I’ve been ranting about the relief bill and to anyone who’ll listen. Today when I raged at my mom about the indignity of waiting for crumbs, her response was less incandescent rage and more subdued sadness.
That wasn’t the first time I’ve expected righteous indignation and been met with sorrow, but it wasn’t until this time that I began to wonder if perhaps it’s more difficult for immigrants to process and embrace the feeling of being betrayed by their elected leaders.
When she was about 23, my mom wrote an op-ed about the 4th of July. In it she talked about the depth of her love for the U.S. — eternal appreciation for the way it had embraced her when she had nothing else.
Recounting it to me, she started to cry. “You’re so grateful, and then you grow up and realize the country you love is unjust and cruel and…really fucked.”
We native-born, I think, slip fairly easily into an incredulous anger. An entitled anger, really, but I don’t mean that pejoratively.
We believe ourselves entitled to a government that functions. To healthcare. To collective responsibility, compassion, and transparency. And we are entitled to those things.
So our anger doesn’t feel the need to ask nicely.
For her, anger is overshadowed by a grieving disillusionment that has lasted through her entire adult life.
Both the blind, star-spangled patriotism of “love it or leave it,” and the sneering dismissal of “burn it all down” are comfortable positions. Not that we’re comfortable in our daily lives, but we are secure in our place in the world.
We are not displaced. We have never been displaced.
I don’t know where I’m going with this. Maybe I’m just surprised that my intuition didn’t see that someone’s sorrow could be the same as my rage. Both of us are disappointed our nation — born to, adopted — isn’t living up to what we have been told.
Maybe it can. We owe it to people like my mom, who gave us their hearts and their loyalty, their labor and their love. People who were invited by decades of gleaming propaganda and a giant statue we got from the French.
Maybe we’re angry enough to make it happen.
Sharing.