(Larry S. Su) As an immigrant and later naturalized citizen of the United States, I have always been attracted by what America stands for — democracy, justice, equality, and hope — since I was a college student in China forty years ago. Today as a professor of American literature who helps students to appreciate the greatness of America and its glorious literary creativity, I return again and again to my favorite author Walt Whitman and his unparalleled patriotism and hope for America, as is expounded in his The Leaves of Grass,