Item: 1 sample ballot
This weekend I was at a get-together in Pasadena where illegal immigration issues were the main topic of discussion. I particularly appreciated listening to 1 woman whose parents had come to the US from Korea when she was very young. The few people in the group who were the children of immigrants or who had been through the process themselves had a markedly different attitude than most of the rest of the group who, like me, are several generations removed from this. These individuals make statements about being proud, and grateful, to be living in America that would sound utterly geeky coming from somebody like me.
Speaking generally for my peer group, we understand that our country has been known to act in the world with unsavory motives and unhappy results. We understand the ways in which the democratic process is manipulated. Yet certain groups understand all of this and yet still consider it meaningful, and centrally important, to have American citizenship.
Maybe this doesn't go much deeper than how easy it is for me or someone like me to take such things for granted. I only see the flaws, the things to criticize; I have no understanding of what it's like to live without inalienable rights or innocence until proof of guilt, without freedom of speech or religion. I might be tempted to dismiss the starry-eyed, city-on-a-hill view as people who don't understand reality, except for the fact that I'm talking about people who have undoubtedly had it much harder than I have to get where they are, so that won't work.
Anyway, because of this discussion, I am somewhat geekily excited about having just received my California Primary ballot.
As sometimes happens, I continue to feel a little uncomfortable about what I wrote last night - partly because of the subject, and also because I don't think I expressed it very well. But I worked on it for a couple of hours and was feeling too lazy to erase it and start something new.
From today's perspective, the real problem was that me talking about it immediately had robbed the experience of some of its power. If I hadn't said anything about it, all of these things would have been left to burn in my heart: the fact that you only get about 10 seconds into someone's story before it breaks your heart, the violent expressiveness of street language that I will never be able to match, the staff people who work there every day, and what makes them different from me. I am still thinking about all these things, but maybe not as intensely as I would have. Then Monday comes, and the weekend gets closed over as something in the past.
Speaking generally for my peer group, we understand that our country has been known to act in the world with unsavory motives and unhappy results. We understand the ways in which the democratic process is manipulated. Yet certain groups understand all of this and yet still consider it meaningful, and centrally important, to have American citizenship.
Maybe this doesn't go much deeper than how easy it is for me or someone like me to take such things for granted. I only see the flaws, the things to criticize; I have no understanding of what it's like to live without inalienable rights or innocence until proof of guilt, without freedom of speech or religion. I might be tempted to dismiss the starry-eyed, city-on-a-hill view as people who don't understand reality, except for the fact that I'm talking about people who have undoubtedly had it much harder than I have to get where they are, so that won't work.
Anyway, because of this discussion, I am somewhat geekily excited about having just received my California Primary ballot.
As sometimes happens, I continue to feel a little uncomfortable about what I wrote last night - partly because of the subject, and also because I don't think I expressed it very well. But I worked on it for a couple of hours and was feeling too lazy to erase it and start something new.
From today's perspective, the real problem was that me talking about it immediately had robbed the experience of some of its power. If I hadn't said anything about it, all of these things would have been left to burn in my heart: the fact that you only get about 10 seconds into someone's story before it breaks your heart, the violent expressiveness of street language that I will never be able to match, the staff people who work there every day, and what makes them different from me. I am still thinking about all these things, but maybe not as intensely as I would have. Then Monday comes, and the weekend gets closed over as something in the past.
posted by Karen at 7:43 PM
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