From a Washington Post column by Elaine Chao headlined “Asian Americans have been overlooked. This would help change that.”:

I was 8 years old when I immigrated to the United States. My father had arrived in America three years earlier, leaving behind his pregnant wife and two daughters. My mother, my two sisters and I traveled from Taiwan on a cargo ship because it was all my father could afford.

The early years were difficult. We didn’t speak English, and we were overwhelmed by the new world we found ourselves living in. But with love, faith and hard work, my parents turned their one-bedroom Queens apartment into a loving home for their daughters and enabled us to access the opportunities in this country.