Allyson Schwartz on WHYY's "This I Believe"

Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-13) has joined those recording an essay for WHYY as part of their "This I Believe" series. You can listen to the audio on WHYY's site. The planned text is given below; it varies slightly from the recording due to editing.

More than 60 years ago, a young woman, a girl really at 16, named Renee Perl arrived in the United States after years of displacement, uncertainty and abandonment.

Having fled Austria to escape the Nazis, she arrived in America: alone, scared, but, hopeful.

She was sent to Philadelphia, a safe haven with a welcoming community and good public schools. Times were not easy, but she quickly learned English, to dress like an American, and to type fast enough to land a steady job as a secretary.

Over the years, as a young wife, busy mother of four, she worked as so many refuges do to put her troubled times behind her, to embrace her adopted country and build a new life for herself. And, while she was forever haunted by her experiences, she embraced America with joy and gratitude.

Renee Perl was my mother.

She instilled in me a great love for our country, for the freedom, the security, and the opportunity it offered her.

Her life taught me that we each have the responsibility to keep these freedoms alive, that each of us contributes to ensuring that opportunity
for others and that hope can only be fulfilled if it is shared.
My mother told me to not romanticize her experience.

So I believe it's important to enable families to nurture their children, that growing up in fear and violence does not make you stronger.

That we should expect neighbors to respect neighbors, that discrimination and hate are not tolerable.

That we have to work to meet our personal responsibilities to ourselves and our families, and that while this is clearly a full time job, to do only this is not enough. The world around us demands more.

I knew none of this was easy, but to stand on the sidelines is not possible (acceptable).

So, I never have.

I take with me each day, the sadness, as well as the hopes and the dreams of my Mother, to fight for that opportunity and security. at all levels.

First on the community level, then with the City, as a state Senator, and now as a Member of Congress, I seek to improve the lives of our children, to expand access to health care, to create economic opportunities for more Americans, to build a safer, more secure world for all of us.
I know I am sometimes too determined, too demanding of myself and the people around me, but I believe that we must set high goals for ourselves, get as close as you can to achieve them and then pursue new, higher goals.

I believe that few of us can achieve much without hard work, determination and a vision for the future.
I believe that each of us holds our own reasons for caring.

Each of us has to find our own path to meet our responsibilities to
ourselves and to others.
And, the best of us find a way to have people work together on behalf of all of us.

My mother did not live to see me elected to public office, to see me as a mother.

But, she would have been proud of who I am today, and proud of who we are as Americans: willing to find the way to meet our challenges together, to move ahead, and to embrace the future with confidence and hope in each other and our great nation.

That is America’s promise; just as my mother believed, just as I believe.