After speaking in a pro-Trump town hall in Phoenix, I got up early the next morning to make a flight back to Los Angeles. I went down to the front of my hotel to get into a private car I ordered from a company that came highly recommended.

The shiny black SUV was waiting. The driver, a neatly dressed woman, bounded out to help me with my bag and to open the door. She had an eastern European accent. Her name was Dede. She asked why I was in town. I’m always leery to discuss politics, particularly in this era of Trump. But I know that many legal immigrants, particularly those from communist countries, are political conservatives.

“I’m with a conservative, Christian radio and television communications company, and spoke yesterday at a pro-Trump event for the listeners of our Phoenix radio station,” I said.

“Oh, I know who you are,” she said. “I’ve listened to you, and I’ve seen you many times on TV. That’s why I wanted to pick you up.”

For the next half hour, she told me about her life. She was born in Bulgaria, 58 years old, an only child, in her second marriage and “regrettably” has no children. Her parents’ family was well off, but lost everything “when the communists took over and took everything.” Her father died from a heart attack when she was 10. Her mother ran a government-controlled fruit stand.

Dede always wanted to come to America. She waited 15 years before getting a visa and then a green card. She was 36 when she came to America. She came to Phoenix because her uncle lives there and took her in until she got her own apartment.

“When I got here, I cleaned airplanes, went to my second job washing dishes and babysat for two to three hours,” she said. “Then I got up early the next morning and did it all over again. I couldn’t speak English and now people say I speak too much, especially about politics. But I don’t care. This is America and we have the First Amendment.”

She kept up that schedule for three years.

“Then I started my own company and bought my first car.”

“This is your car company?” I asked.

“Yes, I have 15 other SUVs and several drivers. And my husband and I have other investments.”

“Other investments?”

“Real estate,” she said. “We own 27 houses. My uncle said, ‘Work hard. Show up on time. Pay your taxes and don’t use credit cards.’ So, that’s what I did.

"And I’m a Republican. Already voted for Trump. I’m from a communist country. I see where this country is heading if people don’t wake up. It really isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats. The problem is people who want something for nothing and expect government to take care of them — and then complain if it doesn’t. And way too many people work for government. Just like communism.” She railed against the millions of illegal aliens “allowed to come in.”

I told her about my father who never knew his biological father.

“Unlike you,” I said, “he had a mother who, when he was 13, kicked him out of the room they rented. A black boy in the Jim Crow South at the beginning of the Great Depression with literally nothing in his pockets. He was an only child. He became a staff sergeant in the Marines and served in World War II. When I was growing up, my dad worked two full-time jobs cleaning toilets, and he cooked for a family on the weekends to make additional money because he wanted my mother to be a stay-at-home mom. He then went to night school to get a GED. He saved his nickels and dimes and at 47 started a cafe, which he ran until he was in his 80s. When he retired, he owned the cafe property and property next door, as well as the home I was raised in, which is still in our family.”

By now, we reached the airport. When she got out of the car, she was crying. “Your story is my story,” she said. We hugged.

“God bless you,” I said.

“And God bless America,” she said. We hugged again.

COPYRIGHT 2024 LAURENCE A. ELDER