From Immigrant to Business Owner
I came to this country from another country when I was a baby. It wasn’t safe where I was born. There was a war. There was a lot of fighting. I was left in an orphanage and separated from my family when I was a baby. Fortunately for me, there was a kind lady who came and flew me out of that country that was at war. Her name was Betty. She used her gifts and talents to get me out of that place filled with fighting. It really wasn’t safe.
They loaded me and a whole bunch of other babies onto an airplane and flew us to the United States. That was me as a baby in one of those cribs. When I came to the United States, I was very sick. I had about a 10% chance of living. There wasn’t much food where I came from. Food was hard to come by, and even when people could find it, they often couldn’t afford it. So I became very, very sick.
That’s why I had to leave where I was. The water wasn’t good. The food wasn’t good. I had to leave my country just to stay alive. And when you don’t have enough food, sometimes it’s hard to talk. Sometimes it’s hard to learn and grow. The people who care about us, when there isn’t enough food, they get stressed. They get upset. They get frustrated. I spent more time connected to hospital machines than I did with actual people when I was a baby.
But I was fortunate—I was adopted by a couple here in this country.
So I want you to know: you’re not alone. I come from another country too. I came from a place where there was a lot of fighting, where there wasn’t enough food, and I had to escape my life as well.
My first experience with computers looked very different than yours. I’m going to show you what we did. We would put in code, just like you do now with your robots to move the turtle around. The code would make a little turtle move across the screen.
That was what we did. We didn’t work with robots and laptops like you do. We had machines like this. Then in seventh grade, when I went to school, they had Apple computers. Back then, Apple didn’t make phones or tablets—just computers like the one you see there.
I spent a lot of time on computers at school. But this is what games looked like for us. You would put a disk inside, turn it on, and wait. And yes—Donkey Kong. That’s what it looked like when I was your age.
This is what programming looked like when I was your age. You could enter a command like “HOME,” and it would move the cursor to the top of the screen. Then you would type something like:
PRINT “HI”
And the computer would print “HI.” That’s just a command. A program had multiple lines. So we would write:
Line 10: PRINT “HI”
Line 20: GOTO 10
Then you would type RUN, and it would print “HI” over and over again across the screen.
That’s what we did.
We didn’t have Facebook. There was no internet. So how did we talk to each other?
We had to dial each other’s computers—just like dialing a phone. This was called a bulletin board system. When you connected, you saw a welcome screen. You entered your user number and your password. Then you saw how many people were online. Back then, 14 people was a big number.
You’d get a menu. If you wanted to chat, you had to type “CHAT” and see if anyone was on the other end. If you wanted to check email, you went to what we called the post office. Once a day, messages would come in. If you left a message at 2:00, it might not be picked up until 11:00, and then you’d get a reply later. That was email when I was growing up.
I started in the 1990s. I know that sounds like a long time ago. I started making websites because of this new thing called the internet. One night, I stayed up with a cup of coffee in my apartment and taught myself how to write lines of code that became web pages—just like you write code for your robots today.
I went back and found one of my very first websites. That was what the internet looked like when I was younger. I created music websites to help artists promote their music. With practice, I got better.
Eventually, a television network called MTV reached out to me. They had seen my work. A singer named Brandy’s mother was the first person who hired me. That’s when I realized I could make money building websites—helping people promote their work, sell things, or provide services.
Today, I run my own company. I build websites for businesses to help them grow, make money, and provide for their families. At their core, businesses are just groups of people—people who help others by fulfilling wants, needs, and desires.
During COVID-19, many businesses were struggling to stay open. They would hire me because if they didn’t, they might have to let their employees go. Those employees wouldn’t be able to put food on the table. So it became my job to help those businesses grow and survive.
I’m also here with the Hispanic Family Foundation—the group that runs programs like this. I help them for free. I don’t charge them anything. I try to use my gifts and talents, just like that woman did 50 years ago when she helped bring me out of Vietnam.
We all grow throughout our lives. We pick up different gifts, skills, and talents. And every single one of you has gifts inside of you. You have the opportunity to use those gifts to help others.
Maybe today it’s robots. But maybe one day it’s something bigger—an artificial limb, a new invention, something that saves lives.
Somebody used their gifts 50 years ago to rescue me and bring me here. I try to use my gifts every day to help others.
And I want to encourage you:
You have the strength to overcome challenges. You have the strength to get through difficult times. I believe in every one of you. You have the ability to overcome what’s in front of you and succeed.
You have hope. You have a future. And you are going to make a difference in this world.
Source:
🔥 Quick note (important for your site)
This is already strong—but if you want, next step I’d recommend:
tant piece of your story—you spoke directly to your younger self here whether you realized it or not.
