Today, six out of ten Americans want no more immigrants - of any kind. This is not good for America. Optimism and hope drive immigrants. Pessimists don't emigrate. Immigrants come with energy, looking for opportunity, but not for entitlements or comfort. Coming from the outside, they see opportunities for innovation and they kindle renewal. They spur the economy by their hard work, ready assumption of risk and entrepreneurial instincts, but also by their very presence as consumers and tax payers. Because they relive the frontier experience which founded our society, they buttress and strengthen our culture. They believe in our institutions and thereby affirm their validity. Their offspring observe their parents' struggles and often see examples of the American Dream realized. Thus inspired, and frequently well educated, these children contribute a fresh, often cosmopolitan outlook. Immigrants play also a leading role in the succession and replacement of tiring elites. If we resist continued, well-considered legal immigration, we shall stagnate economically and culturally. "Immigrants in Their Own Voice" advocates a change in US immigration policies to encourage a steady flow of qualified legal immigrants. We want them of all kinds - the well educated, the highly skilled, and those merely willing to work hard and to improve themselves. The author has populated this book with the voices of several dozen actual immigrants and with those of their children and grandchildren. They comprise individuals of various social conditions and from thirty-seven countries. Their voices animate the narrative and testify to their experiences of America. An immigrant himself, the author's voice frames the others. This book hopes to contribute to a national debate about the crucial value of continuing immigration.
About the Author: Alexander Kugushev was born in France to Russian parents. He was educated successively in Yugoslavia, Austria, Switzerland and Argentina. With his widowed mother, he lived as a boy and into his early teens through World War II, the defining experience of his life. He is a journalist by trade and by profession an educational publisher, in print and on the internet. He founded and was the CEO of CyberGnostics, an online publisher. In consequence of his somewhat tumultuous biography, he speaks seven languages and has developed an insatiable appetite for travel, at this point to well over seventy countries. He is a naturalized American, lives in Menlo Park, in Northern California, and is the author of "Resilient America" and of "Under The Wheel of History," as well as of "Immigrants in Their Own Voice."