Welcome to the American Story.

Stories about what it is that makes America beautiful

and worthy of our love.

This is Chris Flannery with the Claremont Institute.

I call this one.

Call me Sam.

In the village of Eddyur, near the town of Tiricoyler, in the district of Villopuram, in the state of Tamil Nadu, on the

eastern portion of the southern tip of India, in the 56th year of what we call the 20th century.

A boy was born on his father's large farm in a house that had no electricity and was lit by kerosene lamps.

The boy would be joined over his young years by five sisters and a brother.

From Tamil, the region's language, he would bring to his acquired English, vowels and consonants

that are an exotic auditory gift.

His name was Eshill Horazon. As a 16 year old, Eshill Horazon happened to pick up a Tamil language

newspaper in the local store in his village of Idaiur. In the paper he read an article about a country

called America that was said to offer the best education to be found in the world and had

sent a man to the moon.

His immediate boyish thought, which he exclaimed to the men gathered in the barber shop,

was, I must go to this place.

He remembers the grown-ups responding. Are you crazy?

A boy from this village will never go even to Delhi in a lifetime.

But this America is on some other planet.

In truth, the boy had no idea where America was,

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