Amid the present heightened political polarization, erosion of trust in federal as well as state institutions, information chaos, cultural contempt, loss of shared national identity, and moral struggles between hatred and compassion, I would like to share my opinion about America that I love with my heart as well as my mind.
I became an American by choice, not by accident. I studied for it. I waited for it. I raised my hand and promised loyalty with full understanding of what that vow meant. I was not born in this country. I asked to join it. And I love America above all. Not the perfect America. I love the complex, the complicated, and the "work still in progress" America. The America that permits a stranger to come with a foreign mother tongue and a unique foreign culture who will call America his and his family's home. I love America because it trusted me before it knew me. Because it allowed me to be reborn as a person in freedom and the sanctity of individualism. For these reasons, America is a promise that I will always defend.
The real America is not concealed. It is being seen. And what is obvious in America is that working on a real job guarantees financial stability. Where healthcare is provided even for the needy, and where the cost of housing, education, and childcare, on average, does not rise faster than wages. This affordability, with acceptable variations, cuts across geography, race, and politics. While Americans are often described as deeply divided by values, many are estranged instead by political manipulation. Across all 50 states and the territories, Americans remarkably desire similar things: safety, dignity, and a future that feels predictable enough to plan for. Yet more often than it is desirable, these shared needs are buried beneath radically hateful arguments about false symbols and slogans, as if destructive idiocy can substitute for creatively rational strategy.
Clearly, empathy and inclusion do matter. Not as a political performance, but as a well-thought-out practice. Too often than not, conversations about America's problems turn into vicious blame games. Those who think differently are judged as irresponsible. The frustrated are dismissed as bitter. Entire communities are reduced to caricatures. Such a manner of thinking does not clarify the problem; it only deepens it. Yet, America cannot create solutions by treating even small portions of its population as human failures.
The real America that I know is not lazy, entitled, or ungrateful. The real America is not devoid of strength. All these are visible in so many small, uncelebrated acts: neighbors helping neighbors, families pooling resources, communities stepping in where institutions fall short. America's generosity exists at every human level, even as occasionally it fails at the institutional one. This reality of America rarely makes the headlines or appears in speeches and campaigns because it doesn't flatter power. Yet it is real. I know this from my experience. It holds America together more than most policies do.
In my opinion, the danger is not that America falls short of the Founding Fathers' values and ideals. The danger is if it insists that it has already met them. No nation can correct what it refuses to acknowledge. When politicians blame others and people are asked to measure their satisfaction or pain against a myth instead of reality, disappointment turns inward, resentment turns outward, and divisions become permanent.
The real America does not need to be defended from criticism, whether it comes from abroad or domestic sources. It needs to be recognized as it is. Denial of reality and enforced dishonesty is not patriotism – it is extreme nationalism. As George Orwell stated in his essay "Notes on Nationalism": "By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people." On nationalism, he opined thus: "Nationalism is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality." Patriotism does not mistake endurance for strength and survival for success.
Presently, America's greatest test is not whether it can repeat its ideals, but whether it has the courage to confront the distance between them and reality – and to treat the people living in that distance with dignity rather than judgment. On that score, I am confident that the leaders of both parties would possess the political wisdom and long-sightedness to advance American democracy to new heights, toward the late John Winthrop's and President Ronald Reagan's "shining city on the hill," in order to remain the beacon of freedom, hope, and prosperity at home as well as abroad.