As a father, a husband, a former soldier and an American, this brings a tear to my eye.
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” - Lincoln
As an American I feel we are bound not by our failures of past morality, but are need to fix the. I wish everyone understood this.
What me and my family talked about today is that, as immigrants, we are so sad how much the "native born" people of the US hate their own country. They seem to never waste an opportunity to remind others of their disdain and it is more and more visible these days e.g. in big news media or on Twitter.
Yeah, and so many people of color came to the US with a suite case and less than $1000 dollars, and then became a successful person in a few years. I certainly did. My wife certainly did. My team, my gardener, and my contractor certainly did. Some people who are from the same school as I went to have even become CEOs of big companies, and some have become famous professors or head of prestigious universities. If anything, I got help from people of all colors, and particularly from a great system that generations of people in the US have built.
Is the US perfect? Of course not! But everything in the US is worth hating? You gotta be out of your mind. Is the history of the US perfect? Of course not! That's why it's history! Human learn. Human improve. Human societies evolve from centuries of violence, prejudice, or pure cruelty. If we cancel them, we won't have a history.
In the meantime, the poorest 20% of the US population is probably better than 80% of the population in the world, and this is not great? The protestors can afford protesting full time for weeks, and this is not great? We have NBA who have more than 70% of black athletes. We idolize them. They make millions of a year. And this is not great? A long list of Hollywood stars are black and we love them and LinkedIn is full of Will Smith's inspirational interview, and this is not great? We have a black president in a white-majority country, and this is not great? We have black mayors, council members, senators, congressman and congress woman, and this is not great?
If we look at the US history, we have Charles Drew, we have Rebecca Lee Crumpler, we have Daniel Hale Williams, we have Marie M. Daly, we have Alice Augusta Ball, we have Katherine Johnson, we ave Dorothy Vaughaun, we have Christine Darden. The list can go on. Are they not great?
And if we follow the logic of cancel culture, we should cancel Rome, cancel Greece, cancel renaissance, cancel all religions, cancel Europe, cancel China, cancel India, cancel Africa. They all had their share of slavery, for centuries. They all had their share of atrocity, again for centuries. Then what's left? What's the point? And should we cancel our childhood? Should we cancel ourselves? Most of us, after all, did something stupid or horrible when we were young. Should our parents cancel us?
As an immigrant, I don't feel the same sadness you do. There's still many injustices in the US, and framing it as "hating their own country" is extremely unfair: people are frustrated about a lot of things, people are emotional about a lot of things, and I don't think it's fair for you to discard it as simply "disdain".
After all, America was founded on rebellion against the status quo (what day is it today again?), and I hope that doesn't change.
My family is Bangladeshi immigrants and we have been talking about this lately too. My parents just moved into a new house, and yesterday my dad installed a big American flag. My parents are Democrats so they agree ideologically with CNN, etc., but even they’re getting sick of the over-the-top weeping and rending of clothes.
If you fail to understand how so many Indigenous and Black people of this country view it with such contempt, I would recommend a few reads. But first I would ask you to consider that whatever greatness it can claim lies not in it’s continued founding myths, but in the many unheralded acts of sacrifice and resistance that so many of it’s marginalized citizens made and continue to make down to this very minute.
James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”, or his “No Name in the Street” layout both how the country was brought to the reckoning of the Civil Rights movement and then completely capitulated to white supremacy. Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the 4th of July” [1] still rings true to so many of us. Read David Truer’s “ The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present” on the meticulousness explicated horror of how this country has and continues to destroy and devalue Indigenous life.
The people protesting Friday in the Black Hills or in the front lines of the Black Lives Matter actions are calling upon us all to view it as it is, and dare to imagine what it could be.
I am sad that we don’t embrace the movement to bring about real democracy.
I believe you've constructed a straw man argument about those who "hate" their own country.
It's easy to feel self-righteous when your opposition "hates".
I guarantee you someone out there thinks that I hate America, just because they extrapolate a whole set of beliefs from one thing I've said.
There are people out there (probably on your Nextdoor, because they're certainly on mine!), angry about BLM protests. Angry about the chaos. Angry about statues. Angry about violence. Angry about looting. People saying "if these protestors get in my way, I'mma run them over in my truck." People saying "if you want help defending your business, just say the word and me and my bros will come back you up". People saying "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." People like our president. Advocating extrajudicial execution of American citizens. Do they hate America? Why or why not?
