During the 1980s, as an idealistic, ambitious Uighur growing up under repressive Chinese conditions in the city of Kashgar, there was one nation to which I pinned my hopes for freedom and democracy. To me, the United States was a symbol of my aspirations to live with dignity. I was not alone. Educated and ready to make a mark in the world, many of my Uighur friends and I felt we would never receive fair treatment as an ethnic minority in China’s closed society. We admired the American government system and its democratic values.