Autobiography - The Galindo Group

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Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 36 had begun their children’s education in the port city of Haifa, Palestine. When trouble started contemporaneously with the creation of the State of Israel in the late 1940’s, Saba and his brother were sent to school in Beirut, Lebanon. In their mind this was to be a temporary duty that would only last until the Israeli presence was legally defined. After their education, they would come back better qualified to run the family’s business, thus realizing their parents’ dream. As now can be seen in retrospect, this turned out to be wishful thinking, for more than fifty years later the Israeli take-over is still going on. Saba’s father was not only unable to bring his boys home, but he also was despoiled without compensation of everything he had worked for all his life. Mr. Halaby, Sr. and his brother were the British Land Rover and the Firestone Tire dealers for Palestine. They operated a thriving and growing enterprise. When in the early 1950’s Saba’s parents left Haifa to see their children in Beirut, their home, including the furniture, fixtures and even toiletries and linens was confiscated. Their business with the entire inventory and even the bank accounts was closed down without compensation. Not only did they lose every material thing, but worst of all, they lost their chance to pursue a lifetime dream. Having never been allowed to return to Haifa and after his wife’s death, Saba’s father took voluntary exile in Greece. A few years before his death, he was eventually able to see Saba as a successful real estate entrepreneur in Killeen, Texas. Saba, much like me, had decided to adopt the United States of America as his new country and here pursue his dreams. The fear of looting by a heavy-handed government apparatus was gone. He was able to unleash his creative efforts and successfully risk his future to provide housing in markets where he thought there was a demand that he could help abate. His story is another example of how important America becomes in the search for the best place to pursue dreams! In June 2000, while taking bids for a real estate project my company was building, I met Mingshan Zhu, a hard-working Chinese who, taking advantage of some of the recent freedoms allowed in parts of China, decided that his future belonged to America, not to China. At age 40, with wife and daughter, he decided to learn English and move to Houston, Texas, to import granite and marbles from his native China. Somehow in the inscrutable ways of today’s Chinese economy, he had managed to put away some savings. Abandoning his then favorable position and a better life than most Chinese residents of Shanghai, he is now in Houston struggling, and succeeding, like the proverbial new immigrant. The difficulties for an English speaker in learning another Romanic language where the letters are the same and most words have a common root pale in comparison with the difficulties in going from a pictogram-based language where there are no letters or even common sounds. From my personal experience, I can testify that as an adult it is very difficult to enunciate new sounds in a way not learned as a child. Yet Ming is trying, getting better by the day. After four years in America, his daughter already sounds like a native and has become a scholarship concert pianist. Autobiography.doc 36 of 239
Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 37 Ming’s difficulty is not only with language. By listening to him, coming to America was really like arriving in an alien world. He had to learn as a middle-aged man all the things that most of us have known since childhood. Yet, Ming is establishing a successful rock supply and installation business able to compete with anyone else in town. The homes he builds in the expensive Galleria district of Houston are highly sought after. He is an inspiring example of how America can unleash the creative powers of individuals by giving them the promise of the just and guaranteed enjoyment of the product from their work. As he says, he never would have been able to accomplish this in China without bribing half his Chinese city government first. ---015--- UNTETHERED DREAMS. Creation of an environment where an individual can freely pursue dreams must be framed within the context of a universally accepted rule of law. Though far from perfect, in America we have the best environment for individual development that humanity has been able to create. But we should never forget the darker side of the power of dreams not framed by the rule of law. The danger of untethered freedom to pursue any dream is clearly evident throughout history. A visit to the great pyramids and other ancient ruins of the Egyptian world shockingly demonstrates the total and lasting abuse of whole nations for centuries upon centuries by a very small cadre of people. Under the guise of religion, the Pharaohs’ ensconced themselves as gods or the direct link to the gods. Compared to their subjects, they surely lived like we think pagan gods are supposed to live. They even died like mortal gods. This phenomenon is not unique to ancient Egypt. It has prevailed throughout history in many civilizations. But in my humble observations, Christianity, more than other religions, has had its share of dreamers who abused the element of religion to seek their own gain. It seems that our pyramid of progress may contain more examples of abusive despots possessed of over-arching dreams than dedicated leaders who really contributed to our welfare. Yet, progress to benefit us all was somehow distilled throughout history. Especially in the early stages of recorded human history, abusive leaders seem to have connected their source of power to religion. The rise to predominance of the Christian Autobiography.doc 37 of 239
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Bernard Bailyn, THE IDEOLOGICAL ORI
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George Fuermann, HOUSTON LAND OF TH
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Council for Natural Cooperation in
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Autobiography - The Galindo Group

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