We don't hate our country! We want it to live up to its promise for everyone. Truth and justice for all is hard. If we didn't believe in it, we wouldn't try.
I feel like I might get downvoted for this, but a large part of it comes from a sense of guilt about clearly being the most successful and powerful country in the world. When nearly everyone else on earth constantly gives you shit (while also trying to enter...) many people here have started accepting those foreign perspectives and seeing themselves as spoiled and privileged. I can remember this being true from when I was a child. It has been happening for a long time. Complacent adults have never stood up and tried to set things straight.
Many Americans don't want to seem naive about how good they have it, so they overcompensate by disliking the country instead.
It doesn't help that being successful has made life incredibly easy for a significant fraction of people, who find fulfillment in social justice rather than family and work, because they aren't as necessary anymore. Social justice as a way of living tends to correlate with self hatred, which extends to the country.
There are other factors of course, but these ones are large.
Twitter and social media platforms shoulder some of the blame here for this phenomenon you are noticing due to their engagement algorithms amplifying outrage in your newsfeeds.
This has also been a constant topic amongst my family, extended family and many friends (mostly european).
My entire family (including me) and extended family immigrated here within the last 10-30 years, yet we all love living here, and have the same sentiment around people who have been born here. They were given such a great opportunity (that we all had to work for), yet most of them throw it away and have little love for the country and what it offers.
I even have family and friends on H1B/student visas who despite all thesese issues, are supporting a lot of these right-wing issues after these protests, which was a bit surprising (considering the ban on the visas)
Seeing a statue of Lincoln defaced made me more sad than almost any of the other. If we can’t look to people like Lincoln as our heroes, then what type of hero do we really want?
The main stream media and the elites are supporting the cancel culture. In fact, they fuel it -- both WaPo and NYT published articles about why 7/4 should be canceled. That's okay, as a country needs different voice and people have different political spectrum by nature. What's disappointing, though, is that the conservatives do not have a big enough platform to publish well-argued counter points, even though "conservatives" today is really moderate, even moderate left per the standard 10 years ago.
We don't have a problem of being far-left. We have a problem of imbalanced influence.
Please consider that you are in an extreme social media and/or real life filter bubble. "The elites" aren't some secret Soros/Clinton/HerEmails force out to destroy America.
I've found that taking a long-ish break (2-3 weeks) from reading the news and social media can be extremely eye opening.
> People cannot "transcend" past wrongs, so don't do them.
Semantics? I don't care what word you use, but you can absolutely always do better and the beautiful thing about America's founding is that in every respect, it is aspirational and we have aspired to do better. And we have. And we can do better still.
A bit sentimental, but on holidays we can accept that. The bigger problem with this historical account is that it is incomplete. We Americans like to pretend that this story begins with WWII, when the evil Empire of Japan invaded those bucolic isles of the Philippines, whose brave residents were inspired by MacArthur to rise up against colonialism. In reality, this history began in 1898. Americans pretended to ally with the Filipinos against the Spanish, when in reality they only wanted to replace the Spanish as colonial overlords. In the ensuing conflicts and decades of exploitation, hundreds of thousands died.
There was no reason for any of this. America at the turn of the century had no interests in the western Pacific Ocean. American intelligentsia agreed with Mark Twain that the barbarity shamed all of us. Sure, some American sugar companies made some money, and the particular Filipinos favored by American imperialists made some money. I feel an awful precedent was set. Previously our worst barbarities had been limited to the South and the Frontier. At a stroke, they were unleashed on the World. (Seen any news stories about Libya recently?) The event described in TFA seems a small consolation.
The interesting thing is that despite what America did to these Filipino soldiers, they still chose to be American and sacrificed the majority of their life to do so. American immigration really is the ultimate test of loyalty. Makes you wonder how many natural-born Americans would still choose to be American if they had to go through the immigration experience first.
Now that's an idea. People aren't born American citizens but as probationary citizens, and they only become full citizens after fulfilling a series of trials. Imagine what kind of society would emerge from the other end.
