Who is American?

I celebrated the Forth of July with a small gathering in my backyard for a barbecue. I decorated the yard with flags in flower pots, red, white and blue centerpieces, and patriotic tableware. I even created my own playlist of patriotic songs. It was a nice way to celebrate the creation of a nation with high aspirations for liberty and justice for all. Our nation is not yet perfect, but we as patriots continue the daily struggle to make it better. This past week forced us to revisit questions about who is American and what values do Americans stand for.

When I respond to this question, I start with the Preamble to the Constitution: “We the people”. It’s about us, the people who populate this land. Almost all of us are either immigrants or we are the children of immigrants. However, our short history reminds us that the question of who is a person was once debatable. Native Americans were seen as savages. Blacks were chattel, and women were children. All these groups took part in the founding of this nation during the Revolutionary War. Since its founding we have always occupied this land collectively, working to build a nation, yet White men used their violence to exclude whole segments of the population from their rights as people. Thankfully, through a Civil War and multiple Civil Rights Movements, our notion of who is a person has expanded to include people of color, women, and finally LGBTQ persons.

Yet, in July 2019, the president and his followers are challenging this progress. He is toying with the White nationalist stance that only White people are true Americans. Perhaps Nancy Pelosi was right when she said this week that Donald Trump was really about making America White again. Sorry Trump and Trump supporters, but that ship has sailed. Now back to my beloved Constitution.

The Preamble goes on to explain our purpose: “in order to form a more perfect union”. The founders acknowledged that even in their day, the union had flaws. Among the first flaws was slavery, but there were other flaws that they were essentially blind to such as the treatment of Native Americans and the disregard for women. They saw, as we still see, room for improvement toward a more perfect union. Striving towards perfection is an attitude of aspiration, not arrival. It is the continuous improvement model. As a people we must spot our imperfections and strive to be more inclusive and fair.

The founders describe the need to “establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.” That covers a lot of ground for our daily lives and the lives of our children. There is a lot of room for improvement. However, we’ll only make progress if we have the right people in the three branches of government. These people in government must be able to see, hear, and understand the needs of we, the people, and they must be held accountable to their oath to uphold our Constitution.

That’s why this week was such a dangerous and disgusting one. To have the president of our country brazenly spewing racist and xenophobic comments about four Congresswomen of color who are all citizens of the United States and who have been duly elected to office as representatives to lead us toward “a more perfect union” as they and their constituents see it, is an affront to every patriot.

The president publicly declared that these congresswomen of color must hate America if they see flaws in our nation and that they should therefore “go back to where they came from” rather than aspire to help fix the flaws. His comments are unpatriotic, White nationalist, and worse, extremely destructive. It is counterproductive to silence “we the people” especially when those people are non-white. Remember, Donald Trump himself spent many years criticizing this country and its leaders. What of Bernie Sanders? Notice how he never tells Bernie to go back to where he came from.

I was glad to see Gayle King’s interview on CBS with the four Congresswomen who are nicknamed, “The Squad”. They showed that they are intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, courageous, vocal, positive, and very patriotic woman who love this country and its people. These women have ideas about making a more perfect union and moving towards all the important things our preamble talks about. Their names are Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.

While I may not agree with all the ideas represented by each of the Squad members, that is not the point. The point is that it is our patriotic duty to point out our nation’s imperfections and then to take part in the real debate over how to make them better. Our duty is to vote in people who can ably represent our ideas for how to perfect justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. We are after all, the people.