July 4: What it Means to be an American

I am an American.
I was there at the beaches of Normandy.
I was there when electricity and the airplane were invented.
I was there for the invention of the car.
I was there when the telephone and telegraph were born.
I was there when the moon was landed upon.
I was there when polio was conquered.
I am an American.

I was there when independence was declared from our colonial ruler England, and liberty from oppressors was declared our inalienable right as human beings.
I was there when Abraham Lincoln declared equality for all people.
I was there when slavery was declared illegal in all of our states; and I was also there when we fought a war to stay united.
I was there when we liberated those still alive in Hitler’s concentration camps.
I am an American.

I was there when France gave us the Statue of Liberty.
I was there when Emma Lazarus wrote the words in the statue’s base, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free… declaring the United States to be the world’s first multicultural nation and the land of immigrants.
I was there when women were given the right to vote.
I was there when gays and blacks and women were declared to be equal.
I am an American.

I was there when Franklin Roosevelt saved democracy.
I was there when the powerful, like the railroad and oil companies, were diminished in order to strengthen our democracy.
I was there for the Marshall Plan when we helped the German and Japanese people to rebuild their nation in our image after we defeated them in war.
I was there through small acts and large, when people’s dignity and decency were supported by fellow Americans.
I was there when the personal and government acts that made our nation stronger occurred.
I was there when William Falkner, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, the New York Times and CNN achieved worldwide importance.
I was there when television satellites, the computer, the Internet, social and digital media were invented.
I am an American.

I was there when Francis Scott Key declared that we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Because I am an American, I am brave, I am not afraid:
I am not afraid of new immigrants following my own ancestral ones.
I am not afraid of foreign competition.
I am not afraid of globalization and world outside.
I am brave enough to educate myself in whatever fields are necessary for us, and for myself, to prosper.
I am not afraid to study.
I am not afraid to discipline myself.
I am not afraid to sacrifice for others.
I am not afraid to work hard.
I am not afraid to dream.
I am not afraid to live for principles and ideals.
I am not afraid to love.
I am not afraid to search for who I am, to find myself and be that person.
I am not afraid to be my individual self.
I am an American.
I am very proud of the Americans who came before me and helped form me. I am very eager to play my part to make future generations of Americans better off than I- just as I plan to make my own children’s lives better than my own.
I am an American.
We are all Americans.