I was born on August 10, 1913, in Lorenzkirch, a small village in Saxony, as the fourth child of Theodor and Elisabeth Paul, nee Ruppel. All in all, we were six children. Both parents were descendants from Lutheran ministers in several generations.
We can't go on forever with 11 million people living in this country in the shadows in an illegal status. We cannot forever have children who were born here - who were brought here by their parents when they were small children to live in the shadows, as well... What's changed, honestly, is that there is a new appreciation on both sides of the aisle, maybe more importantly on the Republican side, that we need to enact a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
I was an only child, a very late child, born to parents who were both 39 at the time, which was very late back then. That kind of confirmed my sense of being the center of the universe, which I guess every child feels - children and poets both tend to feel.
My parents are from the South - they were both born in Birmingham - so my dad saw R.E.M. really early on when they were playing college stuff in Athens. He had a bunch of their cassettes from the '80s, and when I was 8, 9, or 10, those were the sort of things that were around the cassette player in the living room.
Both my parents were doctors, and my mother had her surgery in the house. There were six children.
I think it's up to the parents to determine whether what they're doing is consigning their child to difficulty. It's not as though they were crippling their children after they were born.
My parents were simpletons. Everyday living was a big thing in that small village where I was born. They had no clue about music.
We were ordered out to quell an uprising of the Indians, and were out for several days, had numerous skirmishes during which six of the soldiers were killed and several severely wounded.
I'm not Chinese, but both of my parents were born in Iran; my brother and I were the first ones born here. First in our family to go to college, that whole thing.
Time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is-in the blink of an eye, a mother can see the child again as they were when they were born, when they learned how to walk, as they were at any age-at any time, even when the child is fully grown or a parent themselves.
We were from a village that's now in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district, in Kot Addu tehsil. Our village was 10 km away from the city. The boys had to walk barefoot for 10 km from the village to the school in Kot Addu.
Both my parents were immigrants, as were many of their friends, the parents of the children with whom I grew up. Of course I respect and admire immigrants and their undeniable contributions to America, as we all should.
My family were Conservative Jews. My parents were both born in this country, but my father grew up on the Lower East Side, and my mother was born and raised in Harlem when there was a large Jewish 'colony' there. Eventually, they moved to Jersey City to get away from New York.
Both of my parents were both multi-sport athletes. Their mindset was, be an athlete as long as possible, up until they became parents. And so they dropped their dreams for their children.
My father's parents were carpenters. They were also builders partly. They were painters. And several of them were very, active in the theatre and all such nonsense, you know.
The second child of a small farmer with six children, I come from a village in Bihar on the border of Nepal called Belwa. I was there till the age of 17 and studied in a Hindi-speaking boarding school run by Catholics in a nearby district town.
My parents were not formally educated. Both were cognizant of the importance of education. The teachers and ministers were the role models, and they would say, you should want to be like Miss Gardiner, you should want to be like Mr. Freeman, or be like your dad. Shun the people who don't value education.