Posted on 07/02/2007 8:21:31 PM PDT by blam
What a country!
Monday, July 02, 2007
By DAN MURTAUGH Staff Reporter
In 1977, Zaki and Mahfuza Ali left their home in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for the United States with just a few dollars in their pockets and thoughts of the American dream in their heads. They earned Ph.D.'s in chemistry, got jobs with 3M in St. Paul, Minn., On Saturday, 30 years after they first came to America, their daughter Nora was named America's Junior Miss.
"I cannot describe to you in words how I felt," Nora's mother, Mahfuza said Sunday. "The place I came from, and where we are now, it's huge for us."
"It's motivated me where my parents came from to where they are now," Nora Ali said. "It's what drives me and keeps me going, because I don't want to just slack off and stay where I am. I'd like to go further."
Winning the competition Saturday at the Mobile Civic Center could help her do that. Ali left Mobile with $54,000 from the competition to help pay her way through Harvard, where she will enroll in classes this fall.
High school seniors from all 50 states spent the past two weeks in Mobile competing to be the 50th America's Junior Miss. The girls rehearsed their performances and found time to eat oysters, learn how to line dance and spend a day on the beach.
Ali had never heard of America's Junior Miss before last year. She was searching the Internet for scholarship competitions and the 50-year-old organization based in Mobile caught her eye.
Junior Miss organizers often stress that their program is not a beauty pageant. Girls are judged on their scholastics, an interview, fitness, self-expression and a talent performance.
"When I saw the categories, it was like, 'This is me rolled into one
(Excerpt) Read more at al.com ...
Nora Ali and family.
I wonder what would happen to them back in the old country?
You can be certain she would of had to visit the local barber/Mercedes mechanic and for “C” clipping......
Let us hope this fine citizen can teach Harvard something useful and constructive.
Absolutely amazing. We need more immigrants like these parents. Stories like this give me hope for the future of this great country.
These are the kind of immigrants we should be letting in, not welfare mothers and drug dealers. Golly, I wonder if they’re Democrats?
George Bush’s Fault
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