When I came to the USA, oh so many years ago, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Now, years later, I still feel the same. America! The United States of America. My parents and their six daughters, me being the oldest of the six girls, were finally in the USA and we were safe. It took three years for Castro's communist government to give us permission to leave Cuba. We then lived almost a year in Spain while our USA residency papers were processed and all eight of us received our green cards. We've always been a strong Christian family. Our faith in God played no small part in keeping us safe and sane during the turbulent and terrifying years we lived in Cuba after Fidel brought communism to our homeland. It also held us together when we arrived in the USA with nothing to call our own except a dream and a hope that we'd arrived in the USA, the land of opportunity, the land where dreams come true for those who work hard and do not give up.
And America did not disappoint us. It allowed all eight of us the privilege to become naturalized citizens. Our parents worked 1-1/2 jobs each in order to build a future for their six daughters. With their help, all six of us worked our way through school and graduated from college. The years have gone by and both Mamá and Papá are now in heaven, along with one of my sisters. During all this time the one thing that remained constant in each of our lives was our deep faith in God and in the American dream. We were living proof that both existed, for they existed in our lives and in our hearts.
Therefore, it was with mixed feelings that I saw a Vice Presidential candidate spearheading the notion that, somehow, if we did not agree with her views, and voted for her ticket, we were not real Americans. What? I do not belong to the real America just because I may not vote for Palin/McCain? Have I been deluded all these years into thinking that the adopted country I love is not the real America? Which America is it that took our family in? Which America gave us a home when we had no home? I always thought it was just one America, one U.S.A., "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
I myself am a registered Republican and it saddened me to see the GOP attempting to win an election by using divisive methods and rhetoric.
Just like it was through young people talking to me that I first began to get to know Senator Barack Obama, it also was through watching the TV show that many a young person tells me they watch, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, that I came upon three segments that brought home the ridiculousness of someone saying there's more than one single United States of America.So I watched the following three video clips from the Jon Stewart's The Daily Show and decided that, according to Governor Sarah Palin, I am NOT a real American. But the truth is that, regardless of what Governor Palin thinks, neither she nor anyone else can take the love and pride and honor I feel when I think of the USA, my adopted homeland, the country I feel indebted to...for it took me and my family in when we had to escape the totalitarian regime that overtook the land of our birth.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Quiz: Are You a Real American? | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Understanding Real America in Wasilla | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Pfriend or Pfoe? | ||||
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What are your thoughts when it comes to rhetoric used by political candidates? Does negative campaigning work for you? Does it influence your choice of candidate when it comes time to vote?
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