Here is No Why

Of Thee I Sing . . .

July 5, 2007 2:27 AM

y mother and her family grew up on a ranch in rural Mexico outside of a city called Arteaga in the state of Michoacán. They didn't have running water or electricity, and their house consisted of a few rooms and a dirt floor. After my grandfather died, my mother and her sister came to America to try to find jobs that would allow them to support themselves and the rest of their family.

My mother didn't speak English, had never been outside of her little town, and--I'm sure--was scared out of her mind. I've heard some of the stories about the things my mother and my aunt went through during their first years in this country. Those stories are one of the many reasons that I respect my mother and my aunt above anyone else. I've never been so poor that my dinner consisted of ketchup packets and saltines, and I have no idea what I would do if I were faced with that situation. I know exactly what I wouldn't do, though. I wouldn't succeed. Maybe I'd survive, but I wouldn't thrive. And that's exactly what my family's done: thrive.

Eventually, my mother, my aunt, and their youngest brother, my uncle, all came to this country. In the few short decades between their arrival and today, they have achieved things which, given their meager beginnings, would have seemed completely impossible to them forty years ago. My uncle has managed a very successful business for a long time. He's recently started a foundation that's going to award scholarships to deserving Latino students. My aunt worked at one job for over thirty years and recently retired. She can't live an extravagant life, but she's set, and she can still afford to go to the casino now and then. My mom owned a moderately successful small business for more than a decade. It didn't make us rich. Not even close. Things were rough when I was growing up. And I think they were probably worse than my mom ever let me realize. But things are ok now, I think.

I love my whole family, of course. But I hold that first generation in especially high regard--particularly my mom and my aunt. And particularly my mom. When she was twenty-five years old, she was worried about how she would pay for her next meal. My biggest concern right now is passing some bar exam. That state of affairs is not due to any intelligence or talent on my part--it's due entirely to my mom's hard work. Any measure of success that I might achieve in life is due almost completely to her. My mom has lead an almost entirely selfless life, and that means more to me than I've ever been able to tell her.

It's hard for me to talk about how I feel about this country without thinking about my family. No matter what else this country is, it will always be the country where my ancestors were able to raise themselves out of poverty and ensure their descendants a good future.

I'm writing about all of this today because it's the Fourth of July. My mother and aunt left their country looking for a better life. Going to America was the only practical choice--going south from Mexico was a wash, and they had no way to get to Canada. And I firmly believe that their success, and the success of future generations, is due to their nearly unbelievable ability to persevere, their seemingly limited intelligence, their uncanny ability to adapt, and their unwavering dedication to themselves and their family. But I still think it means something that my family's story is not unique. There are many people who can tell stories very similar to mine. And that's encouraging. Whatever else it may be, America is a place where you can build an entire empire out of nothing but hard work and intelligence. This really is a land of opportunity. I don't know if it's the land of opportunity, and I'm not saying we're the best country in the world. And I'm certainly not saying that we're always right or that we should give the rest of the world the middle finger.

It's easy to be cynical nowadays. And there's certainly many good reasons to be. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there is something to the United States of America that we shouldn't take for granted. We're not perfect by any means. But we're a good people. We want to be, anyway.

We've got a lot of work left to do, but that doesn't mean we haven't already done some.