American Notes (6): On Becoming American

Well, guess what? I'm now an American citizen.

I must confess that I'm not big in patriotic fervor. Never been, probably never will. I guess I can attribute it to a confluence of circumstances. We socialists are always leery of nationalisms. (How does it go? "Workers of the world unite!", I think?) Plus, we members of the educated elites of the 21st century are highly globalized, we move around and everywhere we go we find people like us while at the same time, and this is especially true of Latin Americans given how unequal our societies are, we cannot fail to notice the chasm between ourselves and our compatriots. I'm not sure patriotism is always a good thing. Sure, sometimes it is but it can also lead to disaster.

So, no, I'm not a changed man today. But at some level it is special. Like I've said before, the US is a big part of my life. I have always been a critic of many aspects of America, but at the same time I have a great debt of gratitude with the US.

Let it be noted that in acquiring the American citizenship I do not have to, and will not, stop criticizing the US whenever I feel like. That's what being citizen of a democracy is about.

As it turns out, probably the most emotional moment for me happened the day before the actual oath ceremony. I was at the Washington airport and I saw a large group of elderly men: they were part of a convention or something of World War II veterans.

They looked very different from each other. Some were clearly enjoying vigorous health after all these years, some were clearly falling apart in their old age. Some seemed to be thriving, others looked to have been in some kind of penury. Most were whites but there were some blacks and the occasional Asian (some with a "Pearl Harbor Survivor" cap). Probably their ethnic combination was not very representative of the original group. I don't know. But for all their differences, they had something in common: they were all part of the defining moment of America in the 20th century, they were all part of the "Greatest Generation."

I'm already on record saying that to me FDR is the 20th Century greatest statesman. But part of what made him so great was the society he presided over. The Great Depression and World War II brought out some of the best traits of American society. (Sure, some bad stuff also happened: Japanese were interned in concentration camps, Father Coughlin commanded a rabid audience of antisemites, and so on.) But probably never before, or never after, Americans came together with a greater sense of collective purpose and mutual help.

The American role in defeating Nazism and Fascism was, I'll say it in so many words, admirable. The US did not bear the main burden. (The Soviet resistance was one of the great feats of collective heroism in all history.) But the American troops behaved with greater honor than any other of the fighting parties in the war; they acted like true liberators. True, American policies in the defeated powers after the war were often reprehensible. The US propped up corrupt regimes in Italy and Japan as long as they were reliably anti-Communist (and conducted a serious Red purge in Japan). But the common soldiers, the guys like the ones I saw yesterday, gave everything in the fight and, in the process, helped put an end to one of humankind's darkest hours. That's something that deserves tribute. And it was nice to be reminded of that the day before becoming an American citizen.