larger view

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND …

4^th of July 2007 found me out in the blistering heat with a Brazilian high school student, Felipe Souza, and two visiting representatives of the German Foreign Office of EF Foundation for Foreign Study, Dana and Annette.  We had spent the better part of the day handing out flyers, talking to people on the street, and were now using the time before the BC Fireworks Display by chatting with everyone who would listen to us.  As the patriotic music started Dana looked over at me surprised that people were singing along.  “This doesn’t happen in Germany,” she told me.  As it turns out, the flags, the music, and the fireworks extravaganza were all new to both Germans and Brazilian.  “We only have fireworks on New Year’s Eve,” one or all three of them mentioned between ooohhhs and ahhhs and wild clapping going on around us.  I was asked, “Why are Americans so nationalistic?” by either Dana or Annette.  I asked them to look around at the people in the stands, their various ethnic backgrounds and languages being spoken around us.  It was simple to me, we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished as a nation incorporating people from all over the earth into one group.  Our freedoms and legal rights are safely guarded by constitutional law.  Variations of this  celebration were occurring all over the USA and for the same reasons – we are “One people under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” 

As I’ve welcomed foreign students into my home over the past 14 years, I always ask them what they think about America when they arrive.  I ask mostly the same questions as they are leaving.  This year, Fabian Taute from Germany admitted that he had some preconceived ideas and ‘prejudices’ about Americans before he got here.  As he passionately told me of what he had learned, the changes he had gone through, and how he felt now about our country, our government, and our people it reminded me that spending time with another culture, speaking the language of that culture, fosters understanding and acceptance.  As a multi-racial and multi-ethnic community and country, we should all realize that already and remember to pull together.  The concept that ‘Together we Stand and Divided we Fall’ has always been true.  If my memory is correct, the Latin translation of ‘E Pluribus Unum’ is ‘from many, One’.  That’s what it means to be a citizen of this great country – to come together from many and varied backgrounds, races, religious beliefs, and native languages and to become One Nation. 

I’m proud of my heritage, my brave ancestors and what they sacrificed to come here to this land.  I’m proud of what our country has achieved – and thankful to be an American.  My friend, Kalinka Rutberg, a Jewish Russian immigrant, summed it up nicely just the other day.  I had asked if she felt Americans, in particular Californians, were friendly, open, and tolerant of English learners.  She responded in the affirmative but went on to say that it just was not possible for those of us born here to completely appreciate our legal system, political system, and personal freedoms because we had never lived without them.  She brought tears to my eyes as she confirmed her appreciation to this country and it’s people.