I never thought I'd be writing a post like this. But today, sitting here very independently and quite alone, the sound of fireworks crackling in the sky somewhere, I'm celebrating the 4th in a way I never have before; that is, by writing. And writing about this country. Is this Patriotism? Perhaps a bit, but really more appreciation and a sense of unity with all things Cancerian. NOT George Bush, I'll pass on that so please no quips.
It's usually a Rule of Thumb that one shouldn't ever discuss religion, sex or politics on the first date. And there's a reason why. It is the Trifecta of Inflammatory. When I was younger and literally living under a dictatorship (not my parents, like in a country with an actual autocrat), discussing politics was something distant, dangerous and could get you killed. It was in a sense, a luxury.
To be able to contemplate saying anything about politics without jeopardizing your health, or your safety was to imply real freedom. Though unshackled, we didn't know what that was. There was enough to allow us to go about our business and have jobs, and for that we were grateful enough. Often times, we'd watch Western pundits on satellite TV duking it out with bluster and conviction about their ideologies, the state of the union or the common man's dilemmas. They were so confident. We were not.
To be able to contemplate saying anything about politics without jeopardizing your health, or your safety was to imply real freedom. Though unshackled, we didn't know what that was. There was enough to allow us to go about our business and have jobs, and for that we were grateful enough. Often times, we'd watch Western pundits on satellite TV duking it out with bluster and conviction about their ideologies, the state of the union or the common man's dilemmas. They were so confident. We were not.
"We" being those of us subject to a regime. On Maslow's hierarchy, the consciousness you get from growing up in that environment usually hovers back and forth between the lower three rungs of physiology, safety and love/belonging. If you weren't safe, or you couldn't eat, then love and belonging became harder to get to. Culturally, there was also censorship, religious and otherwise. The political for me was therefore, very far in practice from the personal.
It was not a place where you could express your personal efficacy through a vote, even if you had one. It would get fixed or sold or falsified. So my first lesson in politics, as it was for the rest of life, was to comprehend the difference between the Ideal and the Real. There were those things neatly laid out in books which remain perfectly preserved in words, and then there were those things that just happened, either caused by nature, human will or both. Tragic, unfair and terrible things, punctuated by lives torn apart by ambitions, by greed, by political parties, by both military and insurgents determined to gain their territory. And everywhere, blood.
It was not a place where you could express your personal efficacy through a vote, even if you had one. It would get fixed or sold or falsified. So my first lesson in politics, as it was for the rest of life, was to comprehend the difference between the Ideal and the Real. There were those things neatly laid out in books which remain perfectly preserved in words, and then there were those things that just happened, either caused by nature, human will or both. Tragic, unfair and terrible things, punctuated by lives torn apart by ambitions, by greed, by political parties, by both military and insurgents determined to gain their territory. And everywhere, blood.
It was with this mindset that I'd moved to this country. And even if my family and I were luckier than most, not having been personally affected by crippling poverty or persecution, it's not something one can easily forget or deny. Maybe I'm wrong in saying that. I went to one of the top universities in the country where there were certainly enough privileged students who demonstrated that they did forget, coddled as they were by drivers and ever solicitous domestics. Shielded in schools and homes beset by well-manicured lawns, what happened out there was something you addressed via charity.
My mother the Latin Piscean, fortunately made it a policy to never expect anything from the hired help we couldn't do just as well or even better ourselves. That usually translated to summers of waxing floors, doing the laundry and the ironing, going to the wet markets, cutting grass, tending gardens, cooking, gutting fish, yes you read that right - all of which in the tropics is compounded by proliferating dust, oppressive heat and a lack of sanitation. My parents were themselves migrants, and still retained the sting of what the last war did to their childhoods. It was over, but they carried it in their heads framing their lives thereafter.
My mother the Latin Piscean, fortunately made it a policy to never expect anything from the hired help we couldn't do just as well or even better ourselves. That usually translated to summers of waxing floors, doing the laundry and the ironing, going to the wet markets, cutting grass, tending gardens, cooking, gutting fish, yes you read that right - all of which in the tropics is compounded by proliferating dust, oppressive heat and a lack of sanitation. My parents were themselves migrants, and still retained the sting of what the last war did to their childhoods. It was over, but they carried it in their heads framing their lives thereafter.
And consequently, ours as well. My mother was particularly determined we would know how to survive wherever life chose to lead each of us. Mine brought me here. One of the first culture shocks I encountered as a foreigner is the initially bewildering number of rules this country runs by and the accompanying public pressure to comply with them. It does not at all, FEEL free. It's restrictive and so directly contradictory to my understanding of what it meant to be in the "Land of the Free".
The DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles) is a good microcosm of this, all walks of life, all sorts of colorful bizarre fashion, a profusion of languages, everyone lining up for the same driver's test. Where I'd come from, the test to the fees were surname contingent. Mine's Chinese, so my fees were always higher. Passports, license, the lot.
It also confused me that so many people over-relied on these rules, at times eschewing common sense and even the obvious to stay faithful to the technicalities. America is serious about her laws, as one finds when in the clutches of an irate police officer. Faced with the babel of tongues, it is the one unifying language no one is exempt from, even if you choose not to learn, speak or write English. And thankfully is not determined by a single empowered individual at the cost of many.
The DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles) is a good microcosm of this, all walks of life, all sorts of colorful bizarre fashion, a profusion of languages, everyone lining up for the same driver's test. Where I'd come from, the test to the fees were surname contingent. Mine's Chinese, so my fees were always higher. Passports, license, the lot.
