I love July Fourth, but I didn’t always. The date always meant something different to my father, a conservative immigrant wholeheartedly embracing all things America, than it did his first-generation daughter, with her brown skin and youthful leftist politics. Though our views now overlap more than they once did, we might never quite think of the United States’ founding the same way.
I think that is for the best. In fact, I believe talking about what July Fourth means to each of us can spark conversations and build bridges in a divided country.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
I have always resonated with the question asked by Frederick Douglass in a famous, keynote speech in 1852: “What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July?” Then, 172 years ago, Americans were debating the meaning of this holiday and how to reconcile the nation’s founding vision with the slavery and injustice of its birth — just as we are today.
Many Americans of historically marginalized backgrounds feel uninspired by “patriotism” in the narrow way it’s been depicted to this day. A YouGov survey showed that though 55% of white Americans consider themselves to be very patriotic, only 29% and 30% of Black and Hispanic Americans view themselves this way. Many African Americans see Juneteenth as the true “Independence Day.”
Asian Americans, including Indian Americans such as me, face tension in a different key. Carrying the “forever foreigner” stereotype, we are often seen as outsiders regardless of our citizenship status. For instance, 32% of Asian American adults surveyed by a 2023 Pew Research Center poll have reportedly had people tell them to go back to their “home country” at some point of time in their lives.
Though many people of color celebrate the United States of America, there’s an unspoken sense that whiteness has hijacked the idea of patriotism. There’s an underlying sentiment that celebrating America sometimes means celebrating a country that treats us as second-class citizens. The recent rise in white nationalism is making that sense more explicit.
As a mother who worries what kind of America her brown-skinned children will inherit, I cannot let white nationalism have the last word. Yet I also cannot find it within myself to give up on this nation which, for all its failings, has produced a beautiful dream and a drumbeat of progress.
Many of my friends on the right claim that the United States is defined only by its greatness. They believe this country’s best days are in the past and we need a cultural or political shift to return to the “good old days” at the expense of our newly inclusive democracy. These beliefs manifest in a patriotism that threatens the progress we’ve made as a country.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, my friends on the left only love the idea of what the United States could be. Their love for the country relies on a future in which its reality finally catches up with their vision of a just society. This mindset limits Americans from conjuring the hopefulness that we need to meet the challenges of the moment because it sees only oppression and injustice.
What both sides miss is that to truly love anything, you must speak of it honestly. We must acknowledge the failings and the promise of the United States if we are to understand it well, and we must be willing to understand it well in order to celebrate it fully.
How can we put this into practice? Here are three simple questions that can bridge divides at your upcoming barbecue.
First, simply ask, “What does July Fourth mean to you?” You will be amazed at the diversity — and commonality — in the answers.
Second, ask, “What about America do you admire, and what would you like to improve?” This gets us past a false fight over who is a real patriot and into the substance of disagreements. It also reminds us that America is supposed to be ever in progress.
Lastly, ask, “How can we work together on those improvements?” I’ve been lucky enough to see conservatives and liberals team up on things such as climate change and mass incarceration. More than you imagine is possible if you start with an open mind.
Study after study says that we are less polarized than we think. We assume that the people who disagree with us are all radicals with utterly different worldviews when the data says otherwise.
So instead of fighting over July Fourth this year, let’s honor it by finding the right in each other to create a society that works for all of us, instead of focusing on the wrong and reinforcing a society that only works for some.
Nisha Anand, an Atlanta native, is the chief executive of Dream.Org, a nonprofit organization that brings people together across racial, social and partisan lines to solve tough problems.
