I Am a Stupid American

You, in your proudly arrogant, non-American, wisdom have pronounced me so.  At first I was offended.  I bristled not on my own behalf, but on the behalf of others, my own dear fellow Americans.  The old I-can-say-it-but-woe-unto-anybody-else-that-does kind of playground call to battle that has made the blood boil of many a sometimes misguided family member.

But give yourself a few weeks to meditate on any idea, to turn it over and examine its many-angled facets, and sometimes you can find other truths deeply embedded, that wiggle their way to light.  

I am the stupid American who invited you in when you had nowhere else to go.  When you came to us homeless, wounded, afraid, your own land so torn by war, by ethnic violence, by bloodshed, that our stupidly American shores were a gift from either my own God or yours (I choose to think they are one and the same), we said come on in.

I am the stupid American who said hello, it's so nice to meet you.  Tell me about yourself.  I want to hear your story because I'm interested in you as a human being.  I value your stories.  In retrospect I realize that you never once asked about my own.  You merely chafed at our stupidity, our American-ness, our pork eating, unclean ways.

You came in my door.  

You sat at my table.  

You looked me in the eye and said all the right things, so that anyone who was asked could only comment about your politeness, your athleticism, your self-described and much touted intelligence.

I cooked for you.  I took you places and bought your food.  I asked about your hopes and dreams for your future because I cared.  We all cared.  

We Americans made sure you could learn English, at our own expense.  We Americans made sure you could find housing and food when you arrived.  

We Americans said tell me something in your native tongue.  It is so beautiful.  I wish I could speak it.

We said welcome to our home.

And you said we were stupid.

If that's stupid then give me an advanced degree.  I have earned it during my 52-plus years in a country that says people who don't look like me, who don't talk like me, are just as American as I.

A country that says you don't have to dress a certain way, or eat a certain food, or worship a certain god.

This country is the one that gave you safe haven.  

In spite of you, in spite of what you have done and the things you have said,  I will continue to exercise my very American right to open my own door and say, "Come on in.  Welcome."

I'll still be here, at my kitchen table, and others will be here with me, eating my food and sharing their stories, because we will care enough to listen.  And I don't care what language they speak.  I don't care what clothes they wear.  I don't care what god they worship.  Because (and this is something you, in your own willful stupidity, will never understand) I am an American.