bedlamsbard | (no subject)

I want to say one more thing, I think. Moving onto anger from sadness, hey, a different step in the grieving process!

I’m not ashamed of being an American. I love this country, warts and all. Has America done some shitty, shitty things in its time? Hell yeah. One happened yesterday. Were some of the people involved in the founding of America terrible human beings? Yeah. Is America doing terrible, awful things right now? Yes.

But I love this country, and the dream it represents – the dream it represented in 1776, and 1789, and 1865, and 1920, and 1964 and every other year, even those years when awful, terrible things were happening. Even though awful, terrible things were happening in those years, even though compromises were made and things were still awful and people were suffering, but my gods, things happened, things that mattered and continue to matter. In a lot of ways, especially for immigrants and the children of immigrants, this country is as much dream as reality, and you know what? The dream matters.

I’m half-Japanese. My mother is a Japanese citizen, and for a long time, she told me that I couldn’t call myself Japanese-American – because I was and am an American, because I was born here, I grew up here, I live here, this is my country.

I have dual citizenship. If I wanted to stop being an American, I could. But this is my country and I love it and gods damn it, no one can take that from me, because until 1920 women couldn’t vote in this country, and in 1942 the U.S. government took Japanese-Americans from their homes and put them in camps, and until 1952 my Japanese-born American-raised cousins couldn’t become citizens, and this is my home, my country.

I voted. I fought with my vote and my voice and my very presence as a human being who lives in this country. I live here, I’m a citizen, and I am proud to be an American even if I’m pretty pissed off at other Americans right now. That’s pretty much the guiding principle of the American people, after all.