Reggie greets Anni and Ruli Zhang at San Francisco Airport, September 7, 2013<\/p>\n

My husband, Robert, and I can hardly believe that 10 years ago today, Anni and Ruli Zhang stepped off a plane from Shanghai and into our lives.<\/p>\n

They are the daughters of courageous, veteran activist Zhang Lin \u2013 a leader in the pro-democracy movement in China.\u00a0 He was jailed and tortured repeatedly for his writings and activism.\u00a0 When the Chinese Communist Party could not silence him, they kidnapped his 10-year-old daughter, Anni, out of her fourth-grade classroom, detained her overnight, denied her the right to go to school, and placed her and her father under house arrest.\u00a0 She became known as \u201cChina\u2019s youngest prisoner of conscience.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her father asked for my help in getting Anni out of China and to the United States, because she could not lead a normal life in China.\u00a0 My husband and I offered to take Anni into our home and raise her as our own daughter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Together with brave activists from China \u2013 several of whom were detained and some endured torture for the \u201ccrime\u201d of helping Anni \u2013 and with the help of activist Jing Zhang (no relation) and Congressman Chris Smith, we were able to make a way for Anni and her older sister Rita to come to the United States.\u00a0 On September 7, 2013, Anni and Rita, ages 10 and 19 at the time, made the long plane flight from Shanghai to San Francisco.\u00a0 At the same time, they made the longer journey out of the grip of the brutal communist totalitarian regime and into the warm embrace of freedom in the United States.<\/p>\n

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