South of the Border--Chile

        When Luis Coppelli got straight-A’s in grade-school, he took the perfect report card home to show it off to his parents. If he had expected praise, he was disappointed. His mother told him that good grades were “expected, not rewarded.”

“I give you food and shelter,” she said. “That is your duty.”

Growing up in Chile, Coppelli learned from his parents that education was the most important thing. That idea pushed him through many more successful report cards, into medical school, and, when he was 27, it took him to the U.S.

Coppelli brought from Chile a love of home-cooked foods, especially seafood, and a unique perspective on the American dream.

Coppelli expressed satisfaction with America’s “lack of social class,” the fact that Americans all have the same opportunities, without social tension or favoritism to those with a certain name. He was puzzled, though, by American’s obsession with race.

“How about human?” he asked, pointing out that every survey begins with the question of race. “Maybe it’s because of the history of the country,” he said.

Complacency is another American foible—too many Americans forget that they must qualify to compete with the rest of the world. Indeed, Coppelli’s mother’s training must have stuck. “Education,” he said, “Is an absolute priority.”