I Am American

   The Independence Day holiday was celebrated  yesterday morning by the Small Town Toastmasters. The Table Topics Mistress provided some decorations to set the mood and also several red,white and blue vests for people to wear. Instead of our usual Pledge of Allegiance (yes we do open our meetings with that and have for as long as I've been a member) the TTM turned on a toy bear that sang "God Bless America".
  When the lone speaker had finished her presentation, the TTM took charge. She posed one question. You are entertaining a group of people from a foreign country and it is Independence Day. What will you do?
  There were many answers, most of them naming places that would be visited and food that would be eaten. There were descriptions of parades, pig races, rodeos and other festivities. All the answers were really good.
  My friend, Dana, was called on to answer the question. She decided to take a different track. She talked about the answer to the question, "What are you?" When asked that question, most of us will answer with our family's country of origin. Dana said the correct answer to that question should be simply "American".
   I agree with her although I have to admit I am one of the bigger offenders when it comes to that question. If you ask me what I am I will tell you that I am half Italian and half German. I am only the third generation of my family on both sides to be born in this country. All four of my grandparents were bilingual in their youth. My Dad's parents had spoke English with a German accent until the day they died. I was raised partly by my mother's family and picked up some parts of Italian culture.
  That's not why my great-grandparents came here though. They didn't come here so that they could recreate what they left. They came here because there was opportunity here that could not be found in either Germany or Italy. They insisted that my grandparents learn English. Some of them even changed their original names to more English sounding ones.
  I head heard a story about my great-grandfather. He had just come from Italy less than a week before. A group of young people were making fun of him and calling him names. They threw oranges at him. He wasn't upset. He was grateful. He had come to a country so rich that people could afford to throw food.
  The United States is still seen as a land of opportunity even today. There are people put their lives in peril to come here.
  The intern that I have been working with the past three weeks is an international student. I asked him the same question I ask all the international students. Do you plan to stay here in the United States or will you returning to your native country to practice? He said he wanted to stay in the United States and was in fact studying for the citizenship test. Only one of my foreign born interns have said that they plan to return. The rest are hoping to stay here.
  I was impressed by the response of my recent intern. He's from an African country and has lived here the past few years. I'm certain he has seen some the news coverage of police shootings unarmed African American men. He can't possibly missed the shooting of nine people in an African American church in Charleston. He has to have caught a little of the coverage over the recent Supreme Court decision about gay marriage. He still wants to be a citizen. He feels that he, his wife and their two children will have a better life here.
  He's right. This is a great country. We need to remember this. Except for the those who are native American we all came here from somewhere else. Many of our ancestors came here because they wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Dana mentioned in her Table Topic that we shouldn't consider our past origins quite so much. She's right.
  We need to stop thinking about all the things that divide us as a country and remember all the things that hold us together. We need to stop obsessing over our differences and start thinking about what we have in common. We need to stop bickering and start getting to work.
  This is a great country. We have achieved great things when we work together. Let's put aside the past and start working on a good future.
   This is a great country. The next time I'm asked what I am I'm going to say "American". I'm a  proud citizen of the United States of America, the state of Minnesota and the City of St. Paul.