If you needed a little good news for the holidays - and proof that the American dream still exists, for those willing to reach for it - here it is.
A Cuban UPS driver has gone viral after his wife posted a video showing him gushing over his first paycheck in the United States.
Before immigrating to the U.S., Yoel Diaz was a computer science teacher in Cuba making about $12 a month, so little he could barely afford enough food to eat.
“Water, water, water, five, ten eggs, water,” Diaz said, describing the totality of the contents of his fridge back in his birth country.
After meeting his wife, a Cuban-American named Marissa, Diaz moved to Phoenix on a K-1 visa (given to those engaged to be married to a U.S. citizen) and got a work permit and a job at UPS, which he just started in October. And, after several weeks, he got his first paycheck - which amounted to exponentially more than he’d have made in Cuba in a year.
"This is my first hourly paycheck that I feel every hour counted, that every hour of work has importance in my life and that I know I can work hard for something," Diaz said in the video. "I can't compare that emotion with anything, because I never had that in my country."
"I prefer this to Fidel Castro," he added. "Fidel took more. Communism took more."
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"When you have this for the first time, your head explodes and say, 'Wow, it's beautiful,'" he told CBS.
Diaz’s story quickly went viral online, even prompting UPS CEO Carol B. Tomé to send him a letter and a box of goodies.
While we're talking about the American dream, I have one that we can eventually trade every freedom-hating, anti-capitalism leftist for a Yoel Diaz, and go from there.