- The issue of immigration stirs intense emotions today as it has throughout much of American history.

But what gets lost in the debates about policy are the stories of immigrants themselves, the people who are drawn to America by its promise of economic opportunity and political and religious freedom and who strengthen our nation in countless ways.

So begins former president George W. Bush in his new book, Out of Many, One: Portraits of America's Immigrants.

In his just published already New York Times Bestseller, the president paints portraits and tells the stories of 43 immigrants.

In the midst of the immigration controversy, we traveled to Dallas to ask the former president, why a book on immigration now?

I'm Becky Ferguson and this is One Question.

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- Former president George W. Bush painted 43 portraits of immigrants for his new book entitled Out of Many, One.

Those words in Latin, E Pluribus Unum, our nation's motto, appear on the Great Seal of the United States.

Why a book on immigration now?

We traveled to Dallas to meet with the former president to ask him that question and many others including what the nation should do with regard to immigration policy, why he painted and told the stories of two Midlanders in the book and how we can bridge our tribal divides to be kinder to one another and assume honorable motives on the parts of our political opponents.

And we also talked about his post-presidential passion, painting.

We met in the president's Dallas office.

Thank you so much for visiting with us.

I bought your book of course because I wanted to study your portraits.

Then I downloaded the audio because I wanted to hear you tell the stories.

And I love that it also got to hear the immigrants tell their stories.

And I laughed like, "Mom, where are the nukes?"

Hilarious, or learning English from watching Seinfeld.

- Right.

- I was also so unbelievably touched by these stories and it also gave me a sense of gratitude and of patriotism.

- Good.

- And I felt like it was so bold for you to write such an optimistic book.

And I wonder why immigrants and why now?

- Well, first of all, why be optimistic?

And the reason why is, I guess I spent enough time in Midland to be optimistic.

Remember of when I first got out there, the sky is the limit which really conveys a sense of optimism.

And in Midland you can you can see a long way.

And I'm an optimistic guy and I believe even though we've been through a very dark period of time in American politics, that a better days lie ahead.

Secondly, I have always been interested in immigration and I think I've got a pretty good feel for the vitality and energy somebody who's escaped tyranny brings to our country.

And I was discouraged by the immigration debate, the tone of the immigration debate.

And so this is my one attempt, or not one attempt, an attempt to elevate the discourse and hopefully get people to focus on positive aspects.

Becky, it really starts with a core value of we're all God's children.

And I think if you start with that attitude, then all of a sudden it will enable you to view immigration not as a threat but as an opportunity.

Opportunity for economic growth, an opportunity to enhance patriotism and an opportunity to increase compassion.

- I want to talk a little bit about your art.

- Okay.

- You have mentioned that you read Winston Churchill's book, Painting is a Pastime.

- Right.

- And in his book, he talks about how you can rest the tired part of your brain by using another part of your brain.

- Yeah.

- So will you talk about the effect painting has on you?

- Well it's definitely used another part of my brain, the weird thing is that I never thought that that part of the brain would ever get activated and it's changed my life because I see things differently and I'm enthused because I'm learning so much.

You're a painter and as you know, every brush stroke is a learning experience.

Secondly, in order to be a better painter, you've got to study other painters which in itself is a learning experience.

And so I'm doing something that no one ever envisioned me doing, including my wife and close friends and I'm doing it enthusiastically.

And so yeah, it's changed me a lot and Winston Churchill was the reason I started painting.

I mean, I'm a big admirer of Churchill and I figured if that guy can paint, I can paint.

So yeah, I paint all the time.

- I'm just amazed at your portraiture because I think that's a particularly difficult thing to paint.

When you start to paint somebody, what is important to get right?

I mean, when somebody walks in or you see a picture of somebody.

- Yeah.

- Where are you starting?

What's important?

- Well, the important thing is to make sure the eyes, nose and mouth are positioned right.

Secondly, I think the most important part of painting a good painting is to understand the story about the person you're painting.

So like, and these immigrants, I knew their stories and I studied their stories before I started painting.

The first painting in there is a guy named Joseph Kim, a North Korean escapee.

