by Ryan Christie
You go to the supermarket. You naturally see a lot of products and brands. In many of them, a beautiful story of the American Dream is within.
You look at the cans of Chef Boyardee pasta, with its iconic logo of a smiling older chef. Did you know that Chef Boyardee was an actual person? His name was Ettore Boiardi, born in Italy in 1897. Trained as a chef from an early age, he arrived at Ellis Island at the age of 16 in 1914, with only the clothes on his back, a small amount of money, and his talent. Working and rising up the ranks at restaurants throughout New York City, by 1917 was the head chef of the Plaza Hotel, tasked with supervising a large banquet held for returning servicemen from World War I and attended by President Woodrow Wilson. By 1928, he was running his own Italian restaurant, and selling his recipe for spaghetti sauce. Although he eventually sold the business, Boiardi continued to successfully market and develop new food products well into his death in 1985.
On another aisle, you might find bottles of Huy Fong sriracha hot sauce. The story of this particular hot sauce is quite astounding. The sauce was invented by David Tran, an immigrant from Vietnam. Tran, a veteran of the Vietnam War, was able to escape the communist takeover and sailed on a freighter to Los Angeles, arriving in 1980. Discovering a large market for hot sauce, he quickly established Huy Fong Foods, selling his hot sauce out of a van. In seven years, the company was headquartered in a 68,000 square foot building and generated over $150 million in revenue by 2022.
America is indeed a place where talents, hard work and perseverance are rewarded. It is indeed a place where immigrants, from often humble beginnings, can flourish.