“I received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry in 1997. I am a holder of a 'green card' and thus classified as an immigrant. That is quite rare in American poetry, to have broken through this country's anti-immigrant past and present. Yet, here I am having been validated by a government grant and I am eternally grateful for this honor. But what I am most proud of is not what it (the fellowship) has done for me personally but what it has done to America as a country to enrich its present and its future.”
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