Hirono, she and her mother are immigrants. Carol Roberts indicates that her parents were
immigrants. Monica L. Monica indicates that her grandparent(s) were the ones who emigrated,
and Anton Srdanovic does not even quite specify what it means that his parents are “from
immigrant backgrounds”—perhaps they emigrated, perhaps a generation or two before them did.
Referencing the immigration of one’s grandparents means the story of one’s status in the U.S.
could be told several different ways. I myself could describe my parents as being the children of
immigrant families, whose parents, through military service to the country in WWII, found a
foothold in American life in the housing projects in Newark, NJ, that at the time catered to
returning service members. I could describe my parents as the first generation of their families
to not only graduate high school, but finish college and get advanced degrees as well—of course
while working hard to put themselves through school. Or I could just as truthfully and more
simply describe my parents (by the time I met them) as being highly educated and upper-middle
class people who were born in the U.S. There are a million pieces of information a person could
give about their formative years growing up with their families; the pieces of information that the
candidates in this study are choosing to convey aggregate to a story about the American dream.
Public Service
Candidates use references to their families of origin to convey a sense of how important
public service is to them as individuals:
The son of a U.S. foreign service officer, Chris Van Hollen spent part of his childhood
overseas living in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Turkey. This experience left a deep
impression -- it underscored the many advantages most of us in this country enjoy and
how others in the world look to America to lead the way. These experiences also formed
the basis of Chris’ early commitment to public service.
Christopher Van Hollen, D Maryland, candidate for House District 8
My parents always taught my brother and sisters and me that you should look for ways to
help your neighbors and make a difference where you live. My father called it “adding to
the community woodpile.”
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Convention