Not As One, But As All United

Being an American is not about where you come from, being an American is knowing where you came from, realizing that we are all unique, and not being afraid to solve our country's problems together as one united nation. As Joe Maddon, the Chicago Cubs baseball manager says, “everyone is an immigrant.” This is the one thing all Americans have in common.

Even if it was thousands of years ago there was a time where the land we now call America was not inhabited by humans. We all came from somewhere. People end up in America because they are looking for bigger and better things. America is the land of the free after all, and freedom means possibilities. The American dream was created based on all of the possibilities, but as David M. Kennedy, a history professor at Stanford University said, “The American dream is a lot of luck.”

Even if everyone was created equal not everyone would have the same experience of the American dream. Our differences may affect the perfect dream of success more than we realize. Some may be handed an education that others will dream of for the rest of their lives. As Condoleezza Rice, the 66th U.S. Secretary of State said, “Being educated can change the system.”

People who come from an educated background have more opportunities than those who do not. Our country’s leaders are educated, but they are not always as informed about the effects of major issues on many of our country's citizens who are not as educated. As Terrence Davenport a SAMA regional manager said, “America is about the people who come behind us.” If we are not able to solve these problems of education and unity between citizens of the U.S., then it will be up to the generations that we did not prepare to solve the problems we did not fix. We will never be a united nation unless someone is willing to try.

Countries, like arguments, have two sides. In recent years the divides between political parties has become greater, but as Joan Blades and Mark Meckler have learned, everyone has more in common than we thought. People who thought that they had completely different political views came together and realized that they are much more similar than they thought. The found that they agreed on many issues. As David M. Kennedy, a history professor at Stanford University noticed, “We have become more alone in the past years...We have lost faith in our institutions.” Without these institutions such as boy scouts, girl scouts and other events in the community that brought our country together, we have become less united. These institutions held together our nation in to one unified country where people talk and can solve problems together.

We have become afraid to talk about our differences, with this we have also lost our unity and our ability to solve problems as one nation that can bring everyone together and ensure success as a whole.

As David M. Kennedy also said, “This country is too fluid to only see the same.” We are American. Acknowledging that we were all immigrants once and that we will be different is as much a part of being American as being united. If we want to be successful though, we must use our differences to solve problems together as a nation. This is what makes us American and why America exists.