And I don't know if I did this consciously or not but when you look at his painting, the darks are dark and the light is light and in essence, you're painting a guy who's gone from darkness North Korea to light America.

And I can't say I consciously did that but I wouldn't have done that had I not known his story.

And so I'm thinking about a kid escaping into China at the age of 14.

Or Jean Laken who was terribly abused in Rwanda and yet is full of forgiveness, I mean genuine forgiveness.

And when you talk to her, there's no doubt.

She is a person who has unburdened her heart.

And so when I painted her, I tried to paint this kind of almost angelic look.

And so to answer your question, first know the person you're painting but from a tactical perspective, the eyes tell the story.

And so I spent a lot of time learning how to paint eyes and I've had good instructors helping me and I had to make sure the eyes are shaped right.

But also to make sure that the shadow in the eye itself is done right.

- You talk about your teachers when you're painting one of these portraits and you get to a difficult point.

Do you have somebody come in and look at it with you and help with critiques?

- Initially I did.

The thing about it is that a portrait or a painting never ends.

- You just have to stop?

- Yeah, exactly.

And so there's a lot of times I've painted portraits and an instructor comes by.

And I'll say Jim or Cedric, what do you think?

And sometimes they say it's a good one.

Or sometimes they say, well, have you thought about this?

And then you repaint or move in.

The thing about painting, once you change your color, then you gotta change other colors that's next to it.

And so you have to be disciplined enough to say enough's enough.

But yeah, initially of course, I spent a lot of time with the instructors learning a lot of things.

And as time goes on, I've seen them less frequently because they're very busy but they'll come by and we'll talk about other artists.

So they'll see me 'cause I have a lot of my things there in their art studio and they look and say, "Oh, that reminds me of George Hoolan or whatever."

And then so I will Google him- - Let's look and see what you're painting.

- And so it's as much art history as well as spending time with them encouraging me.

With confidence, I've become a bolder painter.

I mean, at first I was kind of a, I was a precise painter.

Let's just make sure that it looks exactly like it's supposed to look and now I'm trying to get more artistic and that's just a matter of confidence.

- Well, your strokes are bold and your colors are blocky which I think are really interesting.

- Well, thank you.

- I mean, you're not fussing.

- Not fussing is a good way to put it.

My one instructor keep yelling at me, "Don't be fussy!"

But yeah, and I'm not trying to blend perfectly.

Lucian Freud influenced my painting.

- Yes.

- And Cedric Huckaby, a young painter out of Fortworth influenced my portrait painting.

And they don't try to blend, they try to create interesting art.

And that's what I'm trying to do and this book was a way of.

So a buddy of mine said, "We need your voice," and I don't want my voice, I mean, my voice was out there for eight years and that's enough.

And he said, and the reason why Becky is, here's the great beauty of America, the institution of the presidency is more important than the occupant of the office and it provides great stability, it has throughout the years and will continue to do so.

And I think it undermines the institution to have me second guessing my successors of which there are now three.

But the guy said, "Well, why don't you paint the portraits of immigrants?"

He knew I was interested in immigration, I did.

And so then I knew the stories and I thought the stories would be instructive to Americans.

I don't expect a lot of people to read this book but to the extent they do, they've got to be impressed by the courage, the compassion that others have shown them and their contribution to our country.

- I told you a minute ago that the book made me feel very patriotic.

It also made me very proud to walk among people who will help folks when they come here, recover and adjust.

- And that's important and the key thing for people in Midland to understand is that mostly everybody wants to enforce the border.

I mean, we're a nation of law.

But in order to better enforce the border, we have to reform the system that is broken and there's a better way and I've got some suggestions in there.

And what I hope happens is that Congress will act finally and take some baby steps toward a reform package that will ultimately yield a more broader enforcement.

- So you think it should be incremental instead of comprehensive?

- Yeah I do.

I tried comprehensive in '06, got killed by the Democrats by the way because they viewed it as a labor union issue at the time.

And yeah, I think baby steps doc or some of these.

I mean look, if you ask most Americans, should we be sending kids whose parents brought them here and who were educated and now have jobs, should we send them back home when they have no home?

