My youngest son was born in 2005, and when he was six, the only President he’d ever really experienced was Barack Obama. He looked at me one day and said, “Dad, do you have to be black to be President?” I assured my white son that even white people could become had been President.

Think about it. Young people all over the country grew up with it as normal and proper to have a black man as President. When I was 12 (in the 1970s) I bought a book by Irving Wallace called The Man. In it, the first Black man becomes President, and has to endure an impeachment effort by angry whites. But to even have a Black man become President, the plot was bizarre – the President and Vice President were killed, the Speaker of the House ill, and only because of that did the Senate Pro Tempore become President. (Spoiler alert for anyone wanting to dig out the book – he survives the Senate trial by one vote thanks to a conservative white southerner who realizes that it would be wrong to remove a President based on color).

Now in 2024 it’s possible that a woman might finally become President. But not just any woman, Kamala Harris, a woman born of immigrant parents: a black man from Jamaica and an Asian woman from India. Harris represents the diversity that defines America, but a diversity too often held distant from power and wealth due to systemic bias. She did this not by dint of privilege, but by working her way up from McDonalds, to a historically black college and a public law school.

She might not win, but the fact it is not only conceivable but even likely she could become President says something profoundly good about the United States, even in an era when people are doubting the country’s ability to progress and thrive. In the 1970s an author had to posit a bizarre set of circumstances to make it even conceivable for a black man to be President. Now not only have we had a black man serve two terms as the elected leader, but a mixed race woman of immigrant parents now has a strong chance to assume that position.

That is something any American can be proud of, whether or not they vote for her or agree with her politics. The US is showing that it is indeed a diverse country of immigrants, not some kind of appendage to Europe.