“To love a country as if you’ve lost one: as if it were you on a plane departing from America forever, clouds closing like curtains on your country, the last scene in which you’re a madman scribbling the names of your favorite flowers, trees, and birds you’d never see again, your address and phone number you’d never use again, the color of your father’s eyes, your mother’s hair, terrified you could forget these. To love a country as if I was my mother last spring hobbling, insisting I help her climb all the way up to the U.S. Capitol, as if she were here before you today instead of me, explaining her tears, cheeks pink as the cherry blossoms coloring the air that day when she stopped, turned to me, and said: You know, mijo, it isn’t where you’re born that matters, it’s where you choose to die—that’s your country.” HomeAmericaPoetryUnited StatesPoemImmigrationImmigrantsCountriesEmigration Book:How to Love a Country Source: How to Love a Country
“How could you, America? With no answer for all I knew of country was my hurt and rage. But home was home: I dusted off the secrets, cleaned up the lies, nailed the creaky floors down, set a fire, and sat with history books I’d never opened, listened to songs I’d never played, pulled out the old map from a dark drawer, redrew it with more colors, less lines. I stoked the fire, burning on until finally: Okay, nothing’s perfect, I understood, I forgive you, I said—and forgiveness became my country.” HomeAmericaPoetryPoemForgivenessPerfectionImperfectionCountries Book:How to Love a Country Source: How to Love a Country
“These contrasts were also meant to reflect the essential beauty and constant struggle of our democracy as expressed in our nation’s motto: e pluribus unum (out of many, one). We are a populace of individual “I’s” who have consented to come together as a “we.” The challenge has been to continuously question who is (or isn’t) included in that “we” and how to redefine and reimagine it. Overall, we’ve managed to move toward a more inclusive understanding of ourselves and acceptance of each another. Historically, though, we have wavered and are currently at a crossroads: Are we going to advance toward a broader definition of “we” or will we retreat to a narrower one?” AmericaUnited StatesDemocracyAcceptanceInclusionStruggles Book:How to Love a Country Source: How to Love a Country
“to know a country takes all we know of love: some days better than others, but never easy to keep our promise every morning of every year, of every century, and wake up, stumble downstairs with all our raging hope, sit down at the kitchen table again, still blurry-eyed, still tired, and say: Listen, we need to talk.” LoveCountryAmericaPoetryPoemImprovingWhat I Know Of Country Book:How to Love a Country Source: How to Love a Country
“Como tú, I woke up to this dream of a country I didn't choose, that didn't choose me--trapped in the nightmare of its hateful glares.” AmericaPoetryUnited StatesPoemHatredUsaUnited States Of AmericaUsDreamersDaca Book:How to Love a Country Source: How to Love a Country