> American immigration really is the ultimate test of loyalty.
Frankly, more and more people are starting to wake up to the fact that it's a bullshit test. Partly because immigration really doesn't have to be all that, and partly because of the global...decline of the United States' image since the turn of the century.
When I was a kid moving to the US was the goal, now only a handful of people I know have it at the top of their relocation list (and some have lost interest in even visiting). Canada and the EU are much more popular destinations for people looking to move to a western country.
Creating a society of citizens around who passes an arbitrary test of "are you really American" is as clear-cut of a definition of fascism as you can get.
The US went to war against Spain in 1898 and took the Philippine away from Spain. The US promised the Filipinos independence and then reneged on it and fought brutal war against the Filipinos for 14 years.
> I've re-posted this many times, because it's fundamental to what it means to me to be an American.
I was thinking I was in for something uplifting. Instead I got:
> In 1946, Congress reneged on FDR's promise. Filipino solders who fought for us and their families were not given their promised citizenship, let alone benefits. ... They waited 44 years, until after most of them were dead.
This story is horrible. We betrayed our WWII allies, betrayed people who were rightfully American citizens, in all likelihood just because they were the wrong race. Everyone in this thread is acting like this story is inspiring. I feel like everyone has gone crazy that they think this is supposed to make me feel patriotic. This is an example of America at its ugliest and most prejudiced.
This story isn’t about Truman and the other people who reneged on the promise in 1946–who were all dead by 1992. That’s a very self-centered way to look at this. This is a story about immigrants who loved America so much that they proudly accepted citizenship when it was belatedly conferred to them. What kind of country engenders such love and devotion even in the face of such slights?
Its great that they didn't hold a grudge, but I don't see why I should be moved by it. Of course they were happy, they were finally being given what they were promised. A prisoner being exonerated of a crime they were falsely accused would probably be ecstatic, but hearing the story of someone being falsely convicted hardly engenders feelings of pride in our justice system. I don't see why it should be different in this case. There was no uplifting story about how someone managed to change immigration by fighting for what he believed or anything like that. The story was just "we backstabbed you and 44 years they were happy when we finally removed the knife. Yay us!" I can't muster any positive emotions in this story. I can't see why anyone would feel proud of this.
They were treated arbitrarily by the system for decades, and dealt with it as they could. They are happy that it's over and that they are being recognized for how they worked.
The article saying these people are "proud of the nation" despite it is the weirdest take. You build a life somewhere, you enjoy your community, of course you want the stability offered by getting citizenship!
Arbitrary immigration rules and services make you feel miserable about the administration. It's just that many people in these scenarios are able to make the difference between the bureaucracies, the communities, the people themselves, and everything in between. So they're happy about getting recognized, and happy they won't be torn away from the communities. This doesn't transfer to some sort of 'love for the country' full-throated admiration that that phrase usually implies
(This is just my personal read based on how other people talk about going through US immigration, about general things said about mindsets of people in this kind of limbo, and my personal experiences with immigration systems. I am not a mindreader, but popehat isn't either)
I think the moral of the story is that America is flawed, however, it eventually does the right thing, as well as other great things. And that's why it engenders so much love/hate.
I think it's very relevant to today's events, where people wants to "cancel" a person, just because of one or two things they did wrong (which may have just been the norm in their days). This is a slightly disturbing trends, as we can supposedly only use perfectionists and saints as role models (are there any?), instead of humans who are naturally flawed.
I am proud of America, the country that produced a great democracy, defeated Nazi Germany - which raised hell on earth and held concentration camps, sent people to the moon, heralded in 70 years of relative peace, spread democracies around the world, launched reusable rockets that landed back safely, and is in the process of confronting China - another country that raised hell on earth and held concentration camps - after realizing its fault.
Up until March, my office was less than a block from the Paramount theater in downtown Oakland. Once a month there would be a huge naturalization ceremony there as I was walking in to the office. That always did make me feel proud to be "an American", seeing all the newly naturalized people and their families crowding the area.
That's where I was naturalized! I had mixed feelings about being required to go to a ceremony even though all my paperwork was done, but in the end it was really special.
