Our Impending Independence Day

Every year around the 4th of July, I get a little introspective...

Independence Day is right around the corner. While this newsletter is often centered directly on issues within Interior Alaska, mid-summer always makes me ponder the path our country is on and my place in it.

I love being and am privileged to be an American. While I came to the US as a baby, citizenship was a choice made around my 18th birthday. I still treasure the copy of the Oath of Allegiance and little flag that I received that day.

Signed oath from my citizenship ceremony in 2013

I have a pair of pocket constitutions, each given to me as a gift by friends and family. I flip through them occasionally to find a short, well-written document that serves as the foundation of our shared principles within.

My appreciation, however, is often tempered by reality, and a growing knowledge of the disparities between how and to whom those words have been applied.

The United States was founded largely by colonizing slaveowners who introduced and refined progressive, often radical ideas while actively denying many those same purported rights.

American history is full of blood, betrayal, discrimination, class warfare, and struggle, at home and abroad, an odyssey of conflict whose burdens were and continue to be borne most heavily by women, Indigenous, Black, and later immigrant families, and everyone else who fell outside of the original white, male, heteronormative, and wealthy ruling class.

Our modern middle class was built on the power of organized labor, a federal government with the resources, desire, and ability to serve our citizens, on fair and hearty taxes for the wealthy. Much of the world has now eclipsed us: the list of happier, healthier, and more educated nations continues to grow.

From our courts to elected officials, drastic acts of rolling back protections and accusing vulnerable groups of endangering an American way of life twisted by fantasy persist.

We find solutions to these issues by innovating forward, not staring back, by coming together as a diverse and mutifacted people, by emulating our allies and righting deep and systemic wrongs.

July Fourth is a time of national pride and celebration of our country’s many monumental achievements.

This year, as Supreme Court opinions trickle in and fiery lunatics attack LGBT+ youth, as abortion bans grow hand-in-hand with pregnancy-related deaths and more people are pushed into poverty as corporate profits and the cost of living soars, it also serves as an uncomfortable reminder of the vast gaps between the ideals and realities of life in America.