Let's talk about architecture!

This is IM Pei, an architect born in Guanzhou, China, and raised in pre-integrated Hong Kong. His work famously contains some very interesting geometric glass structures and reflective water, and gives off an image of class and refinement. Here he is in front of the Louvre, with the glass pyramid that he designed.

This guy also wanted to live in America, since he had a fascination with (at the time) new and emergent western architects like Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus styles. He went to American universities and eventually graduated from Harvard, and through his connections with famous architects, he was able to gain an American citizenship, which he holds to this day. He was nobody special when he entered America, but through taking a chance on a student, we were able to claim an international treasure of a designer as one of our citizens.

Here is another one of his designs, the Devon Tower in Oklahoma City.



Not pictured is the reflecting pool and conservatory outside, the elegant restaurant on the roof, the outdoor amphitheater nearby, or the perfectly cut and measured fountain that sits at the very edge of overflowing inside. This guy is ours. He is an American, but if he was rejected, he would just as happily have been someone else's.