On the way home I went to the Betabrand factory (which was on Cesar Chavez), told them that I had just gotten naturalized and that I wanted to buy some of their Stars and Stripes pants. They thought it was so cute that they created a special discount code for people who have just become citizens.
Another fun thing was walking through the mission, which has a lot of immigrants, people would see the envelope I was holding and yell "congratulations" or even high-five me.
That night my friends took me to a baseball game. It was overall a lovely induction.
Some things are too important to be mere paperwork, and need a ritual to mark them. Graduating university is where this range begins, and taking on the citizenship of another nation is definitely way above that.
Two years ago my wife became a citizen, and my son and I got to go watch her take the oath of citizenship in the Paramount with around 1000 other people from almost 90 countries. I have never felt so proud to be American.
The rituals and pride surrounding citizenship, an entirely arbitrary and fictional distinction, never made sense to me. All it is is a way to justify denying things to some people that are granted to others: usually things that are, or should be, human rights, like free movement and due process.
Remember: citizenship is as real as Oz or Wonderland.
These people were exploited which is terrible. That the nation that exploited them was still more desirable to them than their former home is also terrible. That all they got in return for being exploited was what they were initially promised but decades later is terrible
"Everything" is a bit uncharitable. There are people in that story who, when they found out about a historic wrong, did something about it. That's not terrible. There are people who are inspired by that act of doing the right thing, and have gone on to be partisans for righting similar wrongs. That's not terrible.
That it happened is terrible. Ignoring the good that was done so that we can wallow in the bad is also terrible.
There's almost 200 comments here but no one that I have seen has actually mentioned who in Washington "did something about it" and Ken's post also left this out.
Hawaii Senators Dan Inouye and Dan Akaka, along with Ted Kennedy were the driving forces for many of the provisions from 1990 to 2010 that sought justice for Filipino veterans. Rob Simmons (R-CT) pushed for the 2003 extension of VA benefits to Filipino vets. Jackie Speier (D-Bay Area) continues to introduce the Filipino Veterans Fairness Act which would extend that to more veterans every session but never advances. The Filipino Veterans Family Reunification bill once had a chance but now also stalls every session. Obama created a program in '16 to allow the family members to stay here while awaiting green card status but Trump ended the program last year.
This reminds me of stories over the last years(?) of afghan/iraqi translators that worked for the US under the promise of citizenship that got massively delayed at least (with immense risk to their lifes).
In general, the final granting of citizienship in this story seems mostly symbolic, similar to the exoneration of Alan Turing, just that at least some of the ill treated are still alive. It's good it happened and it should be encouraged to make amends for past wrongdoings. But it needs to be accompanied with a change in attitude. Otherwise, it's a hollow gesture, like a child saying sorry after hitting someone, because it learned there won't be consequences like that.
I think that's where peoples onlook on this differ. Is it a symbol of a nation going forward, internalizing the values it claims to build upon - or a mostly meaningless gesture in a system that hasn't really changed and would do it all over again.
Personally (as an outsider perspectice), I feel the US is changing, but the forces are pulling in many directions and it's slow. The current US seems to pay lip service only to human rights but embraces it for propaganda, I hope it works someday and the citiziens will hold its own country accountable to that.
Yes, This American Life did a great story on this.
"We’ve fought two wars since 9/11. We got help from tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans—some were targeted or killed because they helped us. We owe these people. We’ve passed laws that say so. So why has it been so hard for us to get many of them to safety?"
I love the ideals that this nation was founded upon, but I hate that we've never lived up to those ideals.
I love that we've moved over time to make this a more perfect union—to move ever closer to those ideals; but I hate how slow this movement has been, and how long it has taken.
I would fight and die for this country if I needed to defend it, but I also want to spend most of my life fighting this nation to make it better.
Strong criticism of something doesn't mean that it's hated—it might mean that it's loved, but very very imperfect. The best way to celebrate the 4th of July—to me—is to reflect on the many ways that this union could be more perfect, and to work on moving us in that direction.
That isn't hatred for this country. That's a #hashtag.
If you look below the surface the sentiments of many of them seem to be similar to this excerpt from Frederick Douglass:
"Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too, great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory."
