Most people know where they are from. They can name off a country, a state, and a city. Most people also know where their ancestors came from. People are proud of where their ancestors lived. They may speak the language, follow customs, or visit. But they also know they are American. They know that their ancestors left their home country and immigrated to the United States. People understand their great-great-grandparents were just looking for a better life. These people have heard the trials and tribulations of the generations that came before them. These same people are also proud that their family had a hand in making America what it is. Our country was founded by people that left their home, everything they had ever known, to follow the promise of a better life. After all, America is the melting pot of cultures.
And we pride ourselves on that. Oh yes sir we do. We pride ourselves on the idea that anyone could have come to America in search of a better life. Potato famine got your country down? Come on over! Opressive government not giving you your rights? Hey ours was founded on the priciples of freedom and justice! Just hop on the next ship leaving for America and in a few short months, all the riches and opportunity of our country could be yours.
But is it still that way? Do we still welcome people who only want a better life with open arms? Or do we put up barbed wire fences and stick guards in towers with guns? The way Americans view immigration is interesting. On one hand we pride ourselves on our immigrant beinging. The stories of people coming to this country with only the clothes on their back and not even two pennies to rub together. On the other hand, it's a problem. People are immigrating to the U.S. illegally. But not everyone.
As most stories go, immigrants have always had it tough. They normally didn't speak the language, have very much money, or were very well educated. But in the stories America choses to remember, people always overcome those obstacles. Now the same principles are true, except we have made immigrants the enemy. They are the people stealing the jobs we are too above to take. They are the people using the healthcare we can't afford to have. And they are the people, who a few generations ago, were just like us.
America is a great country, but we have a short memory. We find it so easy to forget where we were not too long ago. We need to remember one of the things we so pride ourselves on, and not forget that should still be possible for others.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Blog of the Week: The Things They Carried...
The first thing anybody ever told me about the Vietnam War was that it was bad. The second thing anybody every told me was that it was a tie. My grandmother told me the first thing I ever heard about Vietnam, and Red Forman from "That 70's Show" told me the second.
It took me a few years to really question my own perception of Vietnam. Who did we fight in Vietnam? Why did we fight? And if so many people were against the war, why did it take us so long to get out? Although I'm sure that everything my parents ever told me about Vietnam was deeply skewed by their far left politics, I'd like to believe that by age 17 I have come to my own understanding of Vietnam. Of course Vietnam began and ended long before I was ever thought of, which left me with a sense of disconnect to what really happened.
As sure as I am that my parents couldn't give me a completely unbias account of the Vietnam War, I was sure that the media couldn't either. They say that the winners write history, and there was no clear "winner" in Vietnam. Which of course meant that anyone could interpret the war how they pleased. Some truly beautiful works about such a horrific thing emmerged, and some truly bias things about the war have come out too. Some made the "bad guys" look worse, some were just a attempt to justify what those "bad guys" were doing, and some just told what they remembered.
Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried only reaffirmed what I knew about Vietnam. The things that happened, the way people felt about the draft, the tactics that were used, and the long-lasting trauma the soldiers live with. Any other book I've read that touched on Vietnam had one common theme: horror. The horror of what these soldiers saw, or what they were doing. Other texts focused on the soldier. Obviously having served in Vietnam, Tim O'Brien's main focuses were the same. However, O'Brien's take on the war pushed his book beyond the stereotypical war story. He made it connect for me.
I realized that Vietnam wasn't just history, but the things, and some of the problems, that occurred in Vietnam are still relevant in the wars we are fighting today. O'Brien might have been bias, but he was honest about it. He might have fabricated the stories in The Things They Carried, but he was upfront with why. This book was different for me. It was more than a war story. It made me think beyond why war was bad, or even why that war was bad. It made me realize just how many people were hurt in so many ways by such a horrific mistake.
It took me a few years to really question my own perception of Vietnam. Who did we fight in Vietnam? Why did we fight? And if so many people were against the war, why did it take us so long to get out? Although I'm sure that everything my parents ever told me about Vietnam was deeply skewed by their far left politics, I'd like to believe that by age 17 I have come to my own understanding of Vietnam. Of course Vietnam began and ended long before I was ever thought of, which left me with a sense of disconnect to what really happened.
As sure as I am that my parents couldn't give me a completely unbias account of the Vietnam War, I was sure that the media couldn't either. They say that the winners write history, and there was no clear "winner" in Vietnam. Which of course meant that anyone could interpret the war how they pleased. Some truly beautiful works about such a horrific thing emmerged, and some truly bias things about the war have come out too. Some made the "bad guys" look worse, some were just a attempt to justify what those "bad guys" were doing, and some just told what they remembered.
Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried only reaffirmed what I knew about Vietnam. The things that happened, the way people felt about the draft, the tactics that were used, and the long-lasting trauma the soldiers live with. Any other book I've read that touched on Vietnam had one common theme: horror. The horror of what these soldiers saw, or what they were doing. Other texts focused on the soldier. Obviously having served in Vietnam, Tim O'Brien's main focuses were the same. However, O'Brien's take on the war pushed his book beyond the stereotypical war story. He made it connect for me.
I realized that Vietnam wasn't just history, but the things, and some of the problems, that occurred in Vietnam are still relevant in the wars we are fighting today. O'Brien might have been bias, but he was honest about it. He might have fabricated the stories in The Things They Carried, but he was upfront with why. This book was different for me. It was more than a war story. It made me think beyond why war was bad, or even why that war was bad. It made me realize just how many people were hurt in so many ways by such a horrific mistake.
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