Letter: In support of Mitt Romney and John Kline

To the editor,

Olga and I moved the United States in 1966 and to Hastings eight years later. We have been proud to live in and treat medical patients here until our retirement 16 years ago. We shop in Hastings and go to church here too. We are part of this community and it is part of us. What most people, even our patients, do not know about us is why we are here. After all, we speak and look different than native born Minnesotans.

We are from Indonesia, of Chinese descent. We lived in what many would call a mansion with five servants. But we were Christians in a culture where Christianity was not tolerated. But we were oppressed politically because we believed in equality and freedom and wanted opportunities for our children. To make a long story short we left everything behind and escaped penniless with our two small boys.

We focused on the United States because it was a land of opportunity. We immigrated legally. This country and this community welcomed us and while we mow our own grass and shovel our own snow, we prospered. Our boys are now grown and they too have worked hard and reached for opportunities this great country made available. Today one is a professor of microbiology at New York University and the other a senior engineer with the Coast Guard, protecting our borders. We are proud too, that he served in the U. S. Air Force, defending our freedoms.

We write this not to explain anything about us personally, but to tell community members something of and for the ages. We see America as the founding fathers saw it, a land that Lincoln, Kennedy and Reagan saw as a unique place in the world where all men are equal, where they can freely choose their leaders and establish the structure of this society in which they live. Today we are faced with perhaps the gravest of choices as these next four years will determine the ultimate destiny of this nation.

We will vote proudly for Mitt Romney for president and John Kline for Congress. The choice is clear. We see it with the vision that soldiers fought to preserve, that businessmen (and women) worked to build, that teachers taught their students. We thank all the people of Hastings for allowing us to be one with you. We ask you to vote with a moral clarity for what is best for America and Minnesota.

Dr. and Mrs. Rudy Tan

Hastings

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion, hastings, minnesota, spiral, local