Today is the 4th of July, the 237th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The 4th of July was also the day when Vicksburg surrendered to Ulysses Grant in 1863 and the day after the Battle of Gettysburg on the same year. The date is therefore an important one in American history.
Coincidentally, I’ve been reading about the American Civil War and also working on some paperwork for USCIS. I’ve therefore been thinking about, well, America. More specifically I have been thinking over a question which I’m sure every immigrant has to grapple with to some extent or the other: what does this country mean to me? I’m an outsider, but one who has been highly Westernized for decades– long before I ever came here. I thought I had some idea of what America was “about.” Of course I didn’t, since what America projects to the world isn’t what it is like at all. And it’ s a very big place, with many different kinds of peoples, cultures and societies. It might be argued that it’s impossible to “get” America in any way that will be inclusive.
I have the added disadvantage– and that is what it is at times– of being highly educated and trained in academia. By the nature of the environment, I have been taught to question and deconstruct. Blithely accepting or embracing, with self-consciousness, does not come easily. I will always know too much or ask too much.
But the fact is, I am living here in America now and I have to ask myself what this place means to me. What is America to me? Why would I want to stay? It is part of the immigrant’s journey and part of how an immigrant learns to belong. I imagine it isn’t always a question which is articulated, or if it is, it is done so dimly and answered dimly. But there must be something which makes recently immigrated Hispanics, Asians, Africans or Europeans come here and want to be a part of it. If I might make a generalization, I notice that many immigrants come here not just to work but to belong, to really join the nation. They come here to remake America and to be remade themselves.
I suppose you can say I got a better insight in what American meant to me after reading about the Civil War and listening to Civil Rights activist and singer Odetta’s rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Specifically, what struck me was the line, “let us die to make men free.” That’s what it’s about, isn’t it? This country was founded on the idea of freedom. This is an idea so strong that America believes it is a god-given mission, one worth dying for. Jefferson said it best:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Freedom is an abstract term– so abstract I have long derided it as meaningless. It’s a truism of philosophy or theology that nobody is really free. We are all bound by one thing or the other, like our biology or our society. Clifford Geertz said it best: “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance.” So I looked askance at that whole notion of “freedom.” Either it was a vagary that was meaningless, or it was a term easily manipulated and honored in the breach. The country that produced Jim Crow talks about freedom? The term is clearly constantly being redefined and co-opted and that initially made me scoff at it.
But I realize now that I was dead wrong. The fact that the phrase is constantly being redefined is precisely its strength and this country’s strength. Jefferson’s words don’t state specifically who is free or how. It simply says that all men, a phrase that in itself is open-ended and vague because it’s an invitation. Anybody who joins America can work for this freedom, can redefine this freedom and help shape it. Jefferson didn’t specify that only white men can be free, or rich men. Given context, you can also easily argue that “men” is not just “males” either. The country might have been–and still is– ruled by a specific class of wealthy white men, but it somehow has in its genetics the ability to absorb others and make them believe in their own freedom. That is, in their freedom to self-actualize in a system that will deploy its strength to enable them to do so.
This invitation does not call for passivity either, it’s a call for active pursuit. Like the Battle Hymn says, “we will die to make men free.” The America I realize I can get behind and support is one which has room within it for activism and revolution that does not lead to overthrowing social order, chaos and oppression. It’s one which has a tradition of people coming to believe in this promise and invitation that they can be free. Not just that, I believe that it is a national creed that encourages them to take this freedom and fight for it. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement were far from “un-American”– what they were doing was the most American thing of all. The same goes with the fight for gender equality or LGBT rights– the pursuit of freedom, of self-actualization are all in the best traditions of America. These struggles are far from being anti-American and they do the complete opposite of weakening the country. By allowing as many people as possible to realize they can be the greatest version of themselves in a country that will send its sons and daughters to die for this idea they will fight for America and empower America. The worst thing this country can do is to draw strict lines that exclude and persecute because that is un-American and will mark the weakening of the country.
I’m not inviting a chaotic free for all. Not all ideas are good because not all ideas or even cultures that come into America are compatible with this notion of self-actualizing freedom. I can understand the conservative impulse because there must be a center that will hold, that Americans, new and old, can adhere to or gravitate to. This means that if you come here with a prejudice, or with a desire to eventually exclude then you will not fit in. America should not allow people to come here and, for instance, bring racism or sexism. Perhaps that will require a common language, although a common belief is more important than forcing people to speak the same words.
The American project seems to derive is strength from being a communitarian one as well– hence all the “we’s” in Jefferson, the Constitution, the Declaration and in the Battle Hymn. The American project doesn’t seem to work if it simply involves people glumly living in the same space but not coming together to fight for this freedom and advance its cause. Some of the best instances of struggle in this country did indeed involve people working together– whites and blacks fighting against slavery in the Civil War, men joining women in the struggle for gender equality and recently, people of all orientations fighting to push for equal rights. The American cause I want to get behind isn’t about “my” rights but a cause that fights for “our” rights.
"New U.S. citizens celebrate after taking the oath of citizenship during a naturalization ceremony beneath the Statue of Liberty during ceremonies marking the 125th anniversary of the Statue at Liberty Island in New York, October 28, 2011. REUTERS/Mike Segar"
“New U.S. citizens celebrate after taking the oath of citizenship during a naturalization ceremony beneath the Statue of Liberty during ceremonies marking the 125th anniversary of the Statue at Liberty Island in New York, October 28, 2011. REUTERS/Mike Segar”
I’m not naive and this realization about America hasn’t turned me dewy-eyed and uncritically accepting ‘Merica, right or wrong. Hell, I study the Philippine-American War, and I have read of how the Filipinos were convinced that America’s traditions were not compatible to imperialism. Remember, the Americans colonized the Filipinos essentially because they were so racist they couldn’t imagine that non-white people could run their own country.
But the history of America really has shown what can only be called progress. More and more people achieve rights and are given a chance at participating more fully in the American project. It might be slow and it might come in stops and starts, but more people are included in the tent. Like I said, freedom is constantly redefined. Perhaps one day the experiment will end and lines will be drawn. Perhaps. But for now that doesn’t seem to be the case. This is what makes America’s missteps, like striking down the Voting Rights Act or going to war to destroy other country’s rights to self-determination so glaring. When America does bad, it is incredibly striking and disappointing because it so goes against its own creed and upward trajectory. But when it does good, like when it elects a black president, it can be very moving.
It’s also quit attractive, I notice. I’ll go out on a limb and say that it remains one of the most attractive and– dare I say it– hopeful messages in the world today. China might become more powerful, but it has a system that seems to be built on rigidity and inequality (more so now, ironically). I would mourn for the world if the future social model is Chinese but I also sincerely doubt if the “Chinese Dream” will ever have the same magnetism as the American Dream. America’s collective dream goes beyond mere prosperity, which seems almost a side effect of letting people self-actualize.
So yes, that was my “hook” into this country. It is a fight– and that is what it is– I can get behind. I don’t think I could ever come to believe in a credo that simply said “Come here and be rich.” That seems stale and has no future. I believe more in a country that gives people the privilege of freedom but demands commitment from them as well– a country that would die to make men free.