When I was a kid my mother told me something that has stuck with me to this very day. "If some one asks you what you are, tell them that you are American." I believe that now more than ever and wish that more people would instill this feeling into children. Now, I am not saying that one should forget where they came from and the many great traditions that their ancestors brought to this country, those are what make each of us unique. Those beliefs and customs intermingled is what this country is supposed to be based on and therefor are more than welcomed.
Here is where the problem lies. Where is your allegiance? When someone asks you what nationality you are, what do you say? What flag do you have hanging from your rear view mirror or tattooed on your arm? Everywhere you look you see shirts that say "Kiss me I'm Irish" or "Full Blooded Italian". People do more for the holidays of their home country than they do for this one. The Puerto Rican Day Parade attracts more people than any Fourth of July celebration will ever see. Nationalities of the world come here and spend more time fighting for the signs to be translated into their home language than they do learning the language of the land.
When I sit and talk to family and friends about their grandparents they beam with pride about how hard they all worked to assimilate themselves into the country, how they always held special the day that they became a citizen and how they were able to do all this while not losing their identity. Now, I doubt many people even bother becoming citizens. Most I hear about get a visiting Visa and when that expires, they get lost somewhere in the shuffle.
But these people are not the ones who get me angry. The ones who make my blood boil are the ones who go on and on about how much this country sucks. How many things this country does wrong. The people who talk about their country like it is Nirvana, as it is heaven on earth. How beautiful their landscape is and how cultured their fellow countrymen are. To them I say... Go Back! If your country was that great you or your ancestors would have never come here in the first place. Your family left for one reason or another, didn't they? Be it religious persecution, lack of work, starvation, war, etc... They all came here in search of different things that were not available to them in their home land, and how do you repay them for taking that risk? You badmouth the country that offered them that opportunity. And a second thought, these are usually the same people who take full use of all the programs available to them, the same ones that "their" country is still decades away from offering.
I am not some nationalist extreme freak. If you are a visitor of this blog them you know that I have questioned authority often, including decisions made by my own government. (To be honest, this would please the forefathers of our country) And I am not naive, I am well aware that many atrocities have been done in the name of God and Country. But you will never hear me say that I would be better off somewhere else or that my allegiance is to another land. If I did utter such nonsense you have my authority to slap me across the face with an apple pie and choke me out with an American Flag.
Is it hot in here or am I Crazy?
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