Children of Immigrants Dominate the Olympics

33 of the U.S. Olympic athletes are immigrants, many more are the children of immigrants. From countries all around the world. DP

By Ruben Navarrette, Washington Post Writers Group

alternet.org: Now that the flame has gone out on the Olympics in Beijing, it's worth taking a moment to applaud the U.S. Olympic team. Not only for dominating so many events and winning the most prizes overall -- 110 medals, 36 gold -- but also for winning the argument back home over the contributions of immigrants and their children.

The immigration debate has digressed from how to keep out the undocumented to how to keep out those who have documents as well. After all, the real concern is the changing culture, and millions of legal immigrants have helped spur some of those changes.

Still, immigrants don't come empty-handed. They bring their hopes for a better future for their children and a work ethic that often puts natives to shame. And they apply these things to a million different pursuits, including Olympic gold.

Thirty-three U.S. Olympic athletes for these games were immigrants, a number of others were the sons and daughters of immigrants.

Among the immigrants: Sudanese refugee and 1,500-meter runner Lopez Lamong, who served as the flag-bearer for the U.S. in the opening ceremony; beach volleyball player Phil Dalhausser, who was born in Switzerland but now lives in Ventura, Calif.; and gymnasts Nastia Liukin, whose parents brought her from Russia in 1992 and who now lives in Parker, Texas, and Alexander Artemev, who was born in the Soviet Union and now lives in Highlands Ranch, Colo.

Children of immigrants included: gold-medal decathlete Bryan Clay of Kaneohe, Hawaii, whose mother immigrated from Japan; gymnast Raj Bhavsar of Houston, whose parents came from India; and Kevin Tan of Fremont, Calif., whose parents fled China for Taiwan and then California.

But for my money the best U.S. immigrant story of these games belonged to 21-year-old wrestler Henry Cejudo, all 5-feet-4 and 121 pounds of him. Cejudo, who was a long shot to win any medal in Beijing, won the gold in freestyle after defeating Japan's Tomohiro Matsunaga. Cejudo celebrated by breaking into tears and -- after family members in the stands tossed him an American flag -- wrapping himself in Old Glory and parading around the arena.
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