22% of Americans use twitter. Most tweets are from 10% of those people. There are many people who yell and scream so loudly on-line that people believe their numbers to be much greater than they are. It frustrates me when someone takes action because "people on twitter are mad". Decisions are being made based on who has the most active thumbs.
Sounds like the ceremony would have been roughly a year after the first gulf war in 1991. Which also included a fair number of non-citizen US combatants. I met a lot of them during my 8 year service.
It's not clear to me what advantage that path offers, but I can say there are a lot of people that try it, specifically because they think it's an accelerated path to citizenship.
> The US kept its promise to Europeans, even those not then considered white
No Europeans were ever not considered white under US law. Blacks, Native Americans and Asians have all been othered racially under US law. All Europeans have always been considered white.
That's very interesting to me. Do you think the statistics would show that? That whitish, for example, Eastern European recruits, would have had better luck than more brown folks?
Readit News
As an American I feel we are bound not by our failures of past morality, but are need to fix the. I wish everyone understood this.
Makes me sad and I hope this can change.
Is the US perfect? Of course not! But everything in the US is worth hating? You gotta be out of your mind. Is the history of the US perfect? Of course not! That's why it's history! Human learn. Human improve. Human societies evolve from centuries of violence, prejudice, or pure cruelty. If we cancel them, we won't have a history.
In the meantime, the poorest 20% of the US population is probably better than 80% of the population in the world, and this is not great? The protestors can afford protesting full time for weeks, and this is not great? We have NBA who have more than 70% of black athletes. We idolize them. They make millions of a year. And this is not great? A long list of Hollywood stars are black and we love them and LinkedIn is full of Will Smith's inspirational interview, and this is not great? We have a black president in a white-majority country, and this is not great? We have black mayors, council members, senators, congressman and congress woman, and this is not great?
If we look at the US history, we have Charles Drew, we have Rebecca Lee Crumpler, we have Daniel Hale Williams, we have Marie M. Daly, we have Alice Augusta Ball, we have Katherine Johnson, we ave Dorothy Vaughaun, we have Christine Darden. The list can go on. Are they not great?
And if we follow the logic of cancel culture, we should cancel Rome, cancel Greece, cancel renaissance, cancel all religions, cancel Europe, cancel China, cancel India, cancel Africa. They all had their share of slavery, for centuries. They all had their share of atrocity, again for centuries. Then what's left? What's the point? And should we cancel our childhood? Should we cancel ourselves? Most of us, after all, did something stupid or horrible when we were young. Should our parents cancel us?
Some people are just sick.
After all, America was founded on rebellion against the status quo (what day is it today again?), and I hope that doesn't change.
James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”, or his “No Name in the Street” layout both how the country was brought to the reckoning of the Civil Rights movement and then completely capitulated to white supremacy. Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the 4th of July” [1] still rings true to so many of us. Read David Truer’s “ The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present” on the meticulousness explicated horror of how this country has and continues to destroy and devalue Indigenous life.
The people protesting Friday in the Black Hills or in the front lines of the Black Lives Matter actions are calling upon us all to view it as it is, and dare to imagine what it could be. I am sad that we don’t embrace the movement to bring about real democracy.
[1] https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/nations-story-what-slave-fou...
It's easy to feel self-righteous when your opposition "hates".
I guarantee you someone out there thinks that I hate America, just because they extrapolate a whole set of beliefs from one thing I've said.
There are people out there (probably on your Nextdoor, because they're certainly on mine!), angry about BLM protests. Angry about the chaos. Angry about statues. Angry about violence. Angry about looting. People saying "if these protestors get in my way, I'mma run them over in my truck." People saying "if you want help defending your business, just say the word and me and my bros will come back you up". People saying "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." People like our president. Advocating extrajudicial execution of American citizens. Do they hate America? Why or why not?
Not all of them do. I was born in the US and I love my country.
Many Americans don't want to seem naive about how good they have it, so they overcompensate by disliking the country instead.
It doesn't help that being successful has made life incredibly easy for a significant fraction of people, who find fulfillment in social justice rather than family and work, because they aren't as necessary anymore. Social justice as a way of living tends to correlate with self hatred, which extends to the country.
There are other factors of course, but these ones are large.
