Monday, July 04, 2005
Americans Are Anywhere
--Jay at 10:13 AM--
Ian has a fantastic Independence Day post that comes from the perspective of living in China. A snippet:
I can never be Chinese. My eyes are blue, my hair is brown, it just ain’t never going to happen. I can change my citizenship, learn the language, immerse myself completely in the culture, and I’ll still always be laowai, foreign, different, alien. I’ll never be truly Chinese because being Chinese is, at least in part, inherited, and there’s no getting around that.
But everybody — everybody — is American, at least potentially.
Being American is an idea, an ideal. It has nothing to do with where you were born, and everything to do with what you believe.
Being American is a choice.
Go read Everybody’s American.