I just visited Alan Graysons website and read his biography. An impressive man who has done several lifetimes of serious things already.
And he is from the Bronx - in fact his site says:
Our Congressman, Alan Grayson, grew up in the tenements in the Bronx. It was a hard life. He had to be a fighter to survive.
His parents were teachers. They made great sacrifices, to make sure that Alan received the best education.
It continues:
Alan was a sick child. His mother took him to the hospital four times a week, for treatment. Without health coverage, he would not be alive today. He remembers that.
Alan rode the subway to school each day, and he worked hard. He was the valedictorian of his junior high school. By passing a test, he was admitted to an exclusive public high school. In high school, he achieved the highest test score among almost 50,000 students who took the test. Harvard College saw something in him, and admitted him.
Now that he has become a national figure for taking on the Republicans and defining the healthcare debate in the only terms that matter - the terms of what is really at stake, the terms of life and death - his story is getting some coverage. In his apppearance on the Situation Room, he talked about having asthma as a child, and worrying at the age of seven whether he would die when the New York City teachers went on strike (both his parents were teachers), pointing out that no seven-year-old should have to have such concerns.
Of course, he is not the first kid from the Bronx who made good and got lots of attention this year. Sonia Sotomayor, who grew up in a project near Yankee Stadium, received much attention as President Obama's first nominee for the Supreme Court. After a virtuoso performance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, she became the first Hispanic and third woman on the Court.
I grew up in the South Bronx too, and discovered when Sotomayor was nominated how strong my identification with that is. The new identity politics - girls from the South Bronx unite! I doubt there was a Latina anywhere in the country who had more personal pride in her becoming a Justice than I did, as a Jewish girl from the South Bronx.
Of course, it shouldn't surprise anyone that we have produced such stars. After all, the Yankees have always been from the Bronx. (And if we're talking good years here, what about Derek Jeter?)