Chinese are not the only ones looking for greener pastures. At the hotel, I also met a 50-year Filipino server from room service who arrived in the United States 30 years ago and is now proudly American.

And there is the young, extremely bright-eyed and cheery Vietnamese-American boy who delivered my tub of ice at 2 am in the morning. His parents came as boat people in the 1980s and he was born and raised as an American. He has never visited Vietnam.

Yet another Filipina I met at the hotel waited for a visa for 12 years before she was finally reunited with her family in Seattle, after roaming the world working in hotels as far apart as Dubai and Bali.

Why were these "guests", who became part of the population, so adamant about wanting to come, and even more determined to get that green card? To many it is the chance for a better life, to be able to enjoy a quality of life they are not able to have in their home country. Sometimes, they do it for their children.

It is not an easy choice. At the end of eight years living in California, I had needed to decide whether to stay on or give up my permanent residency.

Yes, the grass was greener this side of the fence, and I had a garden where seeds sprouted overnight if I dropped them in the rich, damp, fertile soil. I would return to a concrete jungle where my city apartment had a balcony fried by the sun.

But, there were other considerations as well. Family. Cultural roots. And the nagging conviction that if everyone left, who would remain to make my own country better? Home is where the heart is.

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