Political Quotes

“I want to speak to the underlying legislation that we are debating in the Senate today. I want to acknowledge that, like many of my colleagues in the Senate, I am a descendant of immigrants. Only one generation separates me from a grandfather who was born in Norway but came to America with his brother in hopes of making a better life. My grandfather and great-uncle, when they came through Ellis Island, their given name was not the name I have today. It was Gjelsvik, and when they got to Ellis Island the immigration officials there asked them to change their name because they thought it would be difficult to spell and pronounce for people in this country. So they picked the name of the farm near where they worked near Bergen, Norway, which was the Thune farm. So Nicolai Gjelsvik became Nick Thune, my grandfather. When they got here they worked on the railroad, saved up enough money to buy a merchandizing store, which eventually became a hardware store, and there is to this day on the streets of Mitchell, SD, a Thune Hardware. The family is not associated with it anymore, but that is an example, like so many other cases, of people in this Chamber as well as those all across the country who came here in search of the American dream, in search of a better life for their children and grandchildren. My grandfather raised three sons in the middle of the Great Depression.…”