The internationality of the Hamilton-Bruce work force never ceases to amaze me. Andru, in Romania, handles our graphic design. Our desktop publishers are housed in Canada and Bulgaria while our SEO group is headquartered in Spain. Our latest author, Dr. Dan Neundorf—Influence: How To Get It and Keep It--is Canadian, as is our book printer. Major collateral materials, however, are printed for us in Hong Kong. Editorial and marketing is handled at our Florida headquarters while our office in the Toronto area handles fulfillment and outreach. In keeping with this internationality, our Spring 2012 intern, Stephanie, is Hispanic and her father, Cuba-born. As the president of Hamilton-Bruce and a former newspaper reporter and magazine writer-editor, I’ve traveled all over, including a stint as foreign correspondent in Western Europe. My forebears were Scotch-Irish on my father’s side, Lithuanian on my mother’s. My mother’s sister, Esther, thriving in South Florida today at 101 years old, tells of her immigrant father selling zippers with his father on New York City’s East Side; in later years, he was a tailor in Brooklyn, sitting cross-legged in the window of a men’s clothier, sewing. My oldest nephew, Tom, now a California attorney, and his wife, Carolina, have two daughters, Grace and Lindsay. Carolina is Filipina, born in the Philippines; she met Tom in Japan while he was a reporter for a Tokyo newspaper. I’ve always been Asia-identified. Reared summers with a Chinese American girl in upstate New York, I did a master’s thesis with native Chinese and Americans respondents on cross-cultural communication; my doctoral dissertation will deal with the life chances of children in China; specifically, with child abandonment, special-needs births, and adoption. In addition, I sponsor an orphaned special-needs boy in Tianjin, not far from Beijing. The frontier of the New World is international, and it’s mobile. In time, it will be folly to close our borders to those who would seek to improve their life chances; perhaps it already is. We all need to take responsibility. Outreach is essential: Improve the life chances of children and adults everywhere, and we automatically improve our own. Education is key, but take a good look at the facts. Six states have taken specific legislative action to bar undocumented students from receiving resident tuition rates at colleges and universities. At least one state won’t even allow undocumented students to enroll. On the other hand, 14 states currently allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition. The rest, apparently, remain “in discussion.” And have you taken a good look at Cuba lately? Only 90 miles from Florida, her failed neo-Marxist system, coupled with the collapse of trade subsidies provided by the now-defunct Soviet Union and with U.S. refusal to allow trade on credit, has thrust most of Cuba’s people into deep poverty. Store shelves are bare even of the staples. Her good educational system is in shambles. Graduates can’t find jobs. Middle-schoolers learn from television in run-down classrooms without a teacher in sight. Repression and imprisonment continues. Freedom of speech is strangled. Shouldn’t the people of this island nation have life chances, too, and the right to pursue their dream?
Nancy
The internationality of the Hamilton-Bruce work force never ceases to amaze me. Andru, in Romania, handles our graphic design. Our desktop publishers are housed in Canada and Bulgaria while our SEO group is headquartered in Spain. Our latest author, Dr. Dan Neundorf—Influence: How To Get It and Keep It--is Canadian, as is our book printer. Major collateral materials, however, are printed for us in Hong Kong. Editorial and marketing is handled at our Florida headquarters while our office in the Toronto area handles fulfillment and outreach. In keeping with this internationality, our Spring 2012 intern, Stephanie, is Hispanic and her father, Cuba-born.
As the president of Hamilton-Bruce and a former newspaper reporter and magazine writer-editor, I’ve traveled all over, including a stint as foreign correspondent in Western Europe. My forebears were Scotch-Irish on my father’s side, Lithuanian on my mother’s. My mother’s sister, Esther, thriving in South Florida today at 101 years old, tells of her immigrant father selling zippers with his father on New York City’s East Side; in later years, he was a tailor in Brooklyn, sitting cross-legged in the window of a men’s clothier, sewing.
My oldest nephew, Tom, now a California attorney, and his wife, Carolina, have two daughters, Grace and Lindsay. Carolina is Filipina, born in the Philippines; she met Tom in Japan while he was a reporter for a Tokyo newspaper.
I’ve always been Asia-identified. Reared summers with a Chinese American girl in upstate New York, I did a master’s thesis with native Chinese and Americans respondents on cross-cultural communication; my doctoral dissertation will deal with the life chances of children in China; specifically, with child abandonment, special-needs births, and adoption. In addition, I sponsor an orphaned special-needs boy in Tianjin, not far from Beijing.
The frontier of the New World is international, and it’s mobile. In time, it will be folly to close our borders to those who would seek to improve their life chances; perhaps it already is. We all need to take responsibility. Outreach is essential: Improve the life chances of children and adults everywhere, and we automatically improve our own. Education is key, but take a good look at the facts. Six states have taken specific legislative action to bar undocumented students from receiving resident tuition rates at colleges and universities. At least one state won’t even allow undocumented students to enroll. On the other hand, 14 states currently allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition. The rest, apparently, remain “in discussion.”
And have you taken a good look at Cuba lately? Only 90 miles from Florida, her failed neo-Marxist system, coupled with the collapse of trade subsidies provided by the now-defunct Soviet Union and with U.S. refusal to allow trade on credit, has thrust most of Cuba’s people into deep poverty. Store shelves are bare even of the staples. Her good educational system is in shambles. Graduates can’t find jobs. Middle-schoolers learn from television in run-down classrooms without a teacher in sight. Repression and imprisonment continues. Freedom of speech is strangled. Shouldn’t the people of this island nation have life chances, too, and the right to pursue their dream?
Interested in our books and what we’re saying? I invite you to share your thoughts with us on this blogspot. And remember also to read Dr. Neundorf’s latest book, Influence: How To Get It and Keep It.
Nancy
