Happy Fourth of July! I say that as opposed to Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans because although I am certain that today is July 4 I’m not sure if we weren’t supposed to celebrate our independence yesterday, thus insuring the federal employees their well deserved three day weekend, because what good is getting a holiday off if it is a scheduled day off anyway. And as everybody knows even though Congress decided to send King George our intent to be so on this day in 1776, we really didn’t become independent from the Crown until October 19, 1781.
So…Happy Something! Happy Saturday if nothing else. I don’t normally post on Saturdays, in fact I think it was more than 8 years ago that I last did this but these are not normal times. This is a particularly not normal American Independence Day weekend with so many Americans taking their freedom to task as opposed to taking it for granted which would make this a particularly normal American Independence Day weekend.
I can’t say with certainty so somebody please correct me if I misspeak but I feel certain that America is the only nation that qualifies its citizens. We claim we want to be equal. We protest for equality. We write letters and poorly articulated social mode posts demanding equality. And then we differentiate. We have African Americans, Asian Americans, Indigenous Americans, Mexican Americans. Other ethnic groups celebrate being German, Irish, or Polish American. Yet it’s only a small portion of Americans who ever lived anywhere other than America. I guess they would be American Americans. A friend of mine emigrated from Vietnam to Canada before immigrating to the U.S.. Does that make her Asian American or Canadian American? Was she an Asian Canadian before. Are there African Canadians or Scandinavian Canadians? What goes on in the rest of the world? As the son of Italian Americans here, if I relocate to my homeland in the mountains facing the Adriatic would I be an American Italian there?I have a hunch the labels are mostly assigned by those outside the ethnicities to track how well they (the assigners) do something in their mind “special” for one of the assigned. Not ever having been assigned (European American is not an option) I can’t say if they (the assigned) really care much. Maybe it’s more important to be treated respectfully than being called by the “proper” term and still treated like an object to be used for effect.
There have been a multitude of posts on social media declaring “This Fourth of July act like an American!” It’s not a horrible idea you know. For all its faults and flaws America, actually Americans do a credible job living up to the standards envisioned 250 years ago. (Yeah, yeah, it’s only been 244. Actually its only been 239 (1781, remember) but it took a few years even back then to get up to speed.) When nobody is watching we typically do the right things. We mostly honor our families, we support the local businesses, we get out to help our neighbors who might have trouble shopping or cleaning or are just lonely. And most of us mostly do that for most anybody without checking IDs or birth certificates. Acting like an American is pretty much like acting human, like the rest of the world. So I too will say, this Fourth of July act like an American! But might I humbly suggest we act that way the other days of the year too.
Happy First Saturday of July!
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