I WAS JUST THINKING…What does it mean to be an American?

Are we taking citizenship for granted in a divided nation?

BY: Norma Adams-Wade

I have this frozen memory of covering a naturalization ceremony for immigrants seeking U. S. citizenship in my early years as a newspaper reporter.

I briefly wondered what the immigrants’ lives  had been like in other countries.

I could sense the anticipation of the potentially-new citizens who had studied diligently for their upcoming naturalization ceremony – where government officials would declare them now as U. S. citizens.

          Typically, a few weeks before the ceremony, the immigrant completes an interview and gets an appointment for the ceremony. There they surrender their Green Card, take the Oath of Allegiance (The Pledge), renounce any foreign allegiance, and pledge to support the U. S. Constitution and the nation’s  laws. They then usually get their naturalization certificate, a welcome package, and an American flag.

 The oath/pledge is the same that many elementary and middle school students recite routinely in their classrooms during morning announcements at the start of each school day, and often at the beginning of assemblies. Students stand, place their hand over their heart, and also sing The National Anthem —  that now carries its own controversy about mandatory or voluntary national loyalty and respect. All this is now voluntary, and I’m told that  some students stand and recite, some do not.

Prior to the 1940s, the pledge was mandatory. A 1943 lawsuit and U. S. Supreme Court ruling made it voluntary. Students may choose not to stand and recite  it. Yet, some schools require a note from parents allowing their child not to participate, usually for religious or political reasons.

Historians say Civil War Union Army Captain George Thatcher Balch wrote the original Pledge of Allegiance in 1885, 20 years after the Civil War had ended. Magazine executive Francis Bellamy revised the pledge seven years later in 1892 and convinced government officials to get school students to recite the pledge for a national holiday. Congress adopted the Pledge 50 years later in 1942 and adopted the official name — The Pledge of Allegiance — three years after that in 1945. The words “under God” were added in 1954. Various subsequent lawsuits to remove the two words have all failed.

Social media relates that a number of immigrant and Latinx students do stand and seem to indicate pride in being American citizens. Even with recent negative activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, polls among immigrants do not show diminished pride in being American but do show increased fear for their safety.

Concerning another national symbol, the inscription on Lady Liberty – the “Mother of Exiles” — in New York Harbor is certainly less meaningful today. It was meant to welcome immigrants to enter the symbolic “golden door” of opportunity and safety from brutal governments outside of America. And with the little-known broken chain on Lady Liberty’s ankle, many historians say the statue also symbolically represents freedom for formerly enslaved African descendants in America.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

                   Inscription on Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor

Interesting, too, concerning the Pledge of Allegiance is the use of the words “and to the Republic for which it stands.”

Educators generally define the Republic as a form of government in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, not by a king or queen. A Republic also is governed by a Constitution or body of laws designed to protect the people as opposed to a dictators’ vague Constitution that allows that leader repressive power over the people.

These distinctions are important to note during this time where rumors fly claiming that U. S. President Donald Trump seeks to be a king. Should that happen would we still be America – land of the free, home of the brave?

Much is changing under the Trump administration. One of his recent travesties that has prompted national debate was deploying the National Guard to take over the streets of Washington D. C., claiming out-of-control crime. My strong, heartfelt, personal opinion for years has been that the National Guard should be assigned to safeguard all the nation’s schools against mass shootings. But I digress.

The District of Columbia sued the Trump administration on September 4 this year objecting to the deployment. That action followed Trump’s National Guard deployment to Los Angeles on June 7 this year. It also follows Trump’s talks of deploying the Guard to Chicago and Baltimore in the future. Critics quickly note publicly that all those cities are Democratic strongholds and thus on Republican Trump’s alleged enemies list.

I was just thinking…do we take the reported freedoms of being born American for granted? Do we awake each morning saying, I am glad and fortunate to be an American?

The nation currently is sharply divided over that question. This with rampant news reports of arrests and deportations of alleged undocumented immigrants on jobs, streets, and in private homes – dragged off by masked alleged ICE agents who show no credentials to verify their authority.

          Is this American behavior?

          We might each seriously ask ourself in the privacy of our own heart: what does it mean to me to be an America? Does our ethnicity and economic status impact our answer? Should it impact our answer?

          Under current USA government behavior, the words of another classic government document become a blatant lie:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,

            that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator

with certain unalienable Rights,…….”

.                       — Preamble to the Declaration of Independence Unalienable — changed in modern time to “inalienable” — means these rights cannot be taken away. What are we Americans going to do about that?    

Dallasite Norma Adams-Wade is a Texas Metro News senior correspondent, The Dallas Morning News retired writer, and a National Association of Black Journalists founder.