"That legacy of every generation of Americans insisting that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness extends to them, too, is no relic of the past. It carried millions of Black Americans north during the Great Migration. It drew hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans to New York City after the Second World War. It invited countless others from the West Indies, and South Asia, and West Africa, and across the world. And it is what brought my family to this city when I was seven years old. My family did not arrive by boat, although we saw the Statue of Liberty from the window of the plane. Even from the air, we could make out the promise of America. The promise of the beautiful patriotic work of rendering America, year after year, a little more faithful to its founding ideals."