This week, we celebrated National Immigrants Day, a holiday meant to honor the diversity, perseverance and contributions of those who have come from different places and cultures all over the world to make a home in America and in Kansas City.

Among them was Nikoles Aleshi, a poor Italian immigrant who built a successful grocery business in Kansas City at the turn of the 20th century. But beyond his grocery, he had grander aspirations of creating a new national language that would be easier for non-English speakers to learn.