Most Americans would say no, that doesn't make any sense.

So if that's the case, why don't you just fix it?

And that'll give people confidence and start plowing through all the politics of an issue that is a hot button issue at times.

- Well, I know you noticed like I did last week when the census was released that the last decade was the slowest growth decade since the depression because of low immigration and low birth rates.

So are we going to find ourselves in a position where we don't have enough workers?

- Well, that's a good question.

That's why I'm for reforming the work program.

Look, there's people doing jobs that need to be done.

And if there's a verified worker program, they don't have to sneak across the border, they can come and work and that will then make it easier to enforce the border.

But here's the danger, guys like me, and I'm not going to put you in this category, but we're going to get our social security check.

(laughing) But there's not enough young workers to take care of the up and coming generation.

So our kids for example may be given the ultimate false promise and it requires young workers.

And so, yeah, no question this is an economic issue.

And I mean, here in the metroplex, it's booming and I talked to a landscaper the other day who said, "I'm looking for 150 workers," and yet the system is bureaucratic and cumbersome and it hurts many small businesses not to be able to get workers they need.

- You have painted world leaders, I know right after you left office.

I want to ask you real quickly, did you get in trouble with any of them?

- Not really, thankfully.

The one that I was most in danger with was Angela Merkel, my dear friend, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

The reason why is painting women can be very delicate and as you know, I tend to push paint hard and therefore, sometimes if you're not careful, the features are not delicate.

And I think on those two, they were pleased with it and I looked back at them the other day and some of them did what I wanted to do.

I mean, if you look at (indistinct) eyes, they're pretty suspicious.

I'm really happy with the Dalai Lama, my dear buddy.

But yeah, that was an interesting moment and it's a teaching moment because my instructor introduced me to her instructor, a guy named Roger Winter and I had just been painting for maybe two years and he came into my studio up there at the house and said, "You ought to paint the leaders with whom you served."

And it was a stunning comment by a very good artist and my first reaction was, "Wow, you think I can do that?"

He said, "Absolutely."

And you know, it gave me the confidence to try.

And so I spent a year painting.

It was interesting only because, it's not so much the artwork but it's what did George Bush think of?

How did he relate to?

And so they look at Angela and they'll say, "Wow, he must've really liked her," which is true, I did.

- And then you painted veterans and now- - Painted the vets.

- Yes.

- And so yeah, but this came about because Sedrick Huckaby says, "Why don't you paint the portraits of people nobody knows?"

And I had been dealing with vets a lot and I wanted to honor them and so I painted 98 of them.

It's a big exhibit.

It's got three large panels with I don't know how many faces on them, a lot.

And it was an interesting exercise 'cause many of them got hurt as a result of my orders and so I had this great bond with them and I wanted to show courage.

Some of them were dealing with the invisible wounds of war and there's a guy in there, it's a pretty harsh painting of him and I said, I met him when I was selling the book or saw him again when I was selling the book.

And I said, it's a tough painting and he looked at it and said, "That's how I used to feel," which was, it warmed my soul.

- I liked that there was some past tense there.

- Yeah.

- Okay, I'm thinking about when you were the governor and Bob Bullock was the lieutenant governor and he didn't like very many people, but he liked you.

- Yeah, he liked me, a lot.

- And y'all worked together.

And then I'm thinking you went to Washington and you worked with Ted Kennedy to pass the wonderful education bill.

And so I'm wondering in these polarized times, what can we do to find kindness and the assumption of good intentions on the part of our political opponents?

- Yeah, see, that's a really good question and that's what's missing right now but it takes time to work these moments out of our system.

I happen to believe that part of the last election particularly here in these congressional districts up here was surely we can be kinder to each other.

And so what's interesting is if you look at the results, the president didn't do very well but underneath, at the state house and stuff, Republicans did do well.

And so to me, that's a sign that parts of the electorate expected something better out of the leadership in terms treating each other with respect.

And so I believe that it's still going to be important to voters as time goes on, it just takes time to work through the system.

- Of 43 paintings, why two Midlanders?

- Well, 'cause these are people I know and admire their story.

