I am very happy once again to have the opportunity to wish my Chinese friends a very happy New Year.

It's a reminder to us – the New Year celebration that our Chinese-American friends put on and so many of us are able to observe and enjoy and learn from – that America's greatness is in part because we have been blessed by having the most energetic and creative people from all over the world come here. And I'm talking about emigrants. Lazy people don't become emigrants. People who emigrate are the people who have the entrepreneurial spirit, the desire to get ahead, that leads them to take the kind of risks that are involved in immigration. And as a consequence, we get residents in the United States who are good patriotic Americans and who bring to this new country the culture and the values that motivated them at home and the result is that we are all much the beneficiaries. So, Happy New Year to all my friends of Chinese origin.