From War-Torn Hungary to U.S. Surgeon & Advocate

Dr. Balazs Ernie Bodai is a highly respected surgeon in Sacramento and is the brains behind the fundraising breast cancer research postage stamp, which is used in countries around the world. He is also a medical device inventor, an international speaker, an author of several books, a cancer survivor and one heck of a nice guy.

Born in Hungary, Dr. Bodai remembers the time when his family fled to an underground shelter in Budapest in 1956 during a Russian invasion. "It was freezing, damp, and miserable," he recalls. "My mother would rub my hands and blow her warm breath on them to keep them from turning blue and freezing."

He believes she had a sixth sense that day recognizing that her son's hands would some day save lives.

Dr. Bodai's life in the United States has been a true success story and he credits his family's inspiration as being a big contributor to it.

When Dr. Bodai speaks to graduating medical students, he always mentions his parents whose work included houskeeping at buildings to make ends meet, even though his father had been a nuclear physicist in Hungary.

"My father was my hero," he tells them and he has infinite gratitude for his parents' sacrifices and the opportunites he has had in America.

Now, a new development in Dr. Bodai's life - being nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor.

Dr. Bodai is living proof that children of immigrants make incredible contributions to American society, and sometimes, to those who live around the globe.

Switching Friends & Identity Irony

Today, I interviewed Ramandeep Chand, who was born in Detroit, Michigan, raised in Missouri and is a child of immigrants from India.

Chand grew up in a community where being a child of foreign-born parents was exceptionally rare. She had no problems with her classmates in elementary school, but things changed dramatically when the whole community ended up in the same middle school "As soon as I got to junior high, my friends from the sixth grade wouldn't talk to me anymore," she recalls.

So, Chand says she ended up making new friends, most of whom were African Americans. "Whites saw me as colored or foreign while Black kids liked me because I wasn't White," Chand tells me.

Since then, the majority of Chand's friends have been members of minority groups.

She thinks it's ironic that in America, most people look at her and don't think she's an American while in India, people there believe she's an American and not an Indian.

Can't wait to write her whole story!

Hable Child of Immigrants?

Picture this…I’m standing on a downtown Los Angeles street impatiently awaiting my friend, who’s ½ hour late picking me up. A man, who appears to be in his 40’s approaches me, carrying a small white piece of paper in his hand. He asks me something in Spanish and I clumsily answer, “No hable Espanol.”

He seems a bit frantic and repeats his question in Spanish to others on the street, and within seconds, he finds someone who speaks his language.

From what I could gather, he needed help dialing a number to reach someone who’s supposed to pick him up at the same place.

We stand a few feet apart staring in the same direction and he tries again to engage me in conversation. Somehow we communicate, with me telling him the few words I know in Spanish and with him telling me that he is from Mexico and then with pride he shares, “Jaqueline – daughter – born U.S.A.”

His ride pulls up before mine.

“Adios,” I yell.

“Goodbye. Goodbye,” he says.