First of all, Javaid Anwar is one of the more generous people I know.

And he's a guy that was in Pakistan and goes to the University of Wyoming, raised by a single mother and he had a dream and he worked hard and has done very well in the oil and gas business and he's done very well in the generosity field.

Bobby Fu was harassed as a result of his faith in China.

And he ends up in America by chance, he would say the grace of God.

And he is still active in terms of holding governments that don't believe in freedom of religion to account.

And so I admire Bobby, Bob, I shouldn't call him Bobby, Bob Fu's courage.

And I think they're interesting stories and I think that it's a part of the kind of general theme of the book which is people who take extraordinary risks to realize dreams and when they come to the country, they're not only good citizens but they help others.

And so I'm glad you're going to talk to him.

- I am too.

One more thing.

Over the weekend, I was with my daughter and son-in-law and I had just listened to your book and so I kept relaying different stories that touched me and my daughter said, "Mom, you really need to ask the president to relay a story."

So will you relay a story that particularly moved you?

- I mentioned Jean Laken but Gilbert of Austin, Texas, I got to know Gilbert because Jean had told me about this inspiring man who got her to run every Saturday morning when she was a senior at Texas so I said this guy's gotta be really inspiring to get Jean out of bed.

And so his story is this.

He was a champion runner as a young guy in Burundi.

The Hutu-Tutsi crisis was emerging.

He's a Tutsi and Hutu classmates of his and others, obviously instigators, locked all the Tutsi students in a school house and burned it.

And 30% of his body gets burned.

He gets out and he runs to a hospital and hides from the Hutu thugs.

Eventually, he ends up at Abilene Christian on a track scholarship.

And he met Paul who started Run Texas in Austin.

And so he started Gilbert's Gazelles which is a running club and he has inspired a lot of people because he is such a genuinely decent man.

He could have been full of hate, full of anger but he's not.

And he also raises money to find clean water for Burundi villages, in other words, he never forget where he came from.

One of the things about an immigration that's important is people can become fully American but they don't have to forget their past.

You can honor your traditions.

I learned that firsthand from Paola Rendon who was with our family for 60 years and, not quite 60, 50 years, a long time, 1959 till recently, and she was like a second mother.

She came with nothing, she left three kids in Mexico, she worked hard, brought them to the United States.

They became citizens.

Her son was a U.S Marine and there's generations of her offspring in Houston.

And she was very proud of her Mexican traditions but she was also a patriotic proud American.

And she was my first introduction to an immigrant.

And I saw how hard she worked and how decent she was.

And as Darla said, I cried more at Paola's funeral than my mother's.

- Yeah.

- I love that.

You're the best.

- Thank you.

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- Among the 43 portraits of immigrants the president painted for his book are two Midlanders, Bob Fu and Javaid Anwar.

Fu, a persecuted Christian refugee from China and Anwar, an immigrant from Pakistan.

I'm visiting with Bob Fu, the founder of China Aid.

And on this particular occasion, I'm talking to you because you were one of the 43 portraits that President Bush painted and included in his book, Out Of Many, One.

So I want you to tell your story and if you will start off by telling us how did you come to be named Bob?

- Yeah, well, thank you so much for the interview and I'm very honored of course, to be included as one of the many immigrants in this book by President Bush.

This name, Bob, actually was picked up in a random drawing when our American English teachers in our college tried to of course, identify the Chinese students.

But it's hard for them to remember the Chinese names, right?

So we got our name by drawing a lot.

The girls has one basket for English names, the boys has another.

So my first draw was Joseph.

When I drew it I thought, Joseph, that's too complicated to remember so I traded my holy name, Joseph, with my desk mate, Bob, that's how I got my name, Bob.

- If you will tell us how it was that you came to leave China and why you had to leave.

- Yeah, we left China purely because of the religious prosecution.

I was one of the tamarind square student leaders.

Because of the political persecution in 1989 after the massacre, I became a follower of Christ and through the help of our American English teachers who are Christians.

And then later on, my wife and I started an underground house church in Beijing and then established an underground Bible training school.

