We’ve got a kid (39 years old) living in Los Angeles. He’s been laid off since the pandemic, I mean the government shutdown began.

If not for bicycles, he’d be like a fly pestering his son and girlfriend all the time. But he’s also doing the human thing, helping a neighbor. A Vietnamese lady has dementia and can use some help, like when she locks herself out of her apartment. She was rescued from the communists in Vietnam and has a son here who is busy driving around in Teslas and Porsches instead of being a good son.

There is a huge disparity between the success of people of color who are recent immigrants and the native born. Hans’ neighbor has seen the horrors of a world in chaos such as we and the communists created in Vietnam. Her son, influenced by his education that “the rich,” through the state, can provide for any shortfall in ambition and ability, sees his responsibility to care for his mom as a distraction.

There’s another refugee whose story can be illustrative of the root causes of many issues that we argue about today. Vice Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris’s mom fled the confines of the super regulatory and discriminatory state of India to study science at U.C. Berkeley at the age of 19.

Shyamala Gopalan was raised in the Tamil Brahmin culture of Southern India. In 1965, after an easing of immigration laws many Tambrams, as they were commonly known, immigrated to the United States. Their culture demanded discipline. They focused on revering educators and scientists rather than the usual movie stars. The parents and grandparents demanded punctuality and even gave homework in addition to what the teachers at school required.

The Tambrams are a very small minority in India and quotas introduced as early as the 1947 liberation on India from England steadily eroded the quality of government and private management. A ceiling was put on initiative in order to earn votes from the masses.

Shyamala did participate in civil rights demonstrations at Berkeley. She had an innate desire to work for the betterment of man. This was later expressed in her work that helped change the direction of breast cancer research.

There are other examples of Tambrams who were allowed to excel by United States law that protects opportunity. Two Nobel Laureates in science, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and numerous other doctors and engineers number among Tambrams who have helped make life better for all of us.

The idea that the United States suppresses achievement by minorities comes into question when a sect that only comprises 2.5% of Indian society can furnish such outlandish accomplishments.

Kamala Harris could truly make a difference by focusing on her entire heritage as an example of the potential we have here. Part of it shrugged off the victimhood being rammed down our throats in favor of hard work and determination, and it worked fine.