10 Years of Being an American
This week marks a decade since I attended my citizenship ceremony and became an American. After a childhood of green cards, my family and I could finally vote, obtain a US passport, apply for a wider range of jobs, and not worry about suddenly having to move away due to a change in policy around our permanent resident status.
The biggest difference was how I finally felt inside. After years of tiptoeing around the pledge of allegiance, of questions about my name and origin, of having family in Poland call me American and people here call me Polish, I finally felt like I belonged.
The day that I became a citizen remains one of my proudest. The smiling families and faces of hopeful immigrants like me. I still have the tiny flag that they gave me, along with my signed oath of allegiance.
In this decade since, I’ve learned a lot more about the history of this country. There is much to be proud of. But our history is also steeped in violence, land-theft, racism, slavery, broken promises, sexism, and hypocrisy. The threads and repercussions of these injustices continue on to the present.
There is nothing patriotic about hiding the evils of yesterday and pretending they don’t impact our society today.
Unfortunately, that’s what it seems that the state government in Florida has been attempting to do.
From the Guardian:
“For some time now, conservative groups have pressured libraries and classrooms to remove certain “controversial” books from their shelves and their syllabi. These are texts that tell uncomfortable or unpopular truths about our nation’s origins, including inequality, race, history, gender, sexuality, power and class – a range of subjects that a small but vocal group of Americans would prefer to ignore or deny.
These efforts achieved one of their most notable successes last April when the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, signed the Stop Woke Act, which prohibits in-school discussions about racism, oppression, LBGTQ+ issues and economic inequity. Books that have not been officially vetted and approved must be hidden or covered, lest teachers unknowingly break an ill-defined law against distributing pornography – a felony.
On 1 February, these pernicious restrictions on academic freedom spread beyond Florida, when the College Board announced its decision to severely restrict what can and cannot be taught in the newly created advanced placement class in African American studies. Cut from the curriculum (or in some cases made optional) was any discussion of Black Lives Matter, mass incarceration, police brutality, queer Black life and the Black Power movements of the 1960s and 70s.”
Also from the Guardian:
“Both legal professionals and laypersons have noted that “the bills are so vaguely written that it’s unclear what they will affirmatively cover”. This is not because of incompetence or oversight but by design. The vagueness serves, at least, two goals. First, and foremost, it makes the laws hard to interpret, which leads those targeted (from teachers to principals) to be extra cautious. Second, the vagueness provides deniability, both to the courts and to more moderate supporters. In fact, the prime goal is not for the state to censor teachers and schools but for them to self-censor. That is why it was only a minor setback when a Florida judge struck down the “Stop Woke” law, calling it “positively dystopian”. Across the state, teachers and universities had already started to self-censor. For instance, the University of Central Florida (UCF), the state’s largest university, removed all anti-racist statements from departmental websites, while several of its professors decided to cancel scheduled courses on race out of fear of breaching the “Stop-Woke” law.”
In Alaska and all across our country, we must come to terms with our past. Educators on all levels should be empowered to lead these difficult discussions.
You can love a country and still realize its imperfections and the way they have caused harm and suffering for so many. We can not get better if we don’t look back.
Some time ago, I was talking with a friend who told me it was a shame that those that choose to rewrite our history had co-opted pride in our flag and country. He was right.
I remain proud to be an American. We can be better than our past, with life, liberty, and happiness for all. But only if the people know that that line was originally a lie.
Thank you Kuba. Fortunately we have you who needed to work for citizenship to remind us how important it is to acknowledge our country’s history-both the commonly asserted positives and the darker periods of our history. Only from our darker periods we can recognize that we’ve come a long way and that progress gives us strength for the long, long way we need to go.