Not too long ago, my sister reminded me of the day I came home from school to tell her I had watched a film about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom I had never heard of before. I was a recent immigrant in this country, having arrived from Peru just a year earlier.

That winter, I sat in class, the lights turned off, and listened to the scratchy textured audio of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech. It was a powerful moment for I had never before heard anyone speak about race, children, equality, and justice, let alone a stately looking black person.

Maybe his words resonated with me at that particular time in my life because I had been affected by the topics he spoke about—in the homeland that I left, and in my new country.

In the 1970’s in Peru, almost 100 years since slavery had been abolished, and just over 150 years since we became independent from the Spanish, we were still oppressed. Whites were regarded as more important than anyone else and men were more important than women (i.e. machismo). Children had no rights. Light skin, hair and eyes were considered superior, over brown and black skin. But perhaps the most significant divide was your socio-economic status and your last name. These two closely-interrelated factors determined your opportunities and future.

When I was a child, I’m pretty certain I could not articulate these thoughts and feelings as well as I can today. Nevertheless, they were there. As is the case with children, I was a sponge, taking in everything into my subconscious and learning about right and wrong. I didn’t know why my father thought it was special that I liked playing with the little kids that lived in a hut on the other side of the concrete wall that separated our house from theirs. At the risk of sounding now like snob, this was during a time in my parents’ lives when they had good paying jobs in show business and so we lived in a house in the north of Lima that had a huge yard, with a pool and swing set. But I preferred to play with the little kids outside, in the clay-packed dirt.

As I got older, however, my life became more unstable due to my parents inability to work in their field, which was the result of political upheaval. I grew up with a famous last name, but I didn’t meet the other criteria necessary for an opportunity at success in my own country. Knowing this, after his death, my mother did the most courageous thing and moved us to the United States — the land of opportunity, work, and a place where could get a fresh start, without the stigma that our own country had placed on us.

Upon arriving here, of course, I quickly realized that discrimination also existed in America. Similar to Peru, I discovered that men had power and women didn’t. People of color including hispanics were treated differently. In Hudson County, New Jersey where I grew up, new immigrants from Latin America were deemed inferior to the established Irish and Italian communities. We looked up to the Cuban people for being hardworking and establishing themselves as business owners and sending their kids to college —setting the bar high for other Latinos. I grew up with the fear of deportation as my mother would sometimes come home with stories of pranksters at the factory coming in yelling that immigration was conducting a raid, and all these poor women would hide, not realizing it wasn’t true.

Learning about Martin Luther King Jr. opened up my awareness about civil rights injustices, and also gave me hope because for the first time in my life, I was learning about a public figure whose life mission was to advocate for equal rights for all people.

Maybe Dr. King’s dream of “little black boys and black girls joining hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers” resonated with me because as a child in Peru I too had a desire to just play with other kids, regardless of their skin color or where they lived. But society imposed a different set of rules that contradicted my human instincts.

Maybe Dr. King’s words resonated with me because my own mother had dared to dream of a better life for her children when she decided to move to America. Despite the fact that when we left Peru, we had no money and shortly after arriving here we had no legal status. Yet somehow she managed to support her family on her own by working at a factory. For many years she worked the midnight and 2nd shifts, which is why I am so close to my siblings, especially my sister who mothered me when our mom couldn’t.

And although we were always on the brink of poverty, it never quite felt that way because I knew I would be able to work someday and have my own chance at the American Dream. We never took for granted the privilege of living here—the chance that this beautiful land was giving us.

This week, after 8 years of living there, the Obamas will have moved out of the White House — a house and a city that was built by slaves, just as my birth city of Lima was built by slaves who were brought there by the Spaniards.

I can’t imagine living in a time when slavery was the norm. People being the property of other people. There is something just so physically unsettling about this, so wrong, and unnatural. But it is stain on our country and many others as well, that can never be washed away.

The American Dream is one with many chapters, interruptions and layers. It took 219 years before we could have a first black president. Politics aside, as Americans we should forever be proud of our outgoing First Family. The bar was set infinitely high for them simply because, as minorities, that’s unfortunately the way it is. And they surpassed that bar over and over, leaving everyone with nothing but awe, admiration, respect and with the feeling that good things have happened to the human race because of our First Family.

I have said that Michelle Obama is perhaps the most important first lady to date, which some people disagreed with. The accomplishments of one First Lady do not negate the triumphs of the women who came before her. It’s unfair, I think, to compare first ladies because they don’t take on those roles side by side, but rather individually and for a very specific and distinct period in history. Each one arrives to the White House under unique circumstances.

Michelle Obama, in my opinion, is not the most important first lady to date because she grew up on the South side of Chicago, or because she was discouraged to apply to the Ivy League schools were she graduated from, or because she dances with Jimmy Fallon on tv or raps with Missy Elliott. She is the most important First Lady because of what Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about in 1963:

“In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

Michelle Obama, honoring the people who came before her, went to the capital and with intelligence, humility, grace and valor, cashed that check! And she continues to help others cash theirs too, no matter how many times that check comes back marked “insufficient funds.” She doesn’t give up although society has told her over and over to take on the role of victim that can be so easily used as an excuse to be passive, and worse, for others to judge her and validate their own prejudiced beliefs.

Michelle Obama is the most important First Lady to date because when she gave her powerful speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, she carried on the tradition started—not that long ago—in 1976 when Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan became the first black woman to give a keynote address at that year’s Democratic National Convention. Congresswoman Jordan said that principles are not negotiable, and that we must be “willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future.”

The American Dream has traveled a long and painful journey, but its passport is stamped with some remarkable stops along the way, some of which I have humbly and respectfully tried to honor in this essay.

I started writing this tribute about Michelle Obama a week ago, and in doing my research, I found some notes about the anecdote my sister reminded me about—of the day I came home from school to tell her about Dr. King.

And so, today as we honor Dr. King’s memory, and we say goodbye to the Obamas, it makes me extremely proud to be part of this great American Dream, and to honor my mother whose courage and sacrifice, not my last name or color of my skin, made it possible for me to work toward the American Dream.

It is in this great country that I learned English via a terrific ESL education. It is in this great country that I gave birth to two beautiful girls, who happen to be on the Autism Spectrum. And it is in the great country that my daughters are able to reach their full potential because of the remarkable educators who believe everyone deserves the best education, regardless of their diagnosis. I don’t ever take any of this for granted. I am deeply rooted in the American Dream.

“…that is the story of this country, the story that has brought me to this stage tonight, the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, but who kept on striving and hoping, and doing what needed to be done, so that today, I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves — and I watch my daughters — two beautiful, intelligent black young women, playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.” ~Michelle Obama (2016 Democratic National Convention)

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