Where I Come From
I've
lived in McHenry County for 18 years, and have raised my family here.
My youngest graduates from high school this spring, and will
likely be far from 
home starting college in the fall. My next youngest
graduates from college this spring, and he will be looking for a job
during hard economic times. My oldest graduated from college last
spring, and is lucky enough to have a job: he is teaching high school
chemistry in Houston, TX through the Teach for America program.
I grew up in Michigan, where my grandmothers were both teachers.
At different points in my parents' lives, one during and one
after the Depression, each of their families relied wholly on the
incomes that came from my grandmothers' teaching.
My father came back from the World War II mobilization to start his
education at Bay City Junior College. With the help of the GI
Bill, he was able to finish both college and law school. My
mother's college education was interrupted by her family's economic
hardship, but our local community college, the successor to
the junior college my father attended, gave her that second chance
while I was in high school. Her studies were my own chance to
imagine what higher education could offer, and because of her example,
and because of the income that my father brought in because of his own
educational good fortune, I was able to attend the University of
Chicago.
My two youngest brothers went to the same community college that gave
my mother her second chance. One skateboarded more than he
studied in high school, and then, after taking five years to explore
the American West, and then Malaysia, India and Nepal, he came back
wanting an educational second chance himself: he got one because of the
community college. My youngest brother, by contrast, had a good
academic record in high school, but needed to continue living at home
because of a congenital heart problem. He's the smartest of us
all (he's the one advising me on this campaign), and he increased his
own intellectual resourcefulness following the same path my mother did,
starting at our local community college.
How I Put Bread on my Family's Table
The
bottom line: I know how important McHenry County College can be, for
all sorts of different reasons, to families in our community.
I make my living as a college traveler, selling college textbooks
for W. W. Norton and Company (one
of the last independent publishing houses). Every time the
economy contracts, I see the parking lots in the community colleges
around the Chicago region spill over into the grassy areas, with police
officers brought in to direct traffic. In an economic downturn
such as we are currently experiencing, the mission of McHenry County
College becomes even more vital.
I hope for better economic times ahead. I worked full-time as an
Obama Fellow this past summer (while school was out) in
Saginaw, Michigan, the town that my parents grew up in. In the
fall, I worked weekends on the campaign in northwest Indiana, a
state which ended up voting for Obama, the first time they'd voted for
a Democrat since 1964. My message to people I talked to
during the campaign was that Obama was not our savior; if he got
in, Obama could open the door of possibility, but it was up to us to
get the country back onto a better track. And so, on top of my
job selling books, I want to do my part by putting myself forward
to represent you on the board of trustees of the college we
collectively own, McHenry County College.