My entire family (including me) and extended family immigrated here within the last 10-30 years, yet we all love living here, and have the same sentiment around people who have been born here. They were given such a great opportunity (that we all had to work for), yet most of them throw it away and have little love for the country and what it offers.
I even have family and friends on H1B/student visas who despite all thesese issues, are supporting a lot of these right-wing issues after these protests, which was a bit surprising (considering the ban on the visas)
Dead Comment
Does criticism equal hatred in your mind?
We traced the photo back to the conservative website the Daily Wire, where “The Michael Knowles Show”...
- https://www.factcheck.org/2020/06/statue-in-lincoln-memorial...
...but our need to fix them.
We don't have a problem of being far-left. We have a problem of imbalanced influence.
I've found that taking a long-ish break (2-3 weeks) from reading the news and social media can be extremely eye opening.
People cannot "transcend" past wrongs, so don't do them.
The ones correcting historical wrongs, and undoing mess ups of previous generations don't do that for the "good" memory of people who did them.
Semantics? I don't care what word you use, but you can absolutely always do better and the beautiful thing about America's founding is that in every respect, it is aspirational and we have aspired to do better. And we have. And we can do better still.
There was no reason for any of this. America at the turn of the century had no interests in the western Pacific Ocean. American intelligentsia agreed with Mark Twain that the barbarity shamed all of us. Sure, some American sugar companies made some money, and the particular Filipinos favored by American imperialists made some money. I feel an awful precedent was set. Previously our worst barbarities had been limited to the South and the Frontier. At a stroke, they were unleashed on the World. (Seen any news stories about Libya recently?) The event described in TFA seems a small consolation.
Now that's an idea. People aren't born American citizens but as probationary citizens, and they only become full citizens after fulfilling a series of trials. Imagine what kind of society would emerge from the other end.
Frankly, more and more people are starting to wake up to the fact that it's a bullshit test. Partly because immigration really doesn't have to be all that, and partly because of the global...decline of the United States' image since the turn of the century.
When I was a kid moving to the US was the goal, now only a handful of people I know have it at the top of their relocation list (and some have lost interest in even visiting). Canada and the EU are much more popular destinations for people looking to move to a western country.
Creating a society of citizens around who passes an arbitrary test of "are you really American" is as clear-cut of a definition of fascism as you can get.
> I've re-posted this many times, because it's fundamental to what it means to me to be an American.
I was thinking I was in for something uplifting. Instead I got:
> In 1946, Congress reneged on FDR's promise. Filipino solders who fought for us and their families were not given their promised citizenship, let alone benefits. ... They waited 44 years, until after most of them were dead.
This story is horrible. We betrayed our WWII allies, betrayed people who were rightfully American citizens, in all likelihood just because they were the wrong race. Everyone in this thread is acting like this story is inspiring. I feel like everyone has gone crazy that they think this is supposed to make me feel patriotic. This is an example of America at its ugliest and most prejudiced.
They were treated arbitrarily by the system for decades, and dealt with it as they could. They are happy that it's over and that they are being recognized for how they worked.
The article saying these people are "proud of the nation" despite it is the weirdest take. You build a life somewhere, you enjoy your community, of course you want the stability offered by getting citizenship!
Arbitrary immigration rules and services make you feel miserable about the administration. It's just that many people in these scenarios are able to make the difference between the bureaucracies, the communities, the people themselves, and everything in between. So they're happy about getting recognized, and happy they won't be torn away from the communities. This doesn't transfer to some sort of 'love for the country' full-throated admiration that that phrase usually implies
(This is just my personal read based on how other people talk about going through US immigration, about general things said about mindsets of people in this kind of limbo, and my personal experiences with immigration systems. I am not a mindreader, but popehat isn't either)
The government finally made the step forward--apallingly late--but it's still a step forward. Let's make sure we keep taking those steps.
And in fact, I can guarantee you that you hold opinions today that will be looked up with disgust by people in 100 years.
Certainly not the veterans waiting for citizenship?
They are all America too.
I think it's very relevant to today's events, where people wants to "cancel" a person, just because of one or two things they did wrong (which may have just been the norm in their days). This is a slightly disturbing trends, as we can supposedly only use perfectionists and saints as role models (are there any?), instead of humans who are naturally flawed.
