This morning, we slept in and had a lazy start to a well-deserved day off. I thought I might not say anything today because, well, if I’m honest—I’m exhausted. I’m physically exhausted after an amazing first week of book tour followed by a glorious week of teaching at Wilkes; I’m exhausted in a grabbing-a-quick-breath sort of way because the book tour picks up again next week (see you in Dallas and Houston!). More things are coming and I know if I don’t rest now, I’ll regret it.
I’m exhausted by the heat, which gets into my bloodstream and makes me think and move slower in the summer. And I’m exhausted by the ongoing news outrage. Every day, it feels like something else is happening that makes me worried or fearful or upset. And it saps me, like the heat, like the my-body-is-too-old-for-multiple-hotel-rooms fatigue. Like the fear that is a low-grade hum, ever present right now.
It’s not that I'm not concerned about where we are as a nation, especially on a day when we pause to think of the ideals on which this country was founded—I am. Two whole books and years of my life and countless articles and podcast episodes and social media posts and class lessons and real life discussions: I am deeply, vehemently concerned. I also know the truth of how this country was founded, and have faced at least some of what was lost for my ancestors to thrive.
We Were Illegal represents three years of wrestling with, uncovering, and feeling the history of our state and our country. Before it was written into the book, I wrote the history in my mind and in my body. What I did not realize when I first started the research was how much it would change me, how the transformation would happen inside my heart and soul first.
But I also feel, as I get older, that we can have a slower-growth, rooted, sustainable commitment to change. In fact, we have to. It’s the only way to continue, to really revolutionize and transform this place.
That commitment to change is rooted in love and hope for this country. And that feels appropriate to this day, too.
I insist, always, all the time, to anyone who will listen, that there is good reason for hope now and always. I do believe that, firmly. In part, I believe that because of my years of being friends with and reporting on people who have lived through unimaginable persecution and war. Things might feel worrisome in the US, but an organized junta has been actively hunting dissident groups in Myanmar longer than I’ve been alive and the Syrian regime launched chemical weapons against citizens and tens of thousands of Palestinian children have died in a matter of months and almost 150,000 people are displaced by violence and famine in Sudan.
I don’t mean these comparisons dismissively in any way—caring about the US and the world also feels like a both/and to me. And it helps, I think, to be someone who can recognize that what we fear as a possibility in this country is a staunch reality in other places. There is humility and compassion and empathy in that realization.
My hope comes from the people in my life who have taught me ironclad hope in the face of horrific circumstances, people I met while they were building new lives in the US. Like Dr. Salai, who protested alone against the junta in Myanmar knowing he would go to jail because it was the right thing to do. Kying, who kept her spice and her strength and used it to protect her children when she needed it. Rae Noh, who created beautiful art in the midst of a devastating, demoralizing new life. Rosa, who whispered her story in Spanish to me in the corridor of a church where she was taking English classes, her eyes imploring me to believe her when so few others had.
Mu Naw, who found the courage to find a new life and build a better future for her family, whose children are thriving. Who cries every time she hears, “I’m Proud to Be an American,” and who now makes me cry too every time I think of that song because this country, in spite of everything, kept its grandiose promises to her and her family so well.
Hasna and Jebreel and Rana—all now US citizens—texting with me this morning about bringing over their family members now that Welcome Corps is opening up. Who have somehow, against all odds, created something of a life here. Who have hope that they might, after all this time, be reunited with at least some of the people they love. These friends who are now family, and who are not refugees, and have not been refugees for years. Who are both Syrian and American, whose hearts are scattered around the world. And who still, somehow, find hope.
The US is not the happy ending for grateful refugees it is so often made to be in bad movies or PR-infused magazine articles. The troubles and problems in our country are many. I’m not ignoring them. I’m not negating them. I’m certainly not dismissing them.
What I am saying is that my love for this country is a both/and. I love it and I criticize it. I constantly demand better of it because I care so deeply for the beautiful ideals infused into what we have to acknowledge is an often oppressive, genocidal past. This country is as complex as the millions of people who have lived here, and I still believe in the freedom-language and improbable dreams of the wild-eyed revolutionaries who wrote out a declaration of independence 248 years ago.
I believe we can both acknowledge the limitations of our past and build toward a better future, one where truly all people have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” All of them, everywhere. Always. That it is, in fact, one of the most patriotic things we can do on this day of independence—insist that the ability to thrive be available to all.
James Baldwin said in Notes of a Native Son, “I love America more than any other country in the world, and exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” I feel that way too, but I also love Annette Gordon-Reed’s take, pictured here as the epigraph from my book (I snapped a quick photo just now):
I know it says “Texas,” but as Juneteenth has expanded to become a national holiday, I think this sentiment expands both to my state and my country. And I like that the origin of Gordon-Reed’s criticism is love of country and state, and the hopes we have for the places we love.
We can celebrate today with a both/and spirit. We can be critical and committed to hope for the complicated, imperfect, dream-infused, hypocritical, wonderful country where we live. A clear-eyed assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this place is a sign of our love of country on the 4th. To criticize and speak up and protest and commit to freedom for all: these are, perhaps, our greatest of patriotism, in this land where freedom of speech is (and I pray always will be) one of our highest core values.
May the revolutionary spirit that began this country transform and change in our lifetime, and yet still live on in us. Happy 4th, y’all.