Week 4 Homework Reflection: America the Beautiful

The United States is a geographic area of land in the northern hemisphere existing north of Mexico and south of Canada. There are 318.9 million humans that make residence in this region. Moreover, there are 432 species of mammals, 311 known reptiles, 295 amphibians and 1154 known fish species present within the United States. It is a 3.797 million mi² divider of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. These are the physical characteristics of the United States. But to me, it represents so much more.

I am so proud to be an American. Our forefathers revolted from Great Britain and established our nation as one valuing freedom and equality. Citizens are able to take control of their own destiny and speak their minds within the Democratic establishment. I wake up every morning thankful of the sacrifices made (and people continue to make) that allow me to live my life in the manner I am accustomed to. I am part of the greatest nation!

Americans have the ability to voice their opinions without fear of being executed. For me this means I am able to have a voice that matters. I am able to post whatever I want on my social media feeds, am able to vote and am able to be part of committees and evoke change within my community ( which at the time being is the University of Denver). I just recently went to a housing meeting led by outside construction planners. I suggested that there need to be housing reserved for people coming back from study abroad and that there needs to be cheaper housing options in general for people with less funding saved to attend school (and that many people would gladly sacrifice size and modernized living in return for lower costs). The planners seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say and I can confidently say that they will take what I said into consideration for making the University of Denver housing situation better. I am an active constituent of America and am able to make small changes that can improve my life and the lives of others!

I am also able to wake up in a safe environment in which law and order has been established. Many third-world countries are on the brink of anarchy and there are minority rebellious groups that compromise the integrity of the entire system. I am so thankful that I am not living in the Middle East where I would be discriminated simply due to my western European heritage. Am I saying that America is perfect? Not in the slightest. There is a remaining racial and gender inequalities that need to be resolved. But America is a place in which we can openly debate these topics and invoke change. The media often spends a preposterous amount of time reporting on the negatives (because bad news sells) but this often misleads us into under-appreciating all that America has going right for it. There is a reason immigrants continue to come to America, adding diversity to the Great Melting Pot, and that reason is because we live in a great country. There are so many opportunities presented to me on a daily basis and all I have to do is seize them.

“O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet Whose stern impassioned stress A thoroughfare of freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!”

The first two refrains of America the Beautiful by Katherine Lee Bates could not sum up how fortunate we are to be Americans any better. It points out our freedom which we exercise on a daily basis, the liberty achieved through self-control and law, and (as implied by the word “beautiful”) the aesthetically pleasing nature we are surrounded by. We are able to spend time marveling the “purple mountains majesties”, “spacious skies” and “fruited plains” due to the order that has been established.

Many of us are not forced to worrying about where our next meal is coming from, where we are going to spend the night, or how we will survive to the next day which gives us the luxury of examining the beauty we are immersed within. Or as many of us choose to do, worry about the trivial things in life… griping and groaning about what we don’t have instead of being thankful for what we do have. I mean an entire holiday was devoted to giving thanks (“Thanksgiving”) for our family, for our health, for what we have been blessed by the grace of God to have. The problem is this sentimentality should not be reserved for one day alone, but should be within all of us 365 days a year.

Putting that aside away, I am very concerned about the future of this country… which is equivalent to saying I am concerned about the American standard of living in the near future. Looking at the election, we have one candidate who is overtly racist, sexist and crude (Donald Trump cough cough) and another that used their personal email to send/receive classified information and arguably fell asleep during the crisis in Syria. Where is the future of the country heading when voters are forced between 2 presidential candidates that are far from ideal? Should we vote third party… probably not, a vote not for one of the two major parties is like a vote wasted. So if we elect one of these people as president will everything change for the worse? I don’t think so, the democracy has enough checks and balances to limit the power of any 1 individual. However, the fact that I perceive the choices as deciding between the less of two evils is concerning. Shouldn’t some of the best and brightest be running for Office? That would be ideal, the ideal that America has for so long represented. Each and every one of us must carry out our responsibility in preserving American ideals in this country's time of need and carefully consider how our choices will impact what the America stands for in the future. For the United States is much more than where I live, it is who I am and who my ancestors before me were.