Proud to Be an American

It’s been about two weeks and so much has happened in this great nation of ours. I am so proud to be an American right now. Though I wish I could have been celebrating with my friends in Grant Park or on the Diag in Ann Arbor, being abroad has given me even more pride in our great country. In the past two months I have been completely uprooted from my comfortable American society and dropped smack dab in the middle of a much different America. A Central America, where though they share our name, many of their values are a bit behind the times. Often Americans, especially liberal American college students, remark on the superficiality of the United States, the need to win win win, the obsession with money, and that we have no idea how much better off we are than our third world neighbors. I agree that the States can be prone to this way-over-the-top -capitalistic, time-is-money mentality, forgetting sometimes about the other, important things in life. At the same time, however, I believe that the United States is an amazing nation of which I did not fully appreciate until being away from it.

A black president was elected, a woman ran for vice president, a record amount of people voted, the political map was redrawn, the FACT that gay marriage is even an issue, the idea that our vote DOES make a difference, and that we have the opportunity to do so, this is America and there are very few other places that can claim this progressiveness. I watched Barack Obama’s speech on youtube this morning and had chills the entire time, not to mention a few tears. He was not a likely candidate, but with the work of thousands of supporters, he BECAME not just a likely candidate, but a likely president. Yes, this progress took a long time, but look how far we have come! My grandparent’s lifetime…when they were twenty years old even, do you think they thought that they would live to see this day? My parents even! I think it is incredible.

There are those out there who will say that this shouldn’t be incredible. When I was interviewing the first female, black University of Michigan Executive Vice President for a work project I did last year, I asked her how she felt about being the first in this role. She said it made her sad. It should not be an amazing feet to be in this position, it should have already happened. She stated, “there is so much more to be done.” I’m not going to say I understand her pain, because I could never understand. However, always being a looking-on-the-bright-side kind of person, I think we need to value this moment in history and these changing times for what they are. Perhaps this should have happened sooner, and in a perfect world, it may have. But our world is not perfect, and I think we can stop a moment, and be proud of what we HAVE achieved. Goodness knows the fight is not over. Gay marriage was voted against in California, not to mention isn’t even being considered in the rest of the states. While this, for a lack of a better word, pisses me off, I am going to choose to be happy for the fact that we have indeed seen some change today, and I have no doubt that more will soon come.

I feel truly blessed to call the United States my home and while many Hondurans have a false stereotype about Americans- that we are all rich and don’t really care about the rest of the world, I now know, this is not true. The people have spoken, and as John McCain said in his concession speech, “they have spoken clearly.” America is ready for a new way of thinking and I am so thrilled that we have elected a true leader to bring on this change.