That led to both my wife and I arrested and imprisoned for two months.

And later on after we were released and then immediately put under house arrest, especially after we found my wife was pregnant without pregnancy permission card, is China's family planning system.

Unless you have a specific quota to get a legal pregnancy, the mother will face forced abortion.

I mean, literally several hundreds of millions.

It's hard for me even to think about that, the Chinese government even admitted at least over 130 million Chinese children were forcefully aborted.

So we don't want to see our first child to be forcefully aborted so we fled out of our apartment in Beijing at midnight.

I had almost a 007 type of escape by climbing the toilet room and the window in the dark night I stepped with really, a leap of faith.

I just dropped myself down to the building outside and even passed out for a few seconds.

So Heidi was pregnant, she had to disguise herself, we fled out of Beijing.

And essentially by God's grace, miraculously, we were able to flee to Hong Kong.

Before Hong Kong was turned over to China, our boy, our son, Daniel, was born in 1997.

And then three days before Hong Kong was turned over to China, we were admitted as refugees to the United States, landing this land of the free.

We're forever thankful to this country.

It was a warm welcome into America, yeah.

- You pay that back I think by continuing to help refugees in China.

Could you talk a little bit about your work?

- Yes and you know, one of the features of China Aid Mission, we call it a three-E mission, to expose the abuses of the persecution, to encourage the abused and to equip the leaders.

Basically we call ourselves as to walk with the prosecuted faithful by advancing religious freedom for all faiths and I mean, our motto is religious freedom for anyone, anywhere and anytime.

So that's when we found if those religious persecuted faithful who are facing imminent danger, life threatening and if we got a chance and able, we would rescue them to safety.

And so some are rescued to the United States.

In the past, nearly 20 years or so, we rescued a few hundred already.

The latest one, we rescued a Kazak Muslim family who the mother was put in the concentration camp.

The Chinese government is engaging this genocide and crime against humanity to this weaker and Kazak and other minority groups.

Between one to 3 million according to the Pentagon are estimated right now in over 380 concentration camps in West China called Xinjiang.

So this lady, her name is Guazira, so she spent over 15 months in the concentration camp and not only herself was abused heavily but she also eyewitnessed this tremendous torture and crime.

Basically is a state sponsored, forced prostitution against these ladies in the concentration camp.

So after I heard about this, I contacted with our partner organization in Kazakhstan because this lady has a Kazak husband in Kazakhstan so she left China after signing an agreement with the Chinese government after her husband of course had been making advocacy and appeal to the international community.

So just February this year, we rescued her out of Turkey and after, we kind of got her out.

And yeah, she's now in Midland, Texas.

- You brought her to Midland.

- Yep, with her five-year old daughter and her husband here and her daughter just started her first time in a English speaking school happily in a public school in Midland.

- Can you talk a little bit about the government involvement in rescuing refugees?

- Yeah, I mean the U.S government, right?

Of course, our family and many of those who are prosecuted are the beneficiaries and also witnessing this, the program of really, generosity and the compassion of the American people for accepting, resettling those really hundreds of thousands of refugees over the years and myself and Heidi, my wife and our two months old baby, Daniel, as I mentioned when we came here, is part of that.

And thank God for Bill Clinton actually, he was the one that made a very daring decision when we were stuck in Hong Kong, we could be returned to Chinese prison without that decision.

But over the years, certainly, I have never thought it's become a political kind of a dispute.

I mean, I just felt this should never be because we are a country, a melting pot, immigrants.

I mean, from early years of the Puritans, the early fathers, they're from different areas and then we have Italians, we have Irish, we have different country of origin but all of a sudden it becomes a political issue, it's really very hard for me to observe and especially, honestly I felt I'm a registered Republican and this is the one key issue I would really disagree with what the previous administration handled.

I think we are still the most powerful, most compassionate country on earth.

We can and should open our arm to accept more refugees than 15,000 or so or maybe even less I think in the past a few years.

So I feel it's life changing and it's not only, I think the critics talk about public charge, feeling maybe some of these immigrants or refugees will burden our welfare social security system.

