In 2007, one in eight Americans was born abroad.

My mother's Cuban and my dad is Australian,

my mother is black, my father's white.

But America is this melting pot.

You know, I'm a black latino with freckles.

And that's kind of America.

We're this melting pot and we always have been.

We've been the place that people are desperate to get to

because they know once there,

their story can be written.

It can be anything.

Each society in the past created tremendous innovations in civilizations.

All of a sudden we have them all here.

It's not just one philosophy.

It's many, many philosophies which makes for a very creative country.

In the past 20 years,

two-thirds of new immigrants have come from Latin America and Asia.

I think this theory that you can be anything that you want in America

is not a theory. It's a truth.

It's a basic truth that plays itself out in every immigrant story.

It's really what America has always been about.

Coming from someplace else.

Coming to a place where you can rise up with your own sweat,

and your own hard work and achieve something better than what you might have had elsewhere.

So for me the immigration experiment in America will never end because really that's what defines us as a nation.

I think Americans are a collection of incredible souls and beings

who believe we are all in this together.

This is a country where you can take chances.

You're allowed to try anything to achieve success

and failure is always there.

and in order to try things and have failure there

you have to be brave.

There's a large can-do attitude in the United States.

I think America's a land of opportunity again because,there were no set rules.

We sort of invented it as we went along.

It's this belief that wherever you are in every moment of history

whatever your circumstances

that radical progress is possible.