Tags:
Journalism of Courage
He has shared everything for most of his scuffled life, from twin beds to sofa cushions to last bites.
It only made sense, then, that when he stunningly won an Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling Tuesday, the Los Angeles-born son of undocumented Mexican immigrants would also share.
With his most beloved piece of cloth.
The American flag.Oh, what a pair they made, young Henry Cejudo and Old Glory, dancing cloth-to-cheek across the floor of a gym that rocked and roared in disbelief.
That flag gave a chance to a kid who paid for wrestling by selling tamales on the street. That kid now held it tight as he dropped to the mat and dissolved in tears.
“I’m living the American dream,” said Cejudo, 21. “The United States is the land of opportunity, and I’m so glad I can represent it.” The flag gave his mother a chance to raise six children on menial wages in countless apartments from Los Angeles to Las Cruces, N.M., to Phoenix. The son now flapped it across his back like a cape, as if showing the world how it had enabled him to fly.
“The USA is the best country in the world because it allows you to express yourself in whatever you can do best,” said his brother Alonzo, watching from the stands. “Wrestling is just Henry’s way.”
That flag gave a high school education to a kid too poor to celebrate Christmas, then gave that kid a chance to become an Olympian even after he finished 31st in last year’s world championships. The kid now wore the flag around the gym like an expensive new coat, and later refused to take it off. “I don’t want to let it go, man,” Cejudo said about an hour after his 55-kg victory over Japan’s Tomohiro Matsunaga. “I might just sleep with this.”
The tiny, bushy-haired champion flashed a huge smile, his face a strange mixture of tears and welts and happiness, and it was then he was reminded America had one more thing to give him.
For winning the gold medal, he will be awarded bonuses and donations equaling $65,000.
“I’m rich!” he screamed.
No, it was the rest of us who were rich, witnessing a moment that could only happen at the Olympics and, yes, perhaps only in America. “This is unreal,” said Frank Saenz, his Phoenix-area high school coach who was weeping with others in the stands. “Such a big country… how does this happen?”
