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Taiwan-born Chao speaks at Republican convention

"It wasn't the Mayflower, and it wasn't the Love Boat, but [the ship] brought us to this magical country."

US Labor Secretary Elaine Chao

US Labor Secretary Elaine Chao (趙小蘭), a Taiwan-born immigrant, gave a prime-time address endorsing President George W. Bush's re-election Wednesday night at the Republican Party's national convention.

The four-day pageant, which was to end yesterday after Bush accepts renomination to run in the Nov. 2 presidential elections, has been orchestrated to broaden the center-right party's appeal beyond the traditional conservative base to voting blocs including new immigrant ethnic groups.

Chao's speech at the convention in New York follows a major address on Tuesday by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Austrian immigrant and Hollywood action star who is among the world's most recognized celebrities.

US Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Chao's husband and a Republican leader in Congress, introduced her at the convention.

"Elaine is a living testament to an America that invites the best from all over the world to serve as its leaders today," he said.

An academic economist, Chao described how she left Taiwan with her mother and sister to cross the Pacific on a freighter and joined her father in California, where he had arrived three years earlier.

"It wasn't the Mayflower, and it wasn't the Love Boat, but [the ship] brought us to this magical country and reunited our family, so it was beautiful to me," she said.

The family eventually moved to New York City's borough of Queens.

"At first, the American language and culture were difficult hurdles for us to overcome," Chao said. "Faith, hard work and the kindness of new friends carried my family forward and made it possible for me to become the first Asian Pacific-American woman to serve in the Cabinet of a president of the United States."

Norman Minetta, a former Democratic congressman from California and Japanese-American, is Bush's secretary of transportation.
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