Today, we're celebrating the 4th like many Americans do: with family, cramming in loads of fun, too much food, and some swimming to burn it off. And based on a couple of conversations this long weekend, I have a burning question: on this day, when we celebrate what it is to be American, I wonder: what does an American look like?
Does she look like me, your typical WASP?
Do they look like my many friends and cousins in my native West Virginia, also WASPs, working hard in mines and mills and factories making "stuff," like steel, that is the backbone of America?
Does he look like my husband, first-generation American, descended from European immigrants?
Does he look like my friend, W., of Chinese descent, who's running for political office?
Does she look like my friend, S., a Muslim of Pakistani descent?
Or like my friend, B., a gay man who, finally, achieved civil rights in New York and can marry his partner -- yet not have that marriage recognized state-to-state? (How American is that?)
As I travel this great country of ours, between two homes on coasts both West and East (Left and Right?), I'm struck by several hard truths -- among them, that I don't see a lot of people who make me wonder if, because they're different from me, are they somehow out to get me? (I, certainly, was raised specifically not to think that way, which may have a big something to do with that.) How much judgment do people continue to face because they're "different" in America, whether because they're women, gay, of a different ethnicity, from a different place ... And how odd is that, really, for a place in which I, myself, technically descended from illegal immigrants, since, after all, I'm not a Native American?
And what about those people? The many undocumented people in America, what *are* they? And what about their children, who were born here? Aren't they American? Aren't they the products of parents who, like my (legal and now naturalized) husband's immigrant parents, sought the American dream of a better life for their children? What about the many people who bear another country's passport but who come here to work; can they claim America as their home?
Otherwise said, to whom do we -- almost all of us immigrants -- pay this debt we owe just by virtue of being here on this great, free soil? Who gets to decide who gets to say they're American and -- gulp -- who doesn't?
When I pass people on the street, I know that I'm not wondering who has a right to be here or not. Especially because I live in places where I hear other languages frequently (in CA, Spanish, and in VT, French), I'm not wondering who's American and who's not because of what they speak. If I see a hijab, or a turban, I'm not wondering if those people belong here, because I have friends who wear those vestements and who are American. No matter what their ethnic group, their house of worship, their political leanings -- I'm not inclined to worry if they belong here or not. Perhaps it's because I consider myself a liberal that I simply don't care. If they're poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, well, I say, come on in. Abide by our laws, and live here if you wish. I do think you should do so legally. If that's a hurdle for some people, we should help them over that hurdle. Isn't that the American way, helping our neighbors?
For if there's one thing I know, it's that there is no One America. One can't assume that one person has a natural *right* to be American, and another doesn't. This is a huge melting pot, and no one can assume that someone is or can be American, or not, just because of a look, or a zip code, or even a country of birth. It's why I love it here. I know people from everywhere. And isn't that lucky?
Isn't that the essence of America?
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