Congress has decided, once again, to postpone a vote on immigration reform, deciding instead to hold town hall meetings around the country. I know exactly where those discussions ought to be held. High school campuses. Right here in Southern California.

Over the past few weeks, I've been talking to high school valedictorians. We profiled about a dozen of them for a series of end-of-the-school year features on KPCC. As I conducted the interviews, something slowly dawned on me. Almost all of the valedictorians --- ten of 12, it turned out --- were either born overseas or were the children of parents who were born overseas. Here in Southern California --- ground zero in many ways for the American immigration debate --- many of our best and our brightest are either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants.

Most of the proposals coming from Capitol Hill have been about protecting borders, cheap labor, arresting and deporting those without documentation, building walls. But the conversations I've been having here have been about the American dream: working hard, giving back to the community, inventing the future.

Letisia Alvarado is the valedictorian at Jefferson High, a South Los Angeles school in the headlines last year for a fight that was widely reported to be a race riot. What the media should have focused on, Letisia says, is the lack of educational opportunities at Jefferson, a year-round school.

Her particular track offered not a single Advanced Placement class. So she switched tracks, and took all the AP classes that were offered. Both of them. At other public high schools around town, students can choose from more than a dozen AP courses. "Why not Jefferson?" she asked. Letisia formed the AP Society, a group of students who lobbied the administration to add more classes. They were successful --- sort of. Now there are four.

Letisia's parents came to the U.S. from Mexico. This fall, she joins her older sister at UC Berkeley. But her career goal will lead her right back to the neighborhoods of South Los Angeles where she plans to open a family therapy clinic. Letisia believes in giving back. She mentors at her old grammar school, at her old middle school, and at Jefferson. She also volunteers with the Big Sister organization.

"It's just amazing how just helping one person can change your whole life," she says, "knowing you are making a difference with just one person. And to think that that one person can make another difference. It's amazing to me."

Brian Nuyen comes from a long line of immigrants. (His father spells the name that way because he didn't think Americans would be able to figure out how to pronounce the "g" in Nguyen.) Brian's mother's family left China for Vietnam to escape the Japanese occupation. They left again for Malaysia after the fall of Saigon. Brian's father was studying in New Zealand when his country, South Vietnam, simply disappeared.

It's probably this complex multi-national background that has made Brian so interested in international affairs. He's passionate about the Model United Nations program at Los Alamitos High School, where students play the roles of U.N. diplomats tackling international issues such as nuclear proliferation in Iran and missile technology in North Korea. Brian says he intends to pursue a career in public health. It wouldn't surprise me if I turn on NPR news some years down the road and hear him explaining the latest international crisis from the front lines of some exotic locale.

Three or four centuries ago, it was the quest for religious freedom that moved immigrants to leave their homeland forever and set sail for America. That's what brought Cecilia Rosca's parents to these shores, too. The Roscas are Pentecostals who bristled under communist rule in Romania. Cecilia, the valedictorian at Buena Park High, loves her church, loves her family, and has a passion for politics. She insisted to me that she had no desire to become president of the United States. But I suspect it won't be the last time she's asked.

And then there's Edison Tam. His real name is Hoi San, but his older sister thought most Americans would have a hard time with that one, and suggested he borrow the name of a great American role model. Thomas Edison would recognize his namesake. Edison the younger took a computer apart when he was ten --- and put it back together. He's a member of Gardena High School's aerospace team, which just won first place in experimental design for inventing a house that can withstand strong winds.

Clearly a creative thinker, Edison wants to improve American education. He's convinced there's a way to move American teenagers to actually value their educations. He read an article about a motel owner who had a hard time keeping his public restroom clean. The man tried everything. No success. Then finally one day, he put a few fresh flowers in the bathroom. Suddenly, the customers went out of their way to keep the restroom neat and nice.

"That gave me the idea," says Edison, "that if you give students new books, new materials, they might value what they learn. And thus, their enthusiasm to learn will be increased."

Edison's enthusiasm for learning wasn't squelched by personal tragedy. His father died before his eyes in a traffic accident 18 months ago, only a couple of years after his family came to this country. Edison arrived in the U.S. from Hong Kong when he was a high school freshman. He spoke almost no English. It's better now. Last month, he used it to deliver the Gardena High commencement address.

As our Senators and Representatives talk about the costs of immigration, I hope they will also discuss the benefits. America has always been renewed by the energies of those who consciously and courageously chose to turn their backs on their pasts, and offer to us their futures. These kids --- immigrants and children of immigrants --- embody the American ideal. They bring enthusiasm, ambition, vision and good hearts to our great land. Our world needs their blood, tears, toil and sweat.

And our country is the one country that can enable them to reach their highest potential. And to dream their biggest dreams.

Kitty Felde is Special Correspondent at KPCC, FM 89.3, National Public Radio for Southern California, whose profiles of local valedictorians can be heard at www.kpcc.org. She attends St. Monica Church, Santa Monica, and St. Agatha Church, Los Angeles. This article first appeared in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal.