The Great American Melting Pot

As the 4th of July weekend comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on the ideals that this country was founded upon, and wondering what our Founding Fathers might think now, 235 years later.

This country has been called the Great American Melting Pot (and come on, admit it, those of us from the Schoolhouse Rock generation are all singing along right now, right?  Uh-huh, I thought so).  Do you know why it’s called that?  The idea of the melting pot is a place where many cultures can come together and assimilate into one blended community.  A place where various races, nationalities, religions, genders, and abilities are all tolerated and respected by one another. 

Or at least that was the idea.

Like many of you, I read Bruce Springsteen’s eulogy for Clarence Clemons this week.  In addition to mourning the passing of an amazing musician and friend, he brought up the beauty of a skinny white boy becoming fast friends with The Big Man who was as dark as night, the two leaning on each other and defying the notion that people of different races can be like brothers.

During this year’s U.S. Open, NBC broadcast children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, cutting the lines “One nation under God,” and started a religious controversy.  Last December, my heart just about broke when I saw the competing billboards at the Lincoln Tunnel, where those who don’t believe in God chose to exercise their freedom of speech in a way that belittled believers during one of the holiest times of the Christian year.  It seems it isn’t enough to include various viewpoints, but that the mere mention of God offends these days.  Isn’t freedom of religion one of the main reasons our forefathers wanted to come to this country?

I hear conservative friends sigh and gay friends cheer over the recent news of New York State legalizing same-sex marriages.  I listen to stay-at-home moms lament their inability to land the types of jobs they are qualified for, because they can’t put in a full 60 hours a week or because flexible schedules are frowned upon.  I worry about the many autistic children that are aging out of the system that provides them the therapies they need to function, and the many stories about adult group homes with abusive workers that have recently come to light.  And I am still in shock over the 55+ community with a no-strollers rule who recently made a teenage grandchild in a wheelchair feel so unwelcome that the entire family picked up and left the community center.

Is there hope for our country amidst all of these points of view?  Sometimes I wonder.  I really wonder.

Then this weekend I had the opportunity to visit relatives in a more urban and more ethnically-diverse part of the state.  I took my children to a crowded playground where we were one of only two families of white European descent.  I looked around and saw boys and girls who were black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, Indian, Orthodox Jewish, and even one child with Down’s Syndrome.  Truly an amalgam of the various cultures that lived in that area.  I saw a Great American Melting Pot.

Yet the children themselves saw… other children.  Simply other children.  They played without regard to race, nationality, religion, gender, or ability.  Instead, they formed friendships based on choice of playground equipment, the spinners over here and the sliders over there and the climbers in that corner.  They took turns fairly well, and helped each other up when they fell.  And they could all agree on the important things.  You know, like jumping up and down when the local ice cream truck pulled up.  Maybe there is hope yet.

And as we left, I thought to myself… God bless America.

Until next time… Colleen