Thousands of people, including some in Charlotte, became new Americans on July Fourth. WFAE’s Tommy Tomlinson, in his "On My Mind" commentary, wonders if our country is about to break its promise to all those newcomers.
There’s a great American tradition that happens on July Fourth every year, and it has nothing to do with fireworks.
All across the country, cities and towns hold naturalization ceremonies to welcome new U.S. citizens.
In Charlotte, 17 people became new citizens over at the Museum of History. They came from Kenya and Peru, Brazil and Belize. Their families filled the room, waving little American flags, and a children’s choir sang the national anthem.
It was a reminder of just how much so many other people from so many other places want to be a part of our country — how they understand its greatness better than we do ourselves.
I have been wondering, like some of you, if we are headed for some sort of dark inflection point in American history. Currently, our two choices to lead the country are a man who has been a good president, but might no longer be physically or mentally up for the job, and a man who was a terrible president, and is trying to make himself king.
It feels like, as a country, we are creeping across one of those rope bridges strung over a bottomless gorge, and it is not clear at all that we will make it to the other side.
But for just a moment, I want us to consider that this is what it feels like from the inside. It doesn’t account for all those people from all over the world who still desperately want to be here.
They come streaming over our borders, documented and undocumented, because they can find work here. Because they can get an education here. Because they feel safer here. Because, more than anywhere else, they can be free here.
There are a lot of Americans who are uncomfortable with all these new arrivals, and a lot of conservative politicians who campaign on shutting the door and pulling up the drawbridge. But consider this: Would you rather have a country that people long to be a part of, or a country they don’t?
You hear a lot of talk about American exceptionalism. But Americans are not exceptional. As human beings, we are no better than Belgians or Nigerians or Mongolians. What’s exceptional is the political system we started putting in place 248 years ago. It’s flawed in many ways, and it has never protected all Americans the same. But it’s still the thing that sets us apart, the reason for all those new citizens in all those rooms on July Fourth. We are the dream of people suffering in countries led by dictators and despots. They want to be where we are because they want to be what we are.
And here we are, threatening to shatter our precious gift.
Maybe, every few years, we should have to re-naturalize ourselves. Fill out the forms. Go through the interviews. Take the oath of allegiance.
Yes, there’s an official oath of allegiance. Chances are you’ve never read it. One of the lines in it goes like this:
I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic …
We’ve spent most of our history worrying about our foreign enemies. But these days it’s the domestic ones who threaten us the most.
Tommy Tomlinson’s On My Mind column runs Mondays on WFAE and WFAE.org. It represents his opinion, not the opinion of WFAE. You can respond to this column in the comments section at wfae.org. You can also email Tommy at [email protected]
