It’s Independence Day, and I’m in the wrong country.
The day should be hot, fireworks should be flying, and watermelon juice should be dripping down my chin. Instead, the weather is cool, the only sounds are light traffic and wind, and there’s a great ice cream place right down the street.
Maybe this isn’t such a problem.
After all, what makes me American? Is it just that I was born in a Greenville, SC hospital? Is it a stack of papers that feature my name and “U.S. Citizen”? Is it the culture I grew up in or the people I know and love? Is it baseball, mother, and apple pie? Definitely not the first one, since I’m not a sports fan. Although I did make an apple pie from scratch last year.
Americans are the people who have a voice in how their country is run because of the unalienable right to one man, one Facebook profile. They are the people who elect their officials to office and then complain about those same officials to anyone who will listen (and even some who won’t). They are the people who work more hours than are healthy so that they can buy more do-dads than they will ever use, then throw their leftovers at the offering plate or the charity drive. They are the people who spend thousands of dollars on vacations to exotic locations and the people who can’t be bothered even to learn Spanish. They are the debtors, the complainers, and the self-centered.
But Americans can also the most generous people on Earth. They give so much to other countries and even to their own neighbors without even missing it. Americans fight for their freedoms and the freedoms of others, including the right to express their opinions and defend their beliefs. And Americans have the ability to grow and dream and live far more than most of the world’s citizens could ever imagine. They are the imaginative, the conquerors, and the incomprehensibly blessed.
Are Americans perfect? Not in the slightest. But they have so much potential, and they do so much good, and no matter where I am or where I live, they will always be my people.