The American Paradox
by George Hagen

It was July 4, 1970, when my mother, in a fit of pique over the fervent displays of bunting that billowed from every veranda in our New Jersey housing development, raised a British flag over the door of our split-level. Yes, the union jack of that old tyrant, George III!

As a twelve year-old, this act of rebellion horrified me—a boy with an embarrassingly strong English accent and a freshly minted green card, all I wanted to do was fit in. What was wrong with my mom? When a neighbor laughingly offered to dump tea on our doorstep in reprisal, I remember the visceral ache I felt. Even though the neighbors seemed amused, why did my parents insist on being provocative? I wanted us to merge, unnoticed, into the culture.

Americans’ affection for the flag, their sense of patriotism and cultural identity were, to my family, a paradox. Why did our neighbors deck their houses with the stars and stripes, on the one hand, yet cling so avidly to a heritage they’d given up (in some cases) many generations ago. Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, African-Americans. Aren’t you all simply Americans? It was baffling.

You see, we had come from colonial Africa, where racial and ethnic differences were responsible for bloody revolutions and the tyranny of millions. We left England as Enoch Powell tried to rally Britons against the tide of races entering its borders from all the old empire’s colonial outposts. They’re not like us, he was saying, and they don’t deserve to be British!

But anybody could be American. Bring me your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free! cried Lady Liberty. And so we came. And the process of assimilation began on my first day in the classroom when I placed my hand on my heart with all the other kids, and saluted a handkerchief-sized flag that rippled beside a framed photograph of Richard Nixon. I quickly learned to say the Pledge of Allegiance with an American accent—fitting in, you see. Yet all around me, Americans were doing anything but that. My history teacher spent a lesson bewailing the acquittal of Angela Davis and warning us that the country was going down the tubes; between classes we secretly passed around STEAL THIS BOOK by Abbie Hoffman, with its tips on overthrowing the telephone company and surviving tear gas at a demonstration; meanwhile, my local veterinarian sported his John Birch Society plaque with its anti-Jewish, anti evolution, and anti-UN philosophy. Now I puzzled over the utter cacaphony of free speech.

There was a point, as an immigrant, and as a young man, where I came to accept these paradoxes as part of the deal. Okay, so here in America, you’re free to make up your mind. Take pride in your ethnic background, wave the same flag, but recognize the right to dissent. Just as my neighbors tolerated the Union Jack on our doorstep, Americans permit rude slogans on t-shirts, diatribes on homepages, and anti-Bush banners on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is all part of a spirited debate on American principles that has been held on this soil since the Continental Congress.

It is a wondrous process whose detractors (ironically) enjoy its privileges as much as its supporters.

But the true crisis of this marvelous American paradox comes when our government stifles free speech by jailing reporters, when our President can eavesdrop on any citizen’s conversations without answering to any other authority, and when prosecutors deny the right of habeus corpus, and a prisoner’s right to see the evidence against him. These are the powers of a monarchy like George III’s, and they leave us with nothing to be patriotic about.

Just as my

neighbors tolerated

the Union Jack

on our doorstep,

Americans permit

rude slogans

on t-shirts,

diatribes on

homepages, and

anti-Bush banners on

Pennsylvania Avenue.