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Naomi Judd
Country Music Artist and Social Advocate
Wynonna and I walked into RCA Records on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee, March 3rd of 1983, and supreme naiveté. I think I had on a $20 dress from the flea market and this old plastic gut string guitar, and our knees were knocking so loud, we thought they could hear us. And we sat down in front of these big enchiladas and said, "Hey, this is who we are, and this is what we do," and we sang a couple of songs that I had written, which were pretty wacky. They were pretty out there, and they said, "Go down the street to a restaurant, and let us sort of talk this over," and they walked down to the restaurant and stuck out their hand and said, "Congratulations. You're RCA's newest act." Of course, we thought that everybody did it that way. We were clueless. They were the big deal at that time in '83. I remember we walked down the halls -- and of course they had Elvis and Kenny Rogers -- in 1983, it was Alabama and Dolly Parton, and it was like the Hall of Fame. Wynonna just walked in like, "I'm in church. This is a sacred place. This is the mother church of country music."
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Naomi Judd
Country Music Artist and Social Advocate
Naomi Judd: Those are two really cool words, "American" and "dream," because I'm so stinking patriotic. I have a flag flying from my front porch at my house, and I really understand. Because I'm just a free spirit myself, I really, really get it about how lucky we all are to be living in this country. And the word "dream," it's like it's in my DNA or something. I'm a total dream chaser. Wynonna and I used to sing a song every night on stage called "Dream Chaser," because it was our anthem. We named our bus the Dream Chaser. We had it on the back of the bus, and people see us going down life's highways, and that's exactly what we were doing. We were just out there chasing our dreams. And when you say "American" and "dream," it almost has an exponential quality to it, because I'm living proof that if you live in America, you can do anything, because I was born in a small town, Ashland, Kentucky. Daddy had a gas station, and I come from the ranks, from a blue collar, hard-working family. I just decided that nobody and nothing was going to stop me from doing what I wanted to do, whether it was getting my butt off welfare and putting myself through college when I had sole responsibility for two little girls -- one of which was Hurricane Wynonna -- or was a battered woman and I decided, "Unh unh, I ain't going to do this no more." So it's one of those things where "You change your mind, you change your life," and I decided that we were going to go to Nashville, Tennessee, and get into country music.
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Anthony Kennedy
Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
We're so fortunate. Either by accident or history or providence or design, I think all those. The self-definition, the self-image of an American relates to his or her Constitution. No other country in the world has that. We can't be smug about this and say no other country in the world can have a constitution, but this accounts for the fact that our Constitution is the oldest constitution in the world. I've had the heads of foreign governments ask me, "I think I should amend the constitution to do this and that," usually something that helps them over the short term. And I say, "You know, a constitution, by definition, is something that has to last over time." Madison said, "The Constitution must acquire the reverence of its people, and it can only acquire that reverence over time." And so, the court wants to -- is a way, is one way of reminding Americans, of reminding ourselves that the Constitution must transcend the emotions and the opinions of a particular day. And so, criticism doesn't bother me. I think criticism is very important. The Constitution doesn't belong to a bunch of judges and lawyers. It belongs to you. It's yours. Now, we have to interpret it in this formal way, but you have to live it.
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Jeong Kim
President of Bell Labs
Korean immigrant history is relatively short, and most of us came at a time which was 1975, looking for better economic opportunities. They had almost no money when they came. Most of us, most of our parents, actually had to walk to work, which is kind of impossible in today's environment because everything is so far. You know, a couple hours walk just to get to work. Most of us had to get our clothing from thrift shops, 50 cent kind of things because they didn't have any money. I guess there is a language barrier, obviously, because I never spoke English until I came to the States. And, I was actually a shy kind of person, so it was even more difficult. In some ways, that was probably one of the most stressful times in my life, not necessarily because life was harder, but because you are a teenager, you couldn't take it as well, and I used to have a nose bleeding all the time coming home, just simply from stress.
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Jeong Kim
President of Bell Labs
In other countries, when you try and fail, you really fail. People basically look at you as a failure. Here people look at that as an excellent experience. And even if you fail, most people will walk away saying that, "Well, at least I tried. Most people don't even try." We have an attitude, I think in the United States. Only in the United States, people take that kind of attitude that we all need to take a risk. If it doesn't work out, at least I was brave enough that I did try it.
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