Fireworks and Immigration
Published in the Boulder Daily Camera, July 16, 2017
Waking up to a beautiful midsummer day on July 4th always gets my blood flowing, but, this year, Independence Day was something special.
It started when I woke up to the news that my new granddaughter, Makena, was waiting to meet me at Boulder Community Hospital. Born on the Fourth of July, just like her cousin River who had been born 10 years earlier. If you want to feel a rush of unbridled patriotism, have two grandkids who share the fireworks with America every year on their birthdays.
To fan the flames of this patriotic fervor, birthday-boy River and I headed off to the Rockies game for an evening of baseball. The Rockies stunk up the joint, but the time with River was gold, and there were, of course, the fireworks after the game to look forward to.
All of this would have been plenty for a memorable July 4th, but it turned out that the path to my enlightenment was just warming up.
During the game, River and I sat in front of a row of guys who spoke animatedly in non-stop Spanish. I like the sound of Spanish, and it was fun to listen to them chatter with the occasional "Dodgers" and "Diamondbacks" showing up in their conversation. They were baseball fans, and I didn't care what language they spoke. We were all having fun, except for the Rockies who could not catch a break.
After the baseball game ended and the fans in the cheap seats got out of the way, the fireworks lit up the sky, and they came with a soundtrack of patriotic songs that we all know and love.
It was during Lee Greenwood's classic "God Bless the USA" that the guys sitting behind us finally found their English. They all stood up and sang that song, and they sang it louder and prouder than anyone around us.
Now, I grant you that I was probably in the throes of some kind of hormonal rapture from all that patriotic bearing of grandchildren and baseball that had dominated my day, but hearing those Spanish-speaking guys belt out that song as the fireworks were booming startled me. I felt my already-inflamed patriotic heart grow a few sizes right then and there.
I don't know if these guys were immigrants or not. In this state, they could as easily have been fifth-generation Coloradans. Either way, their singing made me once again appreciate that much of America's greatness flows directly from the constant stream of immigrants into our society. Darwin long ago made the case that biodiversity makes for more vibrant and enduring forms of life, and our nation is living proof of that theory on a societal scale. With our immigrants come new ideas, lifestyles and perspectives that have made American culture the envy of the world. It was never just our land and laws that drew people here, it was the richness of American life that came from the constant stream of fresh faces showing up on our shores.
Their singing also reminded me of something that's all-too-easy for those of us born and raised here to forget —America is a place that, for all our flaws, much of the world would love to live in. It's not easy to move to a strange land, learn a new language and build a new life, yet that's what people everywhere would gladly do if given the opportunity. We can't take them all in, but we sure can't blame them for wanting to come.
Most of all, it made me appreciate the magic of immigrant assimilation into American culture. We ask two things of our immigrants. First, we ask them to bring all of their cultural baggage with them so the rest of us can sort through it and adopt what we like. We sell more salsa than ketchup these days, and we listen to Buddhist teachings to become better Christians, all thanks to our immigrants. But, at the same time, we ask our immigrants to understand that American citizenship is more than a license to live here —they must assimilate into our culture. Sometimes, that demand takes the appearance of intolerance to their foreign ways, but this cultural "give and take" dance works better in America than any place else in the world.
These are simple and obvious American truths that I was reminded of that beautiful Fourth of July evening. Seems to me that the people in charge need to go to a baseball game so they can remember them, too.
Waking up to a beautiful midsummer day on July 4th always gets my blood flowing, but, this year, Independence Day was something special.
It started when I woke up to the news that my new granddaughter, Makena, was waiting to meet me at Boulder Community Hospital. Born on the Fourth of July, just like her cousin River who had been born 10 years earlier. If you want to feel a rush of unbridled patriotism, have two grandkids who share the fireworks with America every year on their birthdays.
To fan the flames of this patriotic fervor, birthday-boy River and I headed off to the Rockies game for an evening of baseball. The Rockies stunk up the joint, but the time with River was gold, and there were, of course, the fireworks after the game to look forward to.
All of this would have been plenty for a memorable July 4th, but it turned out that the path to my enlightenment was just warming up.
During the game, River and I sat in front of a row of guys who spoke animatedly in non-stop Spanish. I like the sound of Spanish, and it was fun to listen to them chatter with the occasional "Dodgers" and "Diamondbacks" showing up in their conversation. They were baseball fans, and I didn't care what language they spoke. We were all having fun, except for the Rockies who could not catch a break.
After the baseball game ended and the fans in the cheap seats got out of the way, the fireworks lit up the sky, and they came with a soundtrack of patriotic songs that we all know and love.
It was during Lee Greenwood's classic "God Bless the USA" that the guys sitting behind us finally found their English. They all stood up and sang that song, and they sang it louder and prouder than anyone around us.
Now, I grant you that I was probably in the throes of some kind of hormonal rapture from all that patriotic bearing of grandchildren and baseball that had dominated my day, but hearing those Spanish-speaking guys belt out that song as the fireworks were booming startled me. I felt my already-inflamed patriotic heart grow a few sizes right then and there.
I don't know if these guys were immigrants or not. In this state, they could as easily have been fifth-generation Coloradans. Either way, their singing made me once again appreciate that much of America's greatness flows directly from the constant stream of immigrants into our society. Darwin long ago made the case that biodiversity makes for more vibrant and enduring forms of life, and our nation is living proof of that theory on a societal scale. With our immigrants come new ideas, lifestyles and perspectives that have made American culture the envy of the world. It was never just our land and laws that drew people here, it was the richness of American life that came from the constant stream of fresh faces showing up on our shores.
Their singing also reminded me of something that's all-too-easy for those of us born and raised here to forget —America is a place that, for all our flaws, much of the world would love to live in. It's not easy to move to a strange land, learn a new language and build a new life, yet that's what people everywhere would gladly do if given the opportunity. We can't take them all in, but we sure can't blame them for wanting to come.
Most of all, it made me appreciate the magic of immigrant assimilation into American culture. We ask two things of our immigrants. First, we ask them to bring all of their cultural baggage with them so the rest of us can sort through it and adopt what we like. We sell more salsa than ketchup these days, and we listen to Buddhist teachings to become better Christians, all thanks to our immigrants. But, at the same time, we ask our immigrants to understand that American citizenship is more than a license to live here —they must assimilate into our culture. Sometimes, that demand takes the appearance of intolerance to their foreign ways, but this cultural "give and take" dance works better in America than any place else in the world.
These are simple and obvious American truths that I was reminded of that beautiful Fourth of July evening. Seems to me that the people in charge need to go to a baseball game so they can remember them, too.
