Fourth of July 2021: We celebrate so independently we forget to welcome each other
I’m a patriotic American. For many years, I have flown the Stars and Stripes at my house. As soon as I buy a new American flag, I will fly it again. Admittedly, these feelings are fraught because I live in California, and this place I love used to be Mexico, where my ancestors are from.
The people of Mexican ancestry paid a heavy price as they tried to find their place in the U.S. state of California. Who they were, how they looked, the language they spoke created obstacles. Mexican Americans confronted those obstacles in the workplace, the legal system, in schools, housing, and by every other metric used to quantify our pursuit of happiness.
Simply stating this fact makes some people angry. Americans disagree over our history and its meaning. We disagree about which version of history we tell and who gets to tell it.
We disagree about what it means to be patriotic and what we believe when we celebrate the Fourth of July.
Is our sense of American patriotism inclusive or exclusive?
For much of my adult life, I believed it was the former.
The Fourth of July? I understood its meaning but didn’t feel connected to the Mayflower, to the Battle of Yorktown, to the Declaration of Independence, all those historical touchstones we were supposed to be celebrating on the Fourth of July.
Are we celebrating fireworks? Hot dogs? Beer? Cars? Our Constitution? Our divisive sense of history?
Before I embraced an answer, I felt that I didn’t belong here or anywhere.
We’re disconnected and we belong
And yet even as I felt disconnected from the idea of this country, Mexican Americans were revitalizing American communities through their hope and industry. They built lives based on American ideals of faith and hard work – even as they watched telenovelas and rooted for Mexico over the U.S. in soccer.
America as my country took root when I read an idea that changed everything for me.
Richard Rodriguez, the Sacramento-born author, and essayist, stirred controversy and emotions in the 1990s when he wrote: “America doesn’t have an immigration problem. It has a native-born problem.”
Before Rodriguez wrote these words, I had never before considered that American ideals of shared democracy weren’t the problem. The problem was Americans who didn’t believe in these ideals. The problem was Americans who used patriotism as a weapon to exclude others in this land that we share.
“American patriotism should be inclusive,” said Melinda Guzman, a prominent Sacramento lawyer.
Guzman’s Mexican father worked in the railroads and taught his daughters to be proud of themselves and their roots.
“I absolutely describe myself as patriotic,” she said, “but I define its patriotism as inclusive of all people.”
It should be.
Often, it’s not. But I embraced being a patriotic American because this is my country, too.
Voicing our differences
My parents came here from Mexico under humble circumstances and created a loving home that was my springboard to a satisfying life. America offered opportunities to me and I did my best to make them count, with the help of wonderful mentors who were a rainbow of races, ethnic groups, faiths and orientations.
Paraphrasing a conservative-leaning dedicated Bee reader and friend of mine, Terry O’Neill: “You just got promoted to California Opinion Editor of McClatchy Newspapers. America is not racist!”
It made me laugh because my friend and I could not be more different in our political beliefs. We both love our country, and we argue about everything else.
To me, the Fourth of July says there is room for that argument. We are strong enough to have that argument. My friend Julius Cherry, who was the second Black Sacramento Fire Department Chief in city history said, “No one deserves the right to be considered patriotic by circumstances of birth. It’s what you feel in your heart, no matter what you look like or how you worship.”
Some of my colleagues feel differently about what the Fourth of July represents than I. Two of our board members – Hannah Holzer and Yousef Baig – are both under the age of 32. For them, the Fourth of July means something completely different than what it means to Jack Ohman, the Bee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Jack and I are older than our colleagues. We didn’t come of age after 9/11, the Iraq War, a resurgence of hate crimes and a global pandemic.
We all come to this place we share, and this celebration of national independence, differently.
Eric Guerra, the Sacramento City Councilman, comes from a family of naturalized citizens. He said his Mexican-born mother puts on a red, white and blue t-shirt every Fourth of July and serves enchiladas to her family.
Ohman was born in Minnesota, educated in Oregon, is moved by the history of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and America’s quest to explore the moon and beyond.
Holzer is Jewish and liberal and was raised in Placer County, where politics are decidedly different from those she discussed at her family table.
Baig is the son of Pakistani immigrants whose story of coming of age in Georgia, after 9/11, is profound and moving.
All of our stories are different, but we share something fundamental, whether we care to embrace it right now or not: We’re Americans, and today, we celebrate the independence of a nation that is ours for better and worse.
Marcos Bretón: 916-321-1096, @MarcosBreton
