Member Articles

If you have been listening to Barack Obama, you will hear him frequently refer to “hard work.” If you listen to Bill Cosby, he will also refer to “hard work.” Then there are those that mope and say because I am black, female, immigrant, or whatever else -- I can’t get the same opportunity as the white men.

My parents came to this country when I was 11. None of us spoke English, and we started our life on welfare. We felt no entitlement. All we heard was the opportunities this country offers. So my parents and older siblings went out there and explored the opportunities and took full advantage. Today, I, as an adult, take full advantage. Also today, none of us are on welfare. All of my siblings own a house or an apartment, work, and pay taxes.

Yes, I can sit around and say, "Because I am a woman, I don’t have the opportunities that American born men have." But I don’t. It’s because I am a woman I will fight and work harder to create more opportunities. It’s all about working hard and overcoming obstacles, to get where you want to be. Feeling of entitlement will get you sitting on welfare forever.

So what if you have to work harder to prove or show the world your capabilities? If you come from the population that was once deprived of opportunity, then that’s what you have to do -- work hard.

If people were only used to seeing women as housewives and secretaries and now we want to be executives we have to work harder to show that we can. If people once saw me as someone who doesn’t speak English and now I want to write books in English, I have to work harder to show that I can.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had to work very hard to get as far as they did because we as a society are not used to seeing black men or women run for president.

Please notice how Obama always talks about opportunity and hard work. I never hear him complain about being black and deprived. And that’s why he made history.