America is insecure, and it needs to regain its confidence.
When people are proud of their various languages, cultures, ethnicity, and nationalities, America should not take that as an affront. America responds with suspicion and indignation to people being loud and proud, quiet and strong, or identifying as anything other than American. Our negative response to other cultures hints at unhappiness with who we are.
America silences others for speaking in languages other than English. It yells, “Learn English or go back to your country.” It assumes that people use the language to talk negatively about those around them. It prioritizes itself over Spanish and Asian languages, but it doesn’t mind French. It doesn’t associate that language with someone it perceives to be as other. In attempting to quiet a bilingual or monolingual person who is speaking a different language, an infinite amount is said about the American who is offended, suspicious, or demeaning. When someone has an accent, the America that responds in a condescending manner is one that is unsure of itself. It’s an America that needs to express its assumed superiority at the other person’s expense.
After being acquired as part of the United States, the Californian constitution of 1849 stated that both Spanish and English were official languages of the state.
Section 21, Article XI
“All laws, decrees, regulations and provisions, which from their nature require publication, shall be published in English and Spanish.”
But it is this hunched over, squeamish America that decides that is irrelevant with Proposition 63. Although California has a population of more than 14 million Latinxs, Prop 63 decrees that only English has a place as an official language of the state. It is this America that sees bilingual education as only benefiting the American it perceives as other, missing the point that being bilingual benefits them too.
This America preaches assimilation with a false premise of one nation, one culture. And because of its belief in that myth, it is scared when it is confronted with the truth, in all its human flesh and pride. It does what it can to avoid its own flaws, in an attempt to conceal them from its citizenry and the world. It desperately hopes to be the best, as it has always said it is. So, when people fly their flags, own their language, perform holidays or rituals specific to their people, or eat food that America does not usually see, they are shamed for it. America is suspicious of pride. It knows that there is no such thing as a "greatest nation." But it thinks if its citizens never find that out, maybe it will be alright.
Well, it won’t.
This America has done a wonderful job of keeping those other American histories out of schools and away from its citizens. It fears the pride of its citizens in their multiple cultures and opts out of teaching them. It also denies its participation in atrocities of the world and refuses to significantly acknowledge them. It skims it over or effectively downplays the causes and effects.
Texas, I'm looking at you.
Misrepresentation of Movimiento Chicanx
You too, Arizona.
America is scared of the power of its ethnic peoples. It praises a tame version of Dr. King and does not acknowledge that he, too, understood that a “riot is the language of the unheard” and that the conditions that brew them do not "develop out of thin air." America lets us know about the assassination of King, but it doesn’t tell us how hated he was and why. America does not want to explain to us the necessity of the movement. It is scared that we’ll hate it afterwards, and it craves our approval. That is why it will tell all of the students about the Puritans but have the FBI watch the Black Panthers. They’ll demonize Malcolm X and hope that we never ask, "who taught you to hate yourself?”
It does not want us to know all of the trivial reasons that people were lynched, perhaps out of a fear that we’ll compare it to our current justice system and see its failings. It will not tell us how it derided its citizens that it never saw as fully American, and it will not acknowledge that it still does that. It won’t acknowledge its direct influence in funneling black, Latinx, and Asian students to vocational classes instead of encouraging them to pursue a college decree. And it will not write a passage in its textbooks about why Asian-Americans were pushed into Chinatowns and Koreatowns.
America doesn’t want us to find out about its lack of objectivity. It is scared of its population knowing all that has been left out.
So, when someone critiques the nation, America cowers and responds with a,“If you don’t like it, go back to your own country.” It already knows its faults but having them pointed out brings its insecurities to an all-too-bright light.
Listen to the critiques.
In high school, I was a patriot. I loved ‘Murica.
In college, which I’m still in, I see how much America has lied and continues to lie. I’m very frustrated with all that it deemed unimportant. I’m angry that it does not deem its citizenry as smart enough to handle the truth, or even just multiple accounts, in things that have occurred. I’m upset about its bias in what gets taught and what stays forgotten. I’m annoyed that it is afraid. I don’t want a nation that is too scared of being liked to let me know about its wrongdoings.
I am not a patriot anymore. How could I be?
Nor will I decide to be again unless we gain some confidence.
I am proud of this country when we do the right things and when we extend people their humanity. I am proud to claim the US of A when people are respected. When we build people up and let them like themselves, without worrying that it means that they don't like us too. When pride isn't seen as divisive to America, I'll be a patriot again. When the nation owns up to our terrible history throughout the world alongside with accomplishments, I'll bleed red, white, and blue. When we apologize with sincerity for all the things we have done and continue to do wrong, I'll fly that flag.
In the USA, being a good American has become more important than just trying to be a decent human. We value people based on how much of an American they are, as if that can really be measured. That's not the number one criteria. If the nation was confident, it wouldn't even be a concern.
Disclaimer: I don't refuse to be a patriot because I'm proud of my other cultures. I refuse because America has never wanted me to be proud and responds with hate, suspicion, confusion, and condescending reason when I speak up and speak out.
May you never stay silent, and may you never stay in your place.
