Growing up, I was always taught to place my right hand over my chest and stand facing the flag during the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance. I took pride in knowing I was an american. The world was my stage. I had the ability to be whoever I wanted, and do whatever I wanted because I lived in the land of the free. I was taught that the Pilgrims and the Indians had a huge feast together where they ate corn and sang and gave thanks for everything they had. A beautiful picture that is for sure.
Much to my surprise, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a big dinner table with warm rolls and pies. It was a man slaughter. Blood shed. Families lost. Children dying. It was terrible. This is the land of the Free.
I was always taught about Pearl Harbor day and how the Japanese came and bombed American soil. This made me angry even as a young girl. I was taught of our bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was all general knowledge to me. It wasn’t until my 8th grade year of school, that I was taught about Japanese Internment camps. Japanese-Americans were forcibly removed from their homes, and relocated to various centers where they would remain as long as necessary. We sold their homes, their businesses, and nearly everything they had. Living in these camps wasn’t easy. It was too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. They were supposed to be "self-sufficient", however the soil in these camps wasn’t well enough to harvest the amount it would have taken to feed all of these people.
There wasn’t any escaping from these internment camps because fear had been instilled in them. They believed that if they were to try and flee, they'd be shot. When the order was repealed, many of these people found they couldn’t return to their hometowns. Hostility took over and they were forced to find other means of living. While it is clear that these camps were nowhere near as horrible as the Nazi run Internment Camps, it remains a dark cloud on the United States and how we disrespected the civil liberties of other Americans based on cultural differences.
After the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, our country was viewed as one that came together as a whole and showed the world that we are one. We are a family, we cannot be brought down, and we will fight until the end because we are Americans. We took a heroic stance that was a picture of unity and togetherness. As beautiful as it sounds, it was a false picture. We singled out Muslim-Americans. We made them feel unsafe in their home. These citizens were made to feel as if they didn’t belong here.
This racial profiling still happens today. It is a wide spread, counter-productive issue that plagues our nation. The acts of terrorism that have been caused by a few Muslims, do not represent the religion as a whole. Just as the Sandy Hook Shooting, The Columbine Shooting, The Virginia Tech Shooting do not represent white Americans as a whole. The terrible murders done by Matthew Emanuel Macon, Shelly Brooks, Derrick Todd Lee, and Henry Louis Wallace do not represent the African-American population as a whole. If you were born in the U.S., or if you were granted U.S. Citizenship - you are an American, no matter religion, ethnicity, language, and so many other characteristics we try and place on the image of an American.
The point I am trying to make, is that american problems stand much higher than our political system can see. They stem from within - from the fear that has been placed in our minds time and time again, from images of hate, and images of hurt. It is natural to be scared. It is natural to have a concern. It is not natural however to hate. We are not born hating. We are taught to hate. We are taught what those higher up want us to be taught. Power comes in numbers. As long as our nation has the deep divide it does now, we will never achieve the true meaning of living in the Land of the Free.
