By Laura Lee Blake, ESQ., AAHOA President & CEO
President Ronald Reagan once said, “America is too great for small dreams.”
In the sweltering summer of 1776, a small group of revolutionaries gathered in Philadelphia and declared something the world had never truly seen before: That ordinary people were not subjects of power – they were the source of it.
They signed the Declaration of Independence knowing it could cost them their fortunes, their freedom, and their lives.
Benjamin Franklin famously warned, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
From that fragile beginning, America became an extraordinary experiment in opportunity. The nation survived revolution, civil war, economic collapse, and world wars because, generation after generation, it refused to stop building.
Hospitality helped build America itself. Taverns and inns once served as gathering places for revolutionaries and travelers crossing an expanding nation.
In fact, many early political debates over independence took place in colonial lodging houses, long before America had grand government buildings.
A Nation Built by Builders
Centuries later, another generation of builders emerged.
Nearly four decades ago, Indian American hotel owners faced discrimination so severe that some saw signs reading, “American Owned.” Families lived behind motel front desks, cleaned rooms themselves, worked through the night, and invested every dollar they had into properties others had abandoned.
Instead of retreating, they transformed an industry.
In 1989, AAHOA was founded on the belief that hotel owners deserved fairness, representation, and a voice. Today, AAHOA’s nearly 20,000 members own more than 60 percent of the hotels in the United States, a level of influence and economic strength unimaginable to most people just a generation ago.
President Calvin Coolidge once observed, “The business of America is business.” But the story of AAHOA proves it is also sacrifice, family, and courage.
As America marks 250 years, AAHOA stands as living proof that the American Dream does not merely survive; it thrives. It evolves, expands, and continues to inspire the world. God Bless AAHOA.
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