This week, the United States of America will celebrate the 243th anniversary of its birth as a nation.

In the history of the nations, ours is a relatively young one.

It was in Philadelphia that some people —I would call the 18th Century’s DREAMERS—set out to carry out a daring undertaking.

These men gathered in our city agree to dream the impossible:

To declare the birth of a new nation, literally declaring war to the most powerful Army on Earth at the time, England’s Imperial Army. 

As soon as they put their name under the Declaration of Independence —written in haste by Thomas Jefferson in a house on Market and Seventh Streets, and improved last minute by Benjamin Franklin, who lived nearby, with rigorous editing— they all knew they were subject to arrest, prosecution, loss of property, or even life.

That piece of paper is today a sacred document preserved in a museum, and all of us know it as the “Declaration of Independence of 1776," which inspired millions to action and today, 2 and a half centuries later, continue to inspire millions across the world.

It is preserved, and celebrated worldwide, because it wasn’t just a piece of paper, but rather a fundamental act of resolve by the men and women standing behind that bunch of signatures led by John Hancock's rubric.

That act of rightful resolve led to a long and bloody war, and later the painful birth of a new and extraordinary nation— the United States of America.

This young nation still exudes today, 243 years later, a promise that led to many men and women paying the ultimate sacrifice and dying in war conflicts of gigantic proportions.

Not only in the Revolutionary War, but also in the Civil War, almost 100 years later, with an unforgettable battlefield here in our own state, around the heroic plains and hills surrounding Gettysburg, PA.

We gathered last Saturday, June 29, at the Kimmel Center to celebrate that tradition we have summarized under the word “America.”

The land of the brave and the home of the free, "The Americans.” Los Americanos.

Because we are all Americans here, essentially. Todos somos Americanos aquí, esencialmente.

Tomamos mucho orgullo en ello.  We take great pride on it.

That is why we celebrated last Saturday the Second annual edition of “The Americans you don’t know”, #ALDIATheNewAmerican at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts — honoring the new sojourners to Philadelphia and the great nation born here —the 21st Century DREAMERS— the naturalized U.S. Citizens born overseas who by choosing to come here believing in the promise to build their new home on American soil are helping in a big way to keep today the flame of the original idea burning alive.

Alive and shining bright from our city— as we all are celebrating again, all across the nation, on this new Fourth of July.