It also confused me that so many people over-relied on these rules, at times eschewing common sense and even the obvious to stay faithful to the technicalities. America is serious about her laws, as one finds when in the clutches of an irate police officer. Faced with the babel of tongues, it is the one unifying language no one is exempt from, even if you choose not to learn, speak or write English. And thankfully is not determined by a single empowered individual at the cost of many.
The message is Be Yourself, within the precepts of the law. And if you find that difficult to do, you can always say so, which leads me to the second thing I found astonishing. That is the the amount of debate people engaged in and how LOUDLY.
On some occasions as if volume rather than thought would give their reasons weight. Did all that noise really amount to anything? I'm still to this day, inclined by training and nature to quietly observe first before saying anything - and I'm not exactly introverted. It wasn't till much later that I realized this vigor owed much to a passion for exercising the right to free speech, which sometimes can also be overused, misappropriated and alienating.
These are just a few of the things that highlight the paradox America is. But it's enough to contrast how it's citizens, especially the ones who know no other previous life of hollow rights in severely injured democracies or totalitarian autocracies, take for granted the assumption of good and justice as being more than just a possibility. It is an expectation.
Certainly there are wrong-doings, machinations, and miscarriages - there always will be in a government run by people, forever limited to our frailty and humanity. But for the most part, justice is more within reach than not. The striving to better realize the ideal being so much a part of the American mind that it's constant and driven, however much faltering may occur in the course of it.
In other parts of the world, the defaulting belief can be the reverse. The law but a theory and justice certainly not a right. There is almost at times a sweet naivete to the protests and uproars we launch on behalf of the less fortunate. Today, most of us can picket without being shot, petition without imprisonment and find ways to channel our dissent into eventually being expressed in our laws. It's impossible to visit the nation's capital without encountering any number of rallies, the ever-changing yet always present mobs further justifying history's sacrifices.
I spent an entire cab ride in DC being fully apprised of the impending transportation strikes by the Ethiopian taxi driver who gave me a run down on the commissioners running for office as well as handy suggestions to the best African cuisine on U Street. There was no gap haunted by the specter of "whatever" in his understanding of the issues dear to him, his rights were a fact and his presence to stand united with those like him, counted. He knew it did.
On some occasions as if volume rather than thought would give their reasons weight. Did all that noise really amount to anything? I'm still to this day, inclined by training and nature to quietly observe first before saying anything - and I'm not exactly introverted. It wasn't till much later that I realized this vigor owed much to a passion for exercising the right to free speech, which sometimes can also be overused, misappropriated and alienating.
These are just a few of the things that highlight the paradox America is. But it's enough to contrast how it's citizens, especially the ones who know no other previous life of hollow rights in severely injured democracies or totalitarian autocracies, take for granted the assumption of good and justice as being more than just a possibility. It is an expectation.
Certainly there are wrong-doings, machinations, and miscarriages - there always will be in a government run by people, forever limited to our frailty and humanity. But for the most part, justice is more within reach than not. The striving to better realize the ideal being so much a part of the American mind that it's constant and driven, however much faltering may occur in the course of it.
In other parts of the world, the defaulting belief can be the reverse. The law but a theory and justice certainly not a right. There is almost at times a sweet naivete to the protests and uproars we launch on behalf of the less fortunate. Today, most of us can picket without being shot, petition without imprisonment and find ways to channel our dissent into eventually being expressed in our laws. It's impossible to visit the nation's capital without encountering any number of rallies, the ever-changing yet always present mobs further justifying history's sacrifices.
I spent an entire cab ride in DC being fully apprised of the impending transportation strikes by the Ethiopian taxi driver who gave me a run down on the commissioners running for office as well as handy suggestions to the best African cuisine on U Street. There was no gap haunted by the specter of "whatever" in his understanding of the issues dear to him, his rights were a fact and his presence to stand united with those like him, counted. He knew it did.
On the level of the ordinary, I watch most regular Americans born and raised here move with an ownership of the space around them that testifies to their presumption of their rights and freedoms rarely being encroached on. They mostly don't survey a public space like I do - I'm quick to pick up suspicious behavior, always habitually locking car doors and hiding items too tempting to covet from view.
I get nervous over unattended packages on the street, or shifty looking men reaching suddenly into their coat pockets. When the news blared on about Sept. 11th I was assessing how much cash I could safely take out in case the banks froze and where to stash it. It also explains why I'm more comfortable always living a minimum of ten miles away from the nearest major international airport and why I always have my passport on me.
I know it seems silly and perhaps speaks more of my background than it does of this country. But does it really? I think it just gives me a more acute appreciation of its values and definitely, a wider tolerance for the spaces between the moral intentions of its laws and what it actually delivers. The point is, at least it's there.
However, imperfect and tattered. I think it's that which prompts most Americans to go hand over heart as they stand in ceremony to the anthem, to the humored dismay of most visiting Europeans.
It's also what gives American culture it's social sway, it's X factor. I've been on both sides of the border and have little illusions about either, but just for today, I have to say Happy Birthday America.
And thanks for letting me call you home.
However, imperfect and tattered. I think it's that which prompts most Americans to go hand over heart as they stand in ceremony to the anthem, to the humored dismay of most visiting Europeans.
It's also what gives American culture it's social sway, it's X factor. I've been on both sides of the border and have little illusions about either, but just for today, I have to say Happy Birthday America.
And thanks for letting me call you home.
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