California Dreamin'

America

Today marks the 20th anniversary of my family's emigration to the United States from South Africa. Apartheid ended in 1991; when we left in 1987 the violence, repression, police brutality, censorship, torture and oppression by a government under intense international scrutiny was ratcheting up, and my parents decided there was no way they could continue to raise their children amidst the fear and injustice of a regime they could not support. The choice was extremely difficult; our families had lived in Johannesburg since my great grandparents had fled the pogroms  in Eastern Europe, and we had grown deep roots. All our loved ones lived in a closely knit community. Both of my parents had to choose to leave behind their parents, brothers, sisters and cousins and friends they had known since birth and raised their own children with.  They were leaving behind a lifestyle of material comfort, kinship, and community for the complete unknown and the economic challenge of starting over with nothing. Many of their friends tried to talk them out of it, and thought they were crazy to leave, but their conviction was strong.

As a child my experience of apartheid was limited; I was only 7 when we left, so my memories of growing up there are scattered, fuzzy, and almost certainly have been changed by the passage of time and acquired knowledge. There were only hints here and there that something wasn't quite right; to my young mind, the fact that everyone we knew had black servants was as normal as the fact that we had tea every day at 4 p.m.

It was only as I grew older and my parents discussed apartheid (and why they left) more in depth that the pieces came together and I realized the full magnitude of the injustice and oppression we had left behind. Though I was too young then for them to detail the atrocities of the South African government, what they did instead was to speak in raptured tones about the promise and freedom we would find in America. Every time I hear "America" by Neil Diamond, it brings me back to that time of innocent wonder and excitement at the privilege of living in a land so full of beauty and endless opportunity. I now realize what difficulty my parents faced in explaining to pampered, privileged children that there was a life somehow better than the charmed (though cursed) lives we were leading in South Africa. I think they have always appealed to our sense of justice, and compassion for fellow human beings in that their conviction in leaving has always been tied to their staunch sense of social justice; even when I was a kid it was clear to me that South Africa was failing at treating all its citizens equally and that our leaving was a clear choice on the part of my parents to protect us and to provide us with the opportunity to be raised without the oppression of a police state, where racism was literally codified and enforced by the government and taught in school. 

It is no small coincidence that all of us work in public service now. Teaching in inner-city public schools, educating and mentoring low-income minority adult students, volunteering for a Crisis line, grief counseling, activism for Darfur, running diversity training programs in schools and responding to discrimination complaints, mentoring young student leaders, civil rights activism, legal advocating and activism,  juvenile corrections, and renewable resource engineering- it wasn't until I really thought about all that each of us care about and put it together in this way that it hit me.  I'm overcome when I look at this list and can see just how much all of us have internalized the hope and the promise of a better future that my parents sacrificed so much to give to us.

Today, I am reminded of my responsibility to do my part to ensure that this country lives up to its promise- the promise that motivated my parents to leave behind generations of friends and family, wealth, comfort and security to come here with nothing and start over. No matter how cynical, disaffected, jaded, or hopeless we feel upon surveying the national political landscape it is important to remember that we still live in one of the most hopeful countries in the world; the opportunity we have here to literally create the life of our choosing is unparalleled anywhere else and it is that I urge you to consider when you begin to feel despondent. I think it is incumbent on all of us to ensure that this continues to be the case- social services, public welfare, public education, civil rights- all of these exist only because people like you and me continue to believe in their utility and potential.  The rising tide will not lift all boats- as you forge ahead in a culture that highly values individualism and achievement, I urge you to remember that all of our achievement and success depends on the enforcement of the democratic ideals that founded this country. It is up to all of us to remain informed and active citizens and participate! It is the only way for democracy to truly work. This is what it means to me to be an American. My parents had to struggle for our citizenship so to me, patriotism is honoring their struggle by ensuring that this country retains the promise it held for them.

America