And it could be, if we do not have a good vetting system, it could even pose some national security thing, I mean the September 11th is a good example.

But at the same time, we can't just let our worry to occupy or our compassion.

And we can do a better job in vetting but at the same time, most of these refugees or immigrants, I mean, they're hardworking people, they are contributing to society.

And for myself, when we came here, we were given a car by a Christian businessman in Philadelphia without even asking.

And he provided a house for us to stay before he gave a house to his own son.

And he started like giving us some cash support to the point we even felt so guilty and when I was able to find a job as a student doing some gardening work for a local doctor, I asked him to take off the insurance policy, I said I can pay for the insurance policy and I want to be really independent.

And so this kind of spirit of the immigrants especially and the refugee community, I just think it will make this country better and stronger and really more prosperous if we handle it more properly.

So that's my take.

- It's a lovely take.

How is it that you ended up in Midland?

- Yeah, well, many people ask that question.

I was even asked during several congressional hearings.

"You belong to Washington DC or New York or London" or somewhere because we have an international presence.

And as a mission to advance religious freedom, China Aid has been holding this mission.

It happened exactly accurate because of this community's generosity and enormous love and compassion.

In 2004, I went to DC and organized a conference with some senior persecuted house church leaders and ended up meeting with a group of Texans from the ministry, it's called the Midland Ministerial Alliance led by self claimed housewife, Debra Fixe.

Anyway, so that's the first time I knew the existence of Midland.

And we ended up meeting together because there was anthrax scares that day and then senator, Sam Brownback and congressman Frank Wolff kind of met with ours as a group together.

And when they learned that China Aid was operating from our yard basically and without any assistants or staff, they made their Texas an offer, and said, "Can you come over for a visit?

A divine visit."

We drove from Philadelphia, our family, all the way to Midland, Texas.

And then, yeah, we fell in love with Texas, especially in this community without hesitation.

I mean, we kind of made our move, we have never regretted.

I told the everyone when I travel around the word the story about this, a small city but with big dreams, everybody wants to change the world in the Permian Basin community.

I witnessed that, I kind of feel that every day we are loved and empowered to help those who are poor, needy and oppressed for freedom from China, North Korea, Sudan, all over the world.

This is the headquarter.

- I love that.

How did you get to know the president?

- Yeah, well, it was interesting.

After meeting with, of course, Ms. Deborah Fixe, I studied, oh, this is the hometown of George W. and Laura Bush and Laura Bush was even born here.

They have their Bible study meeting, Don Evans who is here.

General Tommy Franks is also here, a lot of famous people are here.

But the most fascinating thing I kind of learned was when we had our major test of a house church Christian persecution, I think that was the year 2000, 2002, 2004.

I mean, 2002 to 2004.

Anyways, so we had five church leaders sentenced to death and then we made appeal and then somehow the case ended up at President Bush's desk and later on he himself intervened.

And yeah, all the five death sentenced church leaders were commuted, basically several, a few to life sentence, a few to some other years.

And then in 2000, let's see.

So after we moved to Midland, of course we have more interaction with the White House and I also found a few friends who ended up working for him at the National Security Council.

So we start organizing the Chinese human rights lawyers and house church leaders and writers and dissidents to the U.S. Every time, the White House opened the door.

I mean, every time.

Like, sometimes we don't need even to make a prescheduled kind of phone call appointment, I just call them and they open the White House.

I was joking, he said, White House is like our house.

It was just then, 2008, President Bush invited us actually to the White House before he and Laura went to Beijing Olympics, he wants to know the persecution and I gave him some assignment.

And after he retired in Dallas, he invited us again quite a few times.

One time he even asked me to introduce Laura Bush at a big kind of news event in DC, - I love that.

- From the hometown.

- Yeah, hometown boy introducing the hometown girl.

- Yeah and he gave me a nickname every time he- - What was your nickname?

- Bobby The Fighter.

- I love that!

- "Here's Bobby The Fighter!"

So we enjoy our relationship.

- So happy to be visiting with Javaid Anwar who is the founder of Petroplex and Midland Energy.

And when we interviewed the President, he said, "Javaid Anwar is one of the most generous men I have ever met."

