The Best Living Gifts of the 4th of July
I used to live in a town that celebrated the 4th of July in the absolutely most appropriate way, with the spirit of the meaning of the celebration.
In the city community center, a couple of hundred immigrants and their families with gather for their Citizenship swearing in Ceremony.
The Immigration Department personnel were there to do the final official dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s so all the paperwork was finalized and hand out their citizen certificates. Other federal officials were there to do there thing.
And the city’s committee that put on this Citizenship Ceremony every year provided a fitting program of events of multinational entertainments. Songs, dances, recitals, all woven with stories of immigrants that had made this amazing, often heart breaking, always heroic journey, physically and psychologically to becoming and American.
Elected officials from the local to the Federal level made it a point to be there, every year, without fail. Almost all of them said from the podium how important it was to their heart and soul to attend this ceremony, because it rekindled their faith in democracy and America, restoring their first-hand knowledge of the worth and existence of the American dream and a bright, incredibly valuable, if fragile thing, that gets belittled and abused so often by people that take it for granted.
None of this ceremony is filler or show or speechifying grandstanding because everyone there knows for a fast that the real starts are the couple of hundred sitting in rows, waiting quietly to swear their oath and take their pledge. They and that is the real main event, and everyone is just so honored and proud to be there to witness it.
When the time comes, the official invites them to all stand, and they all go through the process of swearing and pledging and it is — magnificent.
This is the ever re-newing, beating heart of Americ; exposed, raw, fierce with hope,trembling with life, dreams, and determination. The life force that the future is born from, beating in front of you, in the forms of people standing, taking an oath, more conscious in the normal course of their lives than most people, full of love of life and willingness. The future standing bright even as it has yet to unfurl. It’s there, and everyone knows it.
And the surrounding crowds of family, cousins, in-laws, friends, children, always lots of children, everyone holding little American flags — it is literal heartwarming.
No bells or whistles, pyrotechnics or special effects can hold a candle to the depth of meaning of this ceremony and celebration.
It’s never been about exclusivity. It’s always been the Welcome Table. To be an American has always been about there’s always more room at the table, there’s always a place for you, no matter how weary or downtrodden you’d been.
Sure, there’ve been jerks all along. People who wanted exclusivity, to close the gate once they got in. Those first or second generation kids ashamed of their hardworking, different, immigrant parents of grandparents, that couldn’t scrape off their heritage fast enough to become as beige and bland and pictures in magazines, and just as humane.
I once heard an Auschwitz survivor who said — a third of the people would kill you as soon as look at you, another third of the people will give you the shirt off their back and the other third of the people, well they are more followers.
It’s time we stop allowing the bottom thug third of the people to bully everyone else, and allow the people who have it burning in their hearts to invest in every way, heart, mind and pocket book, to become Americans — we should give them and those of us that are proud descendants of immigrants, more sway than the bigoted, amnesiac, WASP inspired, murderously heartless third.
Part of the American story is crushingly hard and harsh, to the enslaved hostages that literally built so much of this country with their blood, sweat, and tears to all the waves of immigrants that were met with hostile social structures. And part of the American story is of the rewards of hard work, families and strangers coming together and together building deep-hearted communities, business that served the neighborhoods, social lives entwined with faith and hope for the future and their children and their children’s children, uplifting and liberating for all.
By bearing witness to all of our history, all of it, that is how the sunlight of the spirit gets in and we purge the poisons of denial, the wounds of greed, and restore our nation to building towards a bright future for all — without the limitations of some, oppression by some, ending the freedoms and self-hood of many by the few, and get democracy and actual justice back, rejuvenated, reinspiring all.
It may be an ideal, like Camelot, and that does not make it any less worthy of our time and hard work, daily. If we are not interested in the duties of citizenship, we don’t deserve democracy.
And this day, the 4th of July, with groups of hundreds of hard working, open hearted people are taking their oaths of citizenship can reignite and reinspire all of the maybe jaded, or complacent, already here Americans.
Even if it’s an outside hope, there’s no hope if even one of us forgets the Dream of America, and that More Perfect Union long known we may never achieve, but we must take steps towards it, every day, no matter what.
