I watch an Albanian woman around the age of 50 serve me, a 20-year-old, a coffee. I ask myself why is a lady of such an age on her feet for eight plus hours running around doing a job that even I as a 20-year-old find exhausting.

In her native country, she was a veterinarian, an engineer, a nurse. She had a profession that did not entail waking up at 5 a.m. to serve the coffee America runs on. This lady in her younger days, in her native place, walked the streets of a city that filled her with life. Where she even in a broken country felt more full than she does now. Thousands of women and men just like her wake up before the sun rises to raise a family in a country they are still learning to call home. America doesn’t run on coffee. America runs on immigrants.

Ever since I was a young child, my role models weren’t celebrities, top athletes, or politicians; my role models were the ladies behind the counter serving coffee so they could put food on the table. My role models were the men who worked two jobs just to make sure their children would have a better life than they had.

At the age of 6, I didn’t understand why my dad would come back from work so late each day and still stay up on his computer working at home. At the age of 10, I didn’t understand why my mom would wake up at four in the morning to open the store just so she could be back for when my sister and I came back from school. At a young age, I didn’t understand the sacrifices my parents and thousands of others have made and still make to this day.

Each and every immigrant that has come to this country, the United States of America, has a different story, a different path traveled. But each immigrant that has come to this country shares one goal, to achieve the American Dream. This dream that to some seems unreal, is the driving force of millions. The force that gets them up early in the morning and drives them to stay up late at night. The force that drives their children to be the best that they can be because not only did their parents leave everything behind to make a better life for them, but they continue to surpass limits to make sure their children receive all that they couldn’t. The American dream isn’t about becoming a millionaire. The American dream isn’t about living in a mansion with fancy cars. The American dream is taking the dream of a better life and turning it into reality. The American dream is to pave a path for the future generations of your family. I am living the American Dream.

Next time you buy a coffee, get your car washed, go to the doctors or get your computer fixed, ask that person where they are from, you’ll be amazed by their story.