I’m … Proud to Be an American?

What is the American story?

A few weeks ago, I attended a workshop for female business owners. It is a wonderful group filled with kind, helpful women who run successful businesses.

One of the questions the facilitator asks during introductions, because we are from all over the world, is: “Tell us your name, where you feel you are from, and your biggest superpower.”

People often say things like, “I grew up in London, but I feel I am from China because my parents are Chinese,” or “I am from Russia, but I grew up in Poland, and now I finally feel French.” You get the idea. Such is life for third-culture kids, expats, and others living across borders.

Me? This time, I smiled and said, “I feel I am American, especially near America’s 250th birthday.”

I felt bashful, even though I love the Fourth of July. Or worried my answer would seem political.

It wasn’t. And it isn’t.

Another person said, “It is hard to feel American these days.”

And while I disagree with her, I get it. I do.

The truth is, the story of America is suffering right now. I don’t want to get too deeply into the why or the how, because there are countless reasons. But it is. And as an American, especially one living abroad, that breaks my heart.

To me, the American story is one of freedom, hard work, and belief in a better tomorrow.

To be clear, we have not always lived up to this. The most obvious example is slavery: America’s original sin. But sacrifice, blood, and a demand for a brighter tomorrow ended that practice. Even then, it took another hundred years for Black Americans to be fully guaranteed the right to vote.

So yes, the American narrative — freedom, equality, all men are created equal — is not a neat and tidy story. Not at all.

But what story is?

Still, it hit me during this meeting that the American story — the one we tell our children, ourselves, and each other — is lacking cohesion these days.

What is the American story?

Were we conceived in liberty? Or were we founded on slavery, our original sin? Are all men created equal? Or are some treated more equally than others? And that is about way more than just skin color: accent, education, socioeconomic background, and more. What are free markets when it feels like our government falls prey more and more to cronyism and rent-seeking?

Is America angry because we pay the NATO bill and Europe doesn’t say thank you? Or is it an honor and a privilege to be the wealthiest, strongest country in the world?

And how should we think about what it means when the world still looks to us as the “shining city on a hill” Ronald Reagan invoked, borrowing from John Winthrop’s vision of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as an example to the world?

Or is the American story about so much more than all of that?

Following the recent birthright citizenship Supreme Court decision — which confirmed, in basic terms, that being born in America means being American — and in the debates leading up to it, there has been much Sturm und Drang over whether America is a creedal nation, and whether we are more than an idea.

I’d argue that America is all of those things at once: a creed, a story, the blood of Americans from the Revolution and the Civil War, the Chinese laborers who built the railroads, the Italians who built Bank of America, the Jews who gave us blue jeans, the Navajo Code Talkers, and so many, many more stories.

But in this version of the American story, the characters are real.

And they include you and me.

At the end of the day, people understand their world through stories: the Bible, the story of the first Thanksgiving, the French story of Joan of Arc, and countless others across the world.

But for America at 250, I think we all need to stop worrying so much about the story told by our perceived political foes and focus on our own role in the American story.

After all, part of America is the idea that each of us can forge our own future.

So when someone asks you, an American, where you feel you are from, there is no need to feel ashamed or worried about the story someone else tells.

What is your story?

And how does it relate to America?

Happy 250, America.