with you, in fall of 2012 close to the election, my first day at the phone bank.
One of my calls was to a number in Wisconsin. Majority of these calls were unanswered. The answered ones were usually very brief. This one was different. A lady picked up the phone, and yelled at me for a stretch of several minutes, venting her frustration of receiving too many calls from us “political people”.
It was my first day volunteering: I was high on both caffeine and emotion. Somehow I felt the urge to say something.
“Ma’am, I understand your frustration. But please hear me say this: I was born and raised in China; in my country, and in many parts of the world, many people are willing to sacrifice a lot of things, from their freedom to their lives, in order to get a call like this, asking them to cast a vote for president.”
I clocked in enough hours to “earn” a ticket to McCormick Place on Election Night 2012, to hear your victory speech in person. At the end of that historic night, I walked around the convention hall as the crowd slowly dispersed, trying to soak in the afterglow of the moment just a bit longer. I stumbled upon a news crew from the leading satellite TV station in Hong Kong, and was asked to say a few words on how I felt.
The next day, a few of my friends from China told me they saw me on TV. One of them kindly sent me a link, where to my chagrin was me saying “I remember four years ago I was still back in China, and I was watching (the election) on TV and online, and thinking that I wish one day I could be here; and four years later HERE I AM.”
“You looked SO HAPPY”, my friend teased me.
I was happy. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.
After the election, a guy you know well by the name of David Axelrod came back to his alma mater, University of Chicago to open the Institute of Politics (IOP). I credit Mr.Axelrod, or “Axe” as he’s endearingly called, the second most important individual in my PhD years (the first being my PhD advisor, the unimpeachable Mel Shochet). The IOP gave me amazing experiences beyond my wildest imaginations, among which were opportunities to meet or even get to know many senior members of your campaign and your administration. Every single one of those encounters has reaffirmed to me that the American democracy, despite its flaws and the many frustrations in the process, is still a force for good, is still worth believing in and fighting for, and is still a beacon of hope for many darker corners of the globe.
Thank you, Mr.President, for inspiring me at the very beginning of this journey and ever since, for reminding me of why I came across the oceans.
I wish you a very happy birthday.
Yours sincerely,
Yangyang Cheng
Ithaca, NY
P.S. I recently graduated from University of Chicago with my PhD in physics, and now work as a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University’s Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-Based ScienceS and Education (CLASSE).
