Author David Mineta is a social worker in the San Francisco Bay Area and currently serves a president of the Jefferson Union High School District board of trustees.

Tonight at dinner, it became clear to me why Senator Barack Obama is the transformational leader our nation needs. Lauryn, our first grader, said that one of her classmates keeps telling her she was born in China. He’s been telling her this since last year in kindergarten. She always tells this classmate that she was born in Burlingame. As she told us this story, she covered her face with her arms. She continued to talk, but she covered her face from her mom, dad, and four-year-old brother.

Lauryn said that her other classmates also said that she was born in China. She said that she felt “weird” and didn’t like how she looked. The color of her skin, her hair, and the shape of her eyes (and she also has glasses) make her feel different. And being different is not particularly celebrated in all parts.

I know all fathers say this about their daughters, but Lauryn is special. You can see it on how sad she was for the cat that was hit by a car down the street. How concerned she is for kids of people who smoke cigarettes. For those of you who understand the sadness our daughter experienced also probably understand what this election means to many of us — adults and kids alike — who are “weird” or different.

By electing Senator Obama as our next President, we can take another step to ensure that one day little girls like Lauryn don’t have to suffer playground conversations about “being from China.”

Lauryn’s situation reminds me of things people still say to my mom, who’s in her 70s. Born and raised in California, and interned during World War II by her own government in a relocation camp, my mom is still on the receiving end of “you speak English really well.”

It reminds me of the comments to my father who served more than two decades in the United States House of Representatives and was the first Asian American in our nation’s history to serve in a presidential cabinet. After refusing to racially profile air travelers after 9/11, one conservative icon said that he “hates America.” It sounds just like the women at Senator McCain’s rally on October 10 in Lakeville, Minn., calling Senator Obama an “Arab” that she simply could not trust.

Unfortunately, still too many Americans see people who look like our daughter or have a name like Senator Obama as permanent foreigners, regardless of what our hearts, actions, or birth certificates would otherwise prove.

With a single vote next Tuesday, Americans of all races, ethnicities, faiths and ages may begin the next, perhaps best, chapter in a glorious national history, albeit tragically littered with the harsh lessons of intolerance and bigotry. I have believed for a long time that Senator Obama was the most qualified to be our president in this national time of need.

But now I know more than ever why he is a transformational leader after last night’s dinner conversation with an honest, bright, and resilient little six-year-old girl.

– David K. Mineta