It was no mystery why California had 98,000 children stuck in foster care. There were not 98,003 because I was stubborn. "[Marin] can make the craziness of a bureaucracy funny; he can turn a trip to McDonald's into an absorbing read; and mostly he can stir your heart by describing the life of his new All-American family . . . The love is palpable; the prose throbs with life; the insights sparkle."--JULIA ALVAREZ, author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents "Inspiration is a word used too freely and too frequently. Yet, David Marin's honesty and humanity in telling the story of how he became a father against the odds is just that, an inspiration in the truest sense. His story fills the world with the breath of hope."--JACQUELYN MITCHARD, author of The Deep End of the Ocean "David Marin opens our eyes to the profound significance men make in the lives of children. If every man could understand the heart-warming and life-changing truths David so personally reveals in This is US,America would be a stronger country."--MEG MEEKER, M.D., author of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: Ten Secrets Every Father Should Know "This book should be required reading for all adoption social workers and all prospective adoptive parents."--JEFF KATZ, Founder, Listening to Parents When David Marin fell in love with three abandoned children desperately in need of a home, there was only one thing he could do. Give up his relatively carefree life and learn how to become a parent. In the process, he found the future he had always wanted, but he also learned some hard lessons about single-parent adoption, the Kafkaesque side of Social Services, and America's anti-immigrant sentiment: Heartbreaking, funny, and inspiring, This Is USchronicles Marin's quest to create a better life for these children--and for himself.