U.S. nationalism might destroy the true identity of this country.
In hopes of discouraging undocumented immigration, the City Council of Pahrump, Nev., has passed laws making it illegal to display foreign flags and declaring English the official language of the city.
Has public education failed America for the umpteenth time? Does anyone remember how this nation came to be? I guess not, or someone in Pahrump would have reminded the council that America is populated with people from all parts of the world. Americans, excluding indigenous people, came from all over. Why should anyone be prevented from claiming pride in his or her ancestral roots?
Thinking like the majority of Pahrump City Council is regrettably an established mentality in the United States. This isn’t the first time America has acted like the Borg of Star Trek and tried to assimilate all other cultures into its own. We saw it with Irish immigrants in the 19th century, again with Chinese and Japanese immigrants and currently with immigrants from many Latin American countries.
America has always defended these actions in classic conservative fashion and claimed these moves as measures to preserve the American way of life (whatever that is).
In the Nov. 16 All Headline News article “Nevada Bans the Flying of Foreign Flags, Benefits to Illegal Immigrants,” Julie Farby wrote, “Some supporters of the new ordinance say they favored the measure to strike back at Hispanic demonstrators who carried Mexican flags when they marched in U.S. cities earlier this year to advocate amnesty and equal rights for the estimated 10 to 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S.”
Why would immigrants carry the flag of a nation that continually attributes this nation’s problems to them? It was just last week that Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, claimed that 12 Americans are killed everyday by undocumented immigrants. But it isn’t news to anyone that Americans kill other Americans on a scale that dwarfs this statistic. This is a common tactic our leaders use to generate hate and segregation within our own nation. Isn’t it odd that our nation’s leaders are so quick to target immigrants for our nation’s ills?
How does that saying go? When you point at someone, you’re pointing three fingers back at yourself.
Now I’m sure there are some of you out there getting all patriotic and agreeing with the measures taken in Pahrump. This is America and its flag is this nation’s symbol, but America is the land of all nations, and I think that is more a part of us than the simple stars and stripes.
The flag of another nation is nothing to fear. It isn’t what the Pahrump City Council is painting it to be–utterly un-American. It is a symbol of where one American came from. The nation would be taking a step in the right direction if more people could realize that.
So fly your colors, the colors of your home, your ancestors and your children’s. This is America–a land composed of many flags. I’ll still fly the stars and stripes, but upside down until this nation can get its priorities straight.