The following story has been edited from the original in order to comply with this website's guidelines. Note that only Part 1 has been edited. Please contact the author if you have any questions.nn***nnCHAPTER 1nn***nnI was eight years old when my parents died. They had come to America just before I was born, eking out a living as hired farm hands in California before moving on towards the Great Plains. This was the land of opportunity, but life was not easy in Middle America for a couple of uneducated Chinks and two small children.nnStill, all of their hopes and dreams were for our success. My younger sister and I attended local schools as often as possible, and every extra penny they had went into providing for our educational needs. They dreamed that I could grow up and be a doctor or lawyer, live a better life.nnWe were on our way to a new job in the next state over when my dad fell asleep at the wheel. He and my mom had been driving in shifts for the last two days straight in order to make it to the new job on time. Our battered truck flipped into a ditch, and the next thing I knew, Child Services was delivering me to a dusty building where a weather-beaten couple was waiting for me. A sign by the road read "Masters Farm".nnA kind but overworked and exhausted social worker was talking to my new foster parents. They were signing some paperwork and then the social worker handed them a check. She turned and pointed to me. "His family died in an accident off Route 47. We don't have any record of where they were headed or where they were coming from. Just a family of undocumented Chinese. But the boy's got a US birth certificate; he speaks perfect English, and responds to the name 'John'.