Tuesday, March 11, 2003

What's great about America. This seems like crunch time, with the War about to  break out, and people around the world looking with unabashed horror at the barbarism of the U.S.  I am flat out with work and organizing anti-war activities in Boston.  My emails about the FBI and Lexington High School made it into the Boston Sunday Globe editorials, and I am encouraged that there is such a common sense response to hysteria that would see political speech and assembly as a threat. So it is funny that this week, I was reflecting on what is great about America.  For about the past ten years, we have had a Brazilian couple come clean our house once every two weeks.  They are both immigrants.  The husband was highly educated and some type of physician or medical person in Brazil.  They have bought a house in a nearby suburb, and are raising their children in a typical American fashion--where both parents work.  The other day, X. saw one of our anti-war signs, and said that he and his wife had lived in Iraq for about 4 years before they came to the U.S., working for a medical equipment company.  He said that Iraq was a terrible place to live, and he totally supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.  He said that in America we don't understand how special our lives or society is, in terms of freedom, individual choice, opportunity.  He is not opposed to war to overthrow Saddam, and thinks Iraq will be better off. When we discussed this with another neighbor, who also knows X., she said that another time he was talking about his feelings for America--when he was a child in Brazil there were times when they had no food, and they used to get surplus food (cheese and milk and rice) donated by U.S. A.I.D., and the packages were marked "From the U.S.A."  He said that he had this immense sense of gratitude that a country could be so generous to distribute food to Brazil, and ultimately to him. Another person who's house he cleans is from Germany, and she also remembers a time after the war, when her food also came from the U.S.  Both X. and this other person have a deep emotional attachment to the idea of how unselfish and beneficial America could be.  Although X. says that the U.S. has become less beneficial, it still makes him cry to remember the food he had as a child. The other thing that struck me was  a simple statement in the paper the other day, probably the NY times, but I don't remember the article.  It may have been about demographics.  "The U.S. accepts more immigrants each year than all the rest of the world combined". The strength of the U.S. is its diversity, that it is truly a nation of immigrants, and instead of a monolithic society, or a society of guest workers who are here and then gone, ours is still, to this day, an immigrant society above all else.  This decade is seeing waves of immigration that rival the waves of immigration in the early 1900's.  Walk down any street or public place in Boston, and you will hear Chinese, Spanish, Haitian, Russian, French, Italian, Vietnamese or any of dozens of languages.  On my street, with about 12 famlies, we have an Indian family, a chinese/Italian marriage, a Chinese/American marriage, an African american family, a Russian family recently emigrated from Moscow, and maybe five families where both partners were born in the U.S. to European or Yankee parents. It is very disheartening to me to see the tremendous strength and goodness of our country squandered by leaders who value our ideals so poorly.  Our diversity does give us an empathy with other countries, a tolerance of other cultures, and creates a land of opportunity that is admired around the world.  I so strongly oppose the war because this is the America I want to return, this is the America I want the world to see, not the bullying, racist, selfish, overbearing and arrogant country we seem in danger of becoming 12:02:16 AM   comment []

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