I am proud of America, the country that produced a great democracy, defeated Nazi Germany - which raised hell on earth and held concentration camps, sent people to the moon, heralded in 70 years of relative peace, spread democracies around the world, launched reusable rockets that landed back safely, and is in the process of confronting China - another country that raised hell on earth and held concentration camps - after realizing its fault.
Correction: helped defeating Nazi Germany. Compare the number of American soldiers who fought in WW2 to the number of Soviet soldiers.
On the way home I went to the Betabrand factory (which was on Cesar Chavez), told them that I had just gotten naturalized and that I wanted to buy some of their Stars and Stripes pants. They thought it was so cute that they created a special discount code for people who have just become citizens.
Another fun thing was walking through the mission, which has a lot of immigrants, people would see the envelope I was holding and yell "congratulations" or even high-five me.
That night my friends took me to a baseball game. It was overall a lovely induction.
Remember: citizenship is as real as Oz or Wonderland.
These people were exploited which is terrible. That the nation that exploited them was still more desirable to them than their former home is also terrible. That all they got in return for being exploited was what they were initially promised but decades later is terrible
Everything presented here is terrible
That it happened is terrible. Ignoring the good that was done so that we can wallow in the bad is also terrible.
More than one thing can be true.
Hawaii Senators Dan Inouye and Dan Akaka, along with Ted Kennedy were the driving forces for many of the provisions from 1990 to 2010 that sought justice for Filipino veterans. Rob Simmons (R-CT) pushed for the 2003 extension of VA benefits to Filipino vets. Jackie Speier (D-Bay Area) continues to introduce the Filipino Veterans Fairness Act which would extend that to more veterans every session but never advances. The Filipino Veterans Family Reunification bill once had a chance but now also stalls every session. Obama created a program in '16 to allow the family members to stay here while awaiting green card status but Trump ended the program last year.
In general, the final granting of citizienship in this story seems mostly symbolic, similar to the exoneration of Alan Turing, just that at least some of the ill treated are still alive. It's good it happened and it should be encouraged to make amends for past wrongdoings. But it needs to be accompanied with a change in attitude. Otherwise, it's a hollow gesture, like a child saying sorry after hitting someone, because it learned there won't be consequences like that.
I think that's where peoples onlook on this differ. Is it a symbol of a nation going forward, internalizing the values it claims to build upon - or a mostly meaningless gesture in a system that hasn't really changed and would do it all over again.
Personally (as an outsider perspectice), I feel the US is changing, but the forces are pulling in many directions and it's slow. The current US seems to pay lip service only to human rights but embraces it for propaganda, I hope it works someday and the citiziens will hold its own country accountable to that.
"We’ve fought two wars since 9/11. We got help from tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans—some were targeted or killed because they helped us. We owe these people. We’ve passed laws that say so. So why has it been so hard for us to get many of them to safety?"
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/607/didnt-we-solve-this-one
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23FvckTheForth&src=trend_click
Yet I still love it more than not. That seems to make me an "other" to so many of these people.
I love the ideals that this nation was founded upon, but I hate that we've never lived up to those ideals.
I love that we've moved over time to make this a more perfect union—to move ever closer to those ideals; but I hate how slow this movement has been, and how long it has taken.
I would fight and die for this country if I needed to defend it, but I also want to spend most of my life fighting this nation to make it better.
Strong criticism of something doesn't mean that it's hated—it might mean that it's loved, but very very imperfect. The best way to celebrate the 4th of July—to me—is to reflect on the many ways that this union could be more perfect, and to work on moving us in that direction.
If you look below the surface the sentiments of many of them seem to be similar to this excerpt from Frederick Douglass:
"Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too, great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory."
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927t.html
He then goes on to say what's wrong with the fourth. I won't spoil it. It's worth reading and re-reading.
Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-tw...
It's not clear to me what advantage that path offers, but I can say there are a lot of people that try it, specifically because they think it's an accelerated path to citizenship.
The US kept its promise to Europeans, even those not then considered white—but broke its promise to Filipinos. We have a lot of growing to do.
No Europeans were ever not considered white under US law. Blacks, Native Americans and Asians have all been othered racially under US law. All Europeans have always been considered white.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_th...