“Mom, we don’t seem patriotic,” my younger daughter said, “I don’t see that we wave the American flag on the 4th of July. We just eat.”
My children are American-born Chinese that have been schooled to identify themselves as Americans. The history of this nation has sunken deep into their consciousness as their own. They read about the sacrifices of the great men and women that risked it all to seek a new life in this land. They learned of the Pioneers that ventured into the West with their young riding the covered wagon while fending off attackers and experienced extreme hardships.
While they study American history as their own, I can only admire it from the side…as a foreigner with sincere gratitude.
President Donald Trump might have left out the Asian race in his inaugural speech back in January of 2017. But I am not petty. He can gloss over the invisible Asians. I am just glad my mother put me on the plane in 1987 and told me to do this one thing – learn English and you will do well in life.
It may not be evident to all, but I am a patriot, a diehard American patriot. I was an adopted foreigner given the same, inalienable rights. My ancestors did not die to make this land secure for all; my ancestors made us opportunists to jump on the next best deal.
Peggy Noonan wrote in a commentary this morning,
“We are a people that has experienced something epic together. We were given this brilliant, beautiful thing, this new arrangement, a political invention based on the astounding assumption that we are all equal, that where you start doesn’t dictate where you wind up. We’ve kept it going, father to son, mother to daughter, down the generations, inspired by the excellence and in spite of the heartbreak. Whatever was happening, depression or war, we held high the meaning and forged forward.”
My husband and I are raising the first generation, ethnically Chinese, Americans. But we raise them foremost as god-fearing Christians, a faith that radically inspired the brave men to pen the Declaration of Independence 243 years ago.
I no longer need to tell my children to learn English to do well in life. I will only tell them this one thing, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.”
And that will be our greatest contribution to this amazing country.
