Today, we celebrate Jackie Robinson’s 75th anniversary of shattering USA 🇺🇸 Major League Baseball’s color barrier. He is a role model to countless, especially to an 8 year old immigrant who also happens to be my mom.

She sailed from Shanghai to America and settled in Brooklyn, NY. Not knowing a lick of English, it wasn’t easy to make friends. Then a miracle - baseball -happens. It is 1947 and Jackie Robinson, star of the Brooklyn Dodgers, is everyone’s hero. Jackie is proving that a Black, the grandson of a slave, can make a difference in America. And for my mom, America became the land of opportunity.

Of all the books my mom authored, the one recounting that first year in America In The Year Of The Boar and Jackie Robinson is still my favorite.

To this day, I still get emails from adults who read the book 30 years ago, letters from 5th graders inviting me to speak to their class, and packages with dog-eared copies of the book with a note asking for my mom's autograph.

Thank you Jackie Robinson for smashing the color barrier and reminding us that America is a land that welcomes all humans, regardless of race or origin.