Honest Thoughts on July 4
The Bread Box is typically published every Friday, but in light on the holiday I decided to write and publish an essay with some thoughts. May your weekend be good, restful, and contemplative.
I am the great-grandchild of immigrants. I don’t know their stories, unsure of the circumstances and hardships that led to drastic moves across the Atlantic. Stories preserve history and I wish I knew theirs, could hear from their lips the decisions to leave their homelands for America. But I can imagine (like countless other immigrants who arrived at America’s shores) it was in search of opportunity.
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When I think of my not-so-distant ancestors, I can understand their desire to live in the country touted as the freest. I can empathize with the pressure to assimilate, to morph from Italian, Irish, Scottish, to just American.
Millions of immigrants arrived in America, some fleeing war, violence, and persecution, others fleeing poverty and abuse. They came because they’d heard dreams come true in America. And they were willing to work the coal mines of Pennsylvania, hold multiple jobs in cities where they were unwanted and unwelcome, stay up into the wee hours of the night doing laundry, darning socks.
We, the descendants of immigrants, come from hardy stock, people who (like the Hamilton song says) “get the job done.”
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I can recognize the good attributes of this country, the opportunities provided to my great grandparents and millions more. For all I know, America truly was great for them (maybe especially so when compared to where they came from).
But to honestly live in this country, to arrive once again at a day celebrating independence, we must acknowledge and wrestle with the reality that the “land of the free” was never that for everybody. My immigrant ancestors may not have known it, but they set foot in a country ruled by Jim Crow laws and segregation. Their new homeland was permeated by an underbelly of horrific violence and white supremacy. Their new houses and apartments were situated on ancient lands, with bloody histories and forgotten names.
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Lately I’ve been wondering how we dare sing “God Bless America” when we’ve collectively whitewashed history. And though I haven’t always empathized, I now better understand the complexities of standing for a flag that’s never truly meant freedom for all.
The definition of patriotism (which is commended as a good attribute) is the “devotion and vigorous support for one’s country,” but as I reflect here, I wonder how devoted, vigorous support is good. Full loyalty and support lacks objectivity. Appreciation of homeland should have a certain level of skepticism (surely, our immigrant forebears valued their cultural heritages while acknowledging the very issues and injustices that forced them to leave). To seek true equity requires the peeling back of murky layers. To love something well is to hold it to account, to expose its dark secrets, demand reparation, make restitution for the evils of the past and present.
To be a good patriot (if that’s even possible), or citizen, or American, starts with telling the truth.
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This July 4th, I sit in the tension of gratitude and anger, appreciation for the country that welcomed my ancestors and grief for the oppression and violence heaped upon others. Maya Angelou said “when you know better do better.” That is my prayer, my deep-hearted desire. Many may not understand the necessity of critique. But this country has never been great. To continue on as if it has is not loyalty or patriotism, but delusion.
The stars and stripes fly above a nation clothed in a false identity of freedom and refuge. Today, Americans don the red, white, and blue, watch fireworks, and sing patriotic songs that make America sound like a utopia. Today, churches will dangerously combine love of country with love of God, some sanctuaries will decorate with flags and streamers, some congregations may sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (or other such songs).
But there are others who still remember a time when the country outwardly hated them and kept them separate, who mourn the violence done in the name of the law, who long for incarcerated husbands and fathers and sons, who carry the pain of racial slurs and ignorant words.
There are many who don’t feel joyous today, who do not feel free, who cannot in good conscience stand for the flag.
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The Statue of Liberty bears the words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” We’ve saved this message for the European immigrants arriving at Ellis Island. But in America, we have neighborhoods, streets, communities, who are exhausted by repression, caught in cycles of poverty, begging, hoping, praying for freedom, for dignity, for equity.
These are our fellow Americans, our neighbors, the ones we should show mercy and compassion.
These are the ones God calls blessed.