He tells in his book, stories of your generosity beginning back in Pakistan.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

- Well, I was raised by a single mother.

My mother and father were separated and I was lucky enough to live with my grandparents.

And that way we had very good food and shelter.

My mother worked as a telephone operator making very little money.

I lived in Pakistan and it's a poor country, we have beggars knock on the door, ask for food.

So my mother and grandmother may be eating food or may have saved food for later on and what they do, they just grab that food, give it to the poor people who were asking for food.

And I asked my mother or grandmother, "Oh, you didn't eat."

"No no," they said, "We have already eaten."

So I learned how they try to help poor people from a very early childhood.

- The president also mentions when he tells your story that your mom was very committed to your education and spent most of the money she earned on your education and she had the great hope that you would become a doctor but you ran into a stumbling block I understand in the eighth grade.

- That's right.

That's right because I took some biology class.

The names are so big, I just didn't like it so I said no way I'm going to become a doctor so I decided to go in engineering.

- And as I recall, you begin in nuclear engineering and how did you come to decide on that and how did you get to America?

- Well, I was very much interested in energy so I thought nuclear energy was really upcoming and I wanted to become a nuclear engineer.

And I applied for nuclear engineering at University of Wyoming.

I got admitted, I wanted to live in Wyoming.

It's a cold and very nice place to live because I am born and raised at a tropical place, Karachi, Pakistan, which never goes below 60 degrees most of the time.

It gets very hot and humid.

So I thought Wyoming will be an ideal place to go and live there.

And I started my nuclear engineering first semester.

After the first semester, I had a break.

I went to see some people in California.

Another graduate from my university, I knew him really well told me.

I said, "Where do you work?"

He said, "I'll show you where I work."

He took me down to a nuclear sub and I said, "That's where you work?"

He said, "I stay here six months or more down in the sea."

I said, no way, I decided not to do nuclear engineering right after that.

- And then what did you decide to do?

- I decided to become a petroleum engineer.

- And then what brought you to West Texas?

- Well, I had a job offer in California and I thought it would be some place like Santa Barbara where I can work on the rigs during the day in the field and go swim with the girls in the ocean but it turned out to be Bakersfield which gets very hot, dusty, temperature over 120 degrees.

When I land there to interview the Getty guy, I told him I have another job offer, I don't want to.

So that's why I decided to come to Houston, Texas, I was interviewing in Houston.

Houston is just like my hometown, Karachi, it gets hot and humid, I said, oh no, I made a mistake.

Somebody told me, "Go to Midland, Texas," so I came here.

First day, I was offered a job by Roy Williamson.

- The president also talks in his story about you that you worked for lots of different oil companies and moved around in West Texas to Abilene and Amarillo but then you decided because of the ups and downs of the oil business that you would rather have your own oil business than depend on other people.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- Yes, I worked here in Midland for two plus years then I got a job with Santa Fe Energy and I was very happy in Amarillo.

Within a few years they made me chief engineer at that company and so I have lot of people working for me who are much older than me.

But then they decided to move the head office to Houston and I didn't want to live in Houston so I decided to quit.

Then I went to Pampa, Texas.

And after that, what I saw in Pampa, one day I was having a lunch with few colleagues and Pampa is only like 60 miles from Amarillo.

My ex boss was Wayne Kelly.

They said, "Do you know what happened to Wayne Kelly?"

I said, "No, I don't know."

I said, "Mr. Kelly was an excellent boss, one of my very good friends and mentor."

He said that one day they came in on a Friday later, after 30 plus years of service, they let him go.

I said, "So where is he working?"

He said, "You don't even know that?"

I said, "No, I don't know where he is."

He said, "He passed away."

I said, "In his fifties?"

I was just shocked.

And he had a kid in college, some in high school.

And then I see the trend because our gas prices were all, natural gas prices were $10 per thousand cubic feet or per MCF.

It dropped after President Reagan deregulated gas and oil.

It went down to $1 and all those big gas projects that we were drilling with $10 gas, they started laying off all these senior people who had a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge.

