JOHN,

My story begins in China, at the dawn of the Cultural Revolution, an insanity that gripped millions of my countrymen. We were destitute, as were most Chinese during this period. We lived in a primitive worker’s row house by a river sharing one tarp-covered outhouse and one water faucet with eight families. We had a mud floor that, after occasional flooding, would sprout mushrooms.

My parents were illiterate workers, so their positions in the state factory were too low to be rationed much food. A full belly was a luxury. My uncle even taught me how to trap rats for food. All we knew was a life of arduous labor and chaos.

Despite the socialist rhetoric, school and childcare were not free. I even missed school for a year to babysit my infant brother. Yet despite the few resources available to Chinese students, I committed all of my energy to excel in school when I could go. In 1976, when I was 12 years old, Mao died and the Cultural Revolution came to an end. When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) admitted that Mao was only a man and the Cultural Revolution was just a mistake, my faith in the CCP began to crack.

China’s renaissance began, colleges reopened and after years of hard work and preparation I was able to pass the national entrance exam. It was during this time I met an American student. What he showed me would forever change my life — the Declaration of Independence. What ideas! Rights come not from the benevolence of the state, but from God? All I had ever known were “collective rights,” the workers’ rights, the rights of peasants, etc. Never had I imagined that I, an individual, had rights.

I eventually made it to America in 1988. In the decades since, I have thrived in this great country. I earned my graduate degree, married, raised three children, started my own business, searched for deeper truths, learned much about liberty and the free market, rid myself of CCP indoctrination, naturalized as a U.S. citizen and volunteered in my local community.

I always defend the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, the documents with the words that freed me from my enslavement and helped me choose America as my home. I have always wanted to thank our founding fathers who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the most beautiful document ever written.

This Independence Day also serves as a warning against anything that threatens our freedom. We cannot allow this nation to weaken, and I hope that you stand with me in preserving true American freedom.

Happy Birthday, America,