Xuen Tey Week #5: What is America?
When you ask someone that question, the answers that you may receive are countless. Some may speak of America like it is a paradise, the land of freedom, some may call it a hellscape, a capitalist horro, and some may just change the topic, declining to approach the controversial topic of the United States, a global power, and an altogether confusing country.
America has always been seen as more of an ideal than a country. “The land of opportunity, the land of freedom.” The place where anyone can do anything.
But I’ve never truly understood that view.
Yes, America is a free place. You can speak about whatever you want and do whatever you desire, but at the same time it is a dangerous place. People can shun you for your ethnicity, for your sexuality, for your gender. You can walk down the street and hear people calling you slurs if they so please. Terrible things happen in the U.S. all the time. You look on the news and there it is: school shootings, murders, passing of laws that restrict rights and everything else.
Growing up in the U.S. can be terrifying—especially for immigrants. Immigrants can be discriminated against for their religion, for their status as an immigrant and not a citizen, for their being ‘not american’, even for mildly resembling an immigrant who committed atrocities years upon years ago.
I’m incredibly lucky to have grown up in California, a fairly diverse state with more relaxed approaches to immigrants. I’m lucky to grow up in the Bay Area, infamous for its many immigrant families that have lived there since the eighteen hundreds. I’m ridiculously lucky to have grown up in Fremont, a safe and diverse community where discrimination among children is something that basically never happens. It’s real hard to discriminate against someone for having a specific skin color when half of your friends look just like them.
But there are lots of people out there who haven’t been nearly as fortunate as myself. I know people who moved here from other places that faced discrimination before they came here, and I’ve read countless novels about the kinds of discrimination that people living in other places have to live through.
America may be the land of the free, and a place where anyone can be anything, but that doesn’t always mean people will choose to be good. Many will choose to be bad. I’m just lucky enough to be somewhere where people choose to become people who know what’s right and stand up for it.
Xuen, I think this was an extremely insightful blog—full of perspective. I think your first paragraph is especially true but there are SO MANY diverse opinions of what America is, especially proven after we just had our American Identity essay. I think I'd like to try and stay optimistic by calling it a paradise, but I don't know if that's what America is or if that's what MY America is. I do love the fact we are given full rights to our First Amendment, but I think it is extremely nuanced. Or at least that is my understanding after the recent OPTIC Annotation Packet, where we learned it is a lot more complex than it seems. The discrimination against immigrants I feel is extremely real. In my own experience—a couple years ago—my friend's dad was called rude terms at a Taco Bell. The situation escalated so much so that it actually made FOX News, which I think is fascinating for the wrong reasons. More pertaining to your blog, I loved the paragraph which descended its scale. You wrote from California and then eventually brought it to a city as specific as Fremont. This paragraph put light in my own eyes to how fortunate we are to have lived in such a great city. Overall, I feel your blog gave a multi-perspective view of a topic that I haven't given enough thought towards. Thank you for sharing, and I'm looking forward to what you share next week!
ReplyDeleteXuen, I really appreciate you sharing this viewpoint on the subject of America as a country. The idea of freedom is also one that I have been contemplating a lot lately. As you point out, there are so many restrictions when living in the United States; you have to be careful when expressing viewpoints (mainly political) because of the amount of hate that exists in this country. People are constantly vilified for being different; it exists not only in real life but also all over the media here. I really resonate with your statement of being “lucky” to live in California and in Fremont specifically. I have this conversation with my family a lot because we feel like we live in a safe, protective bubble here while we listen to all the hatred and violence on the news; it occurs in our own country but we feel so distant and removed from it. Your last paragraph summed it up very well: America is the “land of the free” but all that means is that people have the freedom to choose between good and bad. With all the hatred going on in our country, I am thankful that I am in an area where we can have conversations like this.
ReplyDeleteXuen, I like how your blog explores the thought process behind your disagreement with the view you introduced at the beginning. This is a nice way to delve into the perceptions you hold about America and how you’re lucky to grow up fortunate, between the free yet terrifying facets of this country. And, this take is incredibly relatable—seeing all the racial violence that happens throughout the country and even sometimes in our own community, we are both incredibly lucky to grow up where tons of my friends share my skin tone and culture.
ReplyDeleteI’m just a bit confused by the part where you say some people think of America as a “hellscape,” then establish the absolute claim of America always being seen as more of an ideal. It’s conflicting to have these opposing statements in such close proximity, but I understand what you’re getting at—because America’s most famous motto is, after all, the land of the free. I do like how you’ve expressed not understanding this perspective on such an ideal in a single-sentence paragraph though. The emphasis this creates is something I always love seeing in writing (which I myself tend to overuse…). Anyway, I’m glad we can both grow up living our lucky lives.
Thoughtful as always Xuen! I’m a little out of order, but something that caught my attention as I was reading was how you described the Bay Area as “infamous” for its many immigrant families, not to say it detracts from the impact, but it really got me thinking about how different and diverse this area really is. I’ve always felt like diversity was the “norm,” similarly to how you feel lucky to be in an area that is diverse and having people that choose to stand up for what’s right. But what I really wanted to address was your introduction, listing the many, contradicting titles of the country. It isn’t a new idea by any means, that America is so hypocritical, but I’m always shocked when I’m reminded of it: a melting pot that also discriminates against immigrants, the land of the free but the largest prison population, diverse but also only some people are “real Americans.” It’s confusing, but I’m glad that you decided to talk about it.
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