"Ahnold"

There is something that is so obvious that it never dawned on me to notice it, but Julian Sanchez pointed it out and it is worth commenting on.

I hate actors. I never want to hear them talk, except when they are reading lines off cue-cards. So seeing him win did not exactly bring joy to my heart.

But sometimes I look around, and I see people who are my teachers, people who run stores I shop in, my students, and countless others with these foreign accents. These people came here because here is better then where they were. They may have been oppressed, poor, persecuted, out of luck, discriminated against, tortured, disillusioned, disenfranchised, or just looking for a better opportunity. They came here because they believed in the American dream. They left their country's politics behind. They still have allegiances, emotional and historical attachments to their home country, but what becomes important is the opportunity they have here. That is the story of countless immigrants. Many immigrants make it, and for most their children do. They integrate in to US society and their children are as much a part of the country as the descendants of the Mayflower. Now we have a guy whose name we can't even spell without the accent "Ahnold" who is from the country which produced our greatest enemy in the second World War, and has ancestors that fought against us in the war. And he lives the American dream. Worked hard, never lost the accent, went to Hollywood, and now governs one of our states. Like that Russian comedian used to say "What a country". Where else can this happen where a guy with a foreign accent can make it like this without appealing to his own constituency. He did not appeal to Austrian-American voters. He did not run with an immigrant agenda (though that might have worked well in CA), nor did he have to. He is as American as anyone else by dint of having lived the American dream in America as an American. There were no issues of him not being "American enough", there were no issues of his ability to represent the people of California, there were no issues of him not being "culturally American". There were no issues of racial purity, or even of having been born here, educated here, or even liking the country. But now he is governor.

THAT my friends is what makes this country better than all others.