Happy Birthday Great Nation.
We have come a long way. We began as a nation made up of immigrants. People here found refuge, freedom and hope for a better future. We had dark moments. If one looks back it was not too far back that we had minorities disenfranchised. It wasn’t even a hundred years ago that we had Jim Crow laws.
Those who came seeking refuge sometimes came and established themselves and became like the ones they ran from.
However, this is a Great Nation. A nation that promises equality, freedom to believe, freedom to pursue happiness. We can worship freely and build a different and better life.
Hundreds still come with a dream, either by diversity lottery or ambition.
Each day, however, there are detention centers where immigrants are held and mistreated in this country. Racism and discrimination are still lurking around every corner. While people become tolerant of some things, intolerance arises about other things.
Some who are uneducated and isolated mentally, want to not be isolationists in our relationship with other countries, which results in a mess.
There are children working in agriculture jobs in our fields, and we help other governments exploit their own people by paying a low wage to obtain goods cheaply.
Though we are great, and I could not have the life I have if I would’ve been in any other place–we still have a long way to go to ensure that this nation that is still an immigrant nation, remains that way. We have a long way to go to ensure all have equality, freedom and value.
Thank you United States of America, for your gift of allowing me to follow my ambitions. The fact that I can write this piece and publish it for the world to see–that is freedom.
God bless the United States of America, from the sunny West coast where they carry surf boards into blue oceans to the grassy Midwest where children sit on porches drinking soda pop on hot nights after swimming in lakes to the bright and vibrant East coast where some of our most amazing minds reside and the ivy towers withstand the clock of time. May God forgive us for the atrocities we have done, and help us to move forward in a changed way.
I pray USA, that you begin to see others as the human beings of value that they are; that you begin to care over humanitarian crises in countries that can give you nothing in return.
I hope that the inscription on the Statue of Liberty remains true. Be a shelter for the tired, poor and huddled masses. Lift up your golden lamp, and let us feel the warmth of its glow. –Gabriela Yareliz
GABRIELA YARELIZ 