In Which I Reflect on Independence Day

Like most of the country (maybe most of the world, I don't know) I'm a huge fan of the Hamilton musical. Sadly I've never seen it onstage. I was considering going when it came to a city near me this spring but then the tour was cancelled because, you know, pandemic. I was actually pretty late to the game in discovering it. I'd heard of it, of course, but I didn't listen to any of the music until last summer. I immediately fell in love and bought the soundtrack. This is interesting, since I am not generally a fan of rap or hip hop. Squirrelboy fell in love right away too. It's actually a perfect meld of two of his loves - history and rap music. Mr. Engineer was not a fan, and initially I didn't let Kittygirl listen to the music because of all the cursing. I did finally let Kittygirl start listening this spring and she loved it too. To my delight, once he saw it performed onstage even Mr. Engineer agreed that it's an amazing show. 

The combination of the viewing of Hamilton, which, in case you've been living under a rock the past 5 years or so, tells the story of the founding of the United States through the dual lens of the life of Alexander Hamilton and a racially diverse cast singing mostly rap and hip hop and today being Independence Day has gotten me thinking a lot about what it means to be an American and what I want my kids to understand about what it means.

In a lot of ways, America is a pretty amazing and admirable nation. The ideas on which it was founded were revolutionary for the 18th century. Yes, "All men are created equal" really meant "All property owning Protestant men of northern European descent are created equal," but, still, the fact that you didn't have to be born to the ruling class was revolutionary. Yes, the interpretation has changed and there have been a lot of amendments, but the US has had the same constitution since 1789, which makes it the oldest constitution in the world. In contrast, France had 16 constitutions between 1789 and 1858. Since its independence in 1844, the Dominican Republic has had a whopping 32 constitutions. And, yes, I know the picture below is of the declaration of independence and not the constitution :).

At the same time, first the American Colonies and then the United States of America were built on land stolen from indigenous people after they were massacred and/or driven from their land and on the backs of Africans who were stolen from their homelands and enslaved. 

America spent a long time legally marginalizing women, Blacks, Indigenous peoples, and other people of color. Even since laws have changed to not officially marginalize people groups it hasn't taken away institutionalized racism or gender bias.

Our nation is very, very far from being perfect. At the same time, for hundreds of years, our nation has been a beacon of hope for oppressed people from all over the world. My ancestors came from a variety of European countries to make new lives in America. Some were escaping the yoke of the Russian Empire, others were trying to find a place where they could own their own land and not be under the control of the monarchy. Because by the time they arrived even Eastern Europeans were considered White, they had good lives overall (though most were still poor and their families continued to be relatively poor for at least a couple generations) and were able to begin building up generational wealth. Three to five generations later, depending on which part of the family you're talking about, I grew up in an upper middle class suburb as the child of two people with PhDs. That would likely have seemed unbelievable to my ancestors who left Europe.

In this century, most of our immigrants are not European. Most of them are Black or brown people whether they come from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, or elsewhere. These immigrants deserve the same opportunities my ancestors had. They don't always get them. What they sometimes get instead is having their children taken away from them and placed in cages. Or, if they're really lucky, they might get to enter the U.S. as a family and then live in limbo for years while their asylum case is processed.

So, what does this all mean? I love my country. Not everything about it, and not all the time. I'm particularly unhappy (that's putting it really mildly) with our current national leadership. However, there are things about the United States of America that I think are pretty awesome. Our nation was founded on a beautiful, radical idea. We have not yet fully realized it, but the concept is still there, part of what is at the heart of what it means to be American. Yet, I don't think of myself as proud to be an American. Don't get me wrong. I'm not (well, not always anyway)  ashamed to be an American. It's just that I think it's weird to apply pride to something you had nothing to do with. I'm not proud to have brown hair, brown eyes (or maybe hazel, that's up for debate), or pale skin. I'm not proud to be a woman or a heterosexual or cisgender. I had no control over any of those things. I'm thankful for them. I'm happy to live in the USA, I know that being White works in my favor as well as being straight and cisgender.  Being a woman isn't always an advantage, but I haven't in my experience found it to be a disadvantage for anything I personally want to accomplish. 

I feel pride for things I have accomplished. I'm proud to have completed both a BA and and MA in Spanish. I'm proud to speak three languages proficiently and  to know a smattering of four others. I'm proud to have completed manuscripts of two novels. I'm proud to have raised kids who are kind (to everyone except their sibling anyway), generally well adjusted, and most often well liked by both peers and adults. I'm proud to be able to keep Kittygirl's blood sugar in range more than average (though I strive to do even better at that).

So what in the world does this have to do with parenting? Not much, really, except that I hope I can help my kids understand both what's good about the country they live in and what's troubling. I hope I can raise children who work to make our country better, whether it's in a very minor way within their own neighborhoods and circles of friendship or in a major way I can't even envision right now.