In this special holiday episode of The American Idea, we are privileged to share with you a very special Christmas story.

A story of hope and freedom, of overcoming tyranny and opression, of finding love for a country and its ideas. A story of a boy whose father gave him the gift of America.

This is the story of Peter Schramm.

Peter was born in Hungary in 1946. Fleeing the Soviet invasion of Hungary ten years later, Peter famously asked his father why they were going to America. “Because, son. We were born Americans, but in the wrong place.” He would devote the rest of his life to studying and teaching about what that meant.

He received a B.A. degree from California State University Northridge and went on to earn a Ph.D. from the Claremont Graduate School. With the help of figures like Harry Jaffa, Peter came to u ...