And I said, I don't want to go through this when I'm in my fifties or late forties or 50 plus, whatever.

I said I'm going to go start my own oil company and give it a try.

- One of my favorite parts of the story about you in the President's book, is he talks about how you went back to Pakistan to visit your mother and that you were wearing a very fancy suit and your mother took great exception to that.

And what did she tell you?

- Well, I was working, I had good money.

I had a very good job, all kinds of benefits.

So I got used to getting custom-made suits.

So I did wear a very expensive outfit and she said, "My God, you look nice but do you know how much you paid for it?"

At that time I told her, "Yeah, like 25,000 for the suit."

She said, "Oh my God!

25,000 for a suit?

You know how many poor people you can feed with $25,000?"

I didn't think that way that she would.

So she told me, "These expensive suits and expensive cars are okay, but think of poor people.

If you are blessed, let's share it," that's what she told me.

If she had $10 to her, she would give it to some poor person.

- So you come by your generosity, honestly.

And I believe we've talked about one of the reasons the president is so grateful for your generosity is he's familiar with all the things that you do in Midland and things that you've done for his library.

And can you talk a little bit about some of the projects that you've been involved in?

- Yes, I was involved with.

Initially, let me tell you, we were flying from New York back to Midland and he said his daughter, Barbara Bush, is starting a foundation.

So he told me he gave so much money.

And I said, okay.

He said, "How much would you give her?"

So I gave him more than him.

He said, "Really?"

So he was very impressed.

He said, "You mean it?"

I said, "Yeah."

Anyway, but he knew from Don Evans that I have given for UT Engineering School to build new facilities, millions of dollars and I've done charity for his library and lot of other institutes that need help.

- I read again in the story that when you graduated, you had always assumed that you would go back to Pakistan but you decided not to because of the attitude Pakistanis have toward people like you and your mother.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- Well generally, in that part of the world, it's like a family who has got lots of money, they get privileged treatment and they get jobs much easier than the ordinary person.

So I was an ordinary person.

So I thought about going back and then they asked my references and all that stuff.

I told one of the guys on the telephone, "Well, if you need me for my qualification, fine.

I don't have no big references."

Then I decided just to stay here, get training and see what comes up.

- And I assume you have been pleased by the opportunities that you've had here.

- Sure, I was very pleased.

I worked first job with Roy Williamson, he is a gentleman and lives in town.

In fact, he lives right across from me.

I used to envy him because when I started working for him, he had a red Corvette, a plane and custom made suits.

I always wanted to be Roy Williamson.

- Well, I would say that you have succeeded in that.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

- God has blessed me with a lot of opportunities.

In fact, my first word that I told my investors, going to come in 30 barrels a day.

Came in flowing 300 barrels of oil per day, so that was a miracle.

There is a lot of other things that happened in my life that God has a great hand in it.

I can take full credit for it, but no, it could not happen without his help.

- The president's book might well be mistaken for just a beautiful coffee table book, but it is much more.

It is powerful and the telling of grim but inspirational stories of refugees escaping unspeakable circumstances to be welcomed by open-handed Americans.

Immigrants who, with the help of generous citizens, work hard to become successful citizens who go on to pay it forward.

You'll recognize some of the portraits Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright, Arnold Schwartzenegger for example, though you might not know their stories but there are dozens less famous whose portraits and stories are perhaps more compelling.

So the book is worth the look and the read.

But for the most powerful experience of Out of Many, One, one should also listened to the audio, read by president Bush, along with the voices of the immigrants.

I laughed and I cried and I felt patriotic and proud.

What could be better?

For our art segment this week, we present portraits of the immigrants president Bush painted for his book.

They are currently on exhibit at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas through January of next year.

While you look, I will read The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, which is cast in bronze at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

It also appears next to a portrait of the statue in the president's book.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land.

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning and her name, Mother of Exiles.

From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome.

Her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!"

cries she with silent lips.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Thank you for joining us for this season of One Question.

I'm Becky Ferguson, good night.

(inspiring music) - [Announcer] Made possible with support by Pristine Organic Cleaners, Diamond Back Energy and West Texas National Bank.

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