Last night, my husband and I joined our neighbouring towns’ July 4th fireworks celebration. It was a wonderfully comforting and familiar sight of families and friends getting together, setting up picnic tables and blankets and listening to a country band waiting for the fireworks. Americana at its best! My first thought was that how sweet and peaceful it was, and wouldn’t it be nice if the whole planet could experience such peace, safety and prosperity? Did it have to be that only continuous war globally allowed such peace locally? My second thought was that 40 years later in the same town, brown folks were just a teeny tiny minority at the event, so what are the Trump supporters freaking out about?
As I reflected on what America means to me, I realized that I had been in love with the idea of America even before I came here with my family at age 15- my father was representing the government of Pakistan at the United Nations. Living in Turkey in the 60’s I had many friends whose parents were with the US Air Force at the various bases near Ankara and beyond. I learned about M&M’s, chewing gum, Barbie Dolls, jeans, pop music, and so many other cultural exports of America at that time. But beyond the material things, I also envisioned it to be a free society, where equality, freedom and opportunity prevailed. And I was totally right, as only 11 years later I was a US citizen, married, working on Wall Street with a house in the suburbs,a growing family, a rich social life and free to be an activist for the newly forming American Muslim identity. The only thing that distinguished us from our neighbors was our skin of course, and the amount of global travel we engaged in, whether it was Pakistan or other vacation destinations in Europe, Middle East and South America. Corporate America was an amazing place to grow and develop professionally and support your family. I remember speaking at conferences in Europe and Middle East representing famous American corporations and feeling so, so proud!
I still think that individual freedom, innovation, technical ingenuity are the hallmarks of America and as a society we should be very proud. We should welcome the challenges and setbacks we are experiencing now as a wake-up call to expand the American dream so that it is whole, fair and extends to the globe and especially to America’s own marginalized minorities, whether native or enslaved. I truly dream of collective compassion and sacred activism as the expansion of the American dream that I fell in love with so many years ago.
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