Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance used to unquestionably be of oneness, all rising to wait until the teacher in class begins, cuing in for all students to follow. As years pass me by, the more I see the reality that is not the case any longer.
This is not to point fingers at how this ever started or why. There are a line of people with personal reasons in that case. My question I silently ask myself is, “Do each of my students know and therefore, own, their personal reason as to why they choose to stand or remain seated?”
This year, I couldn’t help notice that depending on the day, we could have one person standing up to pledge the allegiance or and some other days, almost all. What does this quietly tell me as a matter of fact? There is neither consistency in who will stand up or remain seated. I began to then think, is this another one of those social pressure matters, highly influenced or motivated by what the person next to you chooses to do?
To start the day last week, I was quite caught off guard to see maybe only two not get up to stand up, face the flag, and pledge. This had been the most so far this year. This week, I took note that while it took two to immediately stand up, only at least two more followed behind to do the same. The lack of consistency can only be very telling that contemplation is at play in this what used to be undiscussed act of doing.
I cannot speak for others’ experiences in this world. I do know that while there are times I want to whimper about another trying day as a middle school teacher or parent, having heard what others have faced at other schools or homes, I hush my own thoughts, knowing I come nowhere close to other stories. I will say this, as a matter of real talk and admittance, I have lived enough to accept there are people who perceive cruelty, dehumanization, and hurting others as power and therefore, act upon such will.
My experience brings me back to witnessing my parents being told to go back to their own country, to be looked over as if they weren’t standing in front of others, to be told to leave the premise while also at other times, others leaving upon our entry.
I have hurt sadly reading or accidentally (I mean that as I don’t go looking) seeing people who have been treated inhumanely while others laugh at such expense or think nothing of their actions as damaging to one’s heart, mind, body, or spirit. I once read in an article where a head leader being interviewed referred to human trafficking as simply one to be looked at as simply trading or selling athletes from one team to another.
I must ask, “How do those who have worked and sacrificed all their lives to professionally play for a team as a career equate to those who must entertain and service others out of force?”
I pain over nonsensical cruelty, but have arrived to accept that there are those who see no wrong in their doing, justified to their own satisfaction. And yet, when injustice is witnessed, I understand why there are those compelled to make a stand in the best means they know how.
I am grateful for the freedom of voice- to openly express views for others to hear. There is so much power in not feeling threatened or afraid to speak. And yet, as a parent and teacher of young minds, I hurt to wonder, “Do each of our children truly know who they are and what they stand for?”
As an adult who is still embracing my very own truths versus this world that continues to evolve around me, one daily revolution after another, it can be disconcerting to feel the answer to such question already has an answer before even asked.
How can young minds truly know if we, as adults, clearly have yet to be unified in our own truths? Far worse, while one of the zeitgeist of today may well be the race to disprove historical findings and thus, long accepted truths, how much more instability if not confusion will this cause for the generations to follow?
Has it become difficult to stick with your own truth when the world seemingly works hard and nonstop to suggest a different… truth? Plausible by curiosity’s stance, perhaps. Still, while whispers all around shall continue with images to go along for much more impactful influence, don’t we each have the power and responsibility to keep oneness regardless of our differing attitudes and perspectives?
Are our minds to be easily fickle whereas our bodies should just follow? Where, then, have the heart and spirit had a say?
Each day I awake, I know I may not be where my mind already foresees, but the very freedom I have been granted gives me such strength to aspire to eventually get to further destinies and beyond.
There are stumbles, for sure. Some, if not most, certainly have bruised a bit. Whose choice, however, is it for me to get up each time I’ve tripped or fallen? If not imprisoned or enslaved, am I to stay down believing that this, fallen, I am?
While getting a patent approved is not overnight, having learned that patents require many varying processing steps to avoid legal overlappings of inventions, I respectfully understand the need for the USPTO department to be precise and careful.
There have been no one I have come across at the US Patent and Trademark Office where I have felt belittled or scrutinized in my steps to getting my patents approved. I can only tell you from my experience, regardless of what questions I have asked (from filling out paperwork to amending specifications and drawings), no one has ever given me a hint that I should just quit. Contrarily, each representative offer guidance in addition to endless guidelines already provided online.
Every call I made, although playing the notorious phone tag challenge with time differences, I was able to get answers after answers of all my questions to follow with yet another question.
It feels at times an endless try, but I see, hear, nor feel nothing or no one from stopping me.
I became a naturalized citizen as an adult due to the discovery that I had not become one as a child only because one of my parents had not received their naturalization until after I had become eighteen.
Forgive me for my confidence and fearlessness, but I did not even think to study any U.S. constitutional laws or historical facts provided. Having felt already a U.S. citizen residing here all my life minus the first seven years, I (like my driver’s written test I did not study for, failed by one question, came back another soonest day to pass and my actual drivers test that I failed only to go to another closest testing zone to pass and not be denied on the same day) confidently and courageously practiced my rights to pursue what I came to conquer under the belief granted I could.
I still remember my personal face to face interview with my assigned citizenship representative. He was a calm and kind man whom I openly shared my brief story of my written petition requesting the need to officially become a naturalized citizen having not even been told I had not been. I respectfully addressed him like a trusted high school teacher or professor as he asked me my first question, “What are the colors of the stripes of the American flag?”
Without hesitation (as I evidently should have) I zealously answered, “Red, white, and blue.” I was back to my days in class where I would be caught only half-listening. He looked at me with his utmost best to not judge and still with great kindness suggested, “Look around.” Gathering my answer had not sufficed, I got the hint and found a flag in the room to shout at me, “Red and White!!!” to which I rescinded my first answer to provide the correct one.
While I’m certain I was asked and then, answered, another question, the only other question I recall being asked that honestly made me glad I did not study for as this one I felt some of my high school classmates in my Advanced classes could not have answered correctly as well unless they were truly history buffs, “Who were our allies during World War II?”
Once again, see me as already a college graduate, certified teacher, devoted wife and mother having lived predominantly all my life here (and one who recalls one of the life options of a well known game show in television at that time, Cash Cab) by this time. What seemed at that moment innocuous, but perhaps might have been quite an unsuccessful attempt to be humorous- I boldly asked, “Could I get a call out?” (I knew my husband would have known the answer.)
Still, this man gave me his kindness and patience as if to look at me the way I look at my students with support and great belief. To follow a (much needed) moment of brief silence, I managed to answer “France” which to my (perhaps, both of ours) relief I was given the last and final written test, “The dog bit its tail.” Coincidentally, it was the same sentence I recalled overhearing Papa having passed upon his naturalization.
I realize that no matter how many books, articles, poetry, lyrics I will have written before my time ends, there will still be those (and some already have in my time) to question my ability to do anything well. However, who is at fault for me faltering but me if I do choose to allow those who vote against my will and determination to fulfill my own destinies? Have not those kind already decided I should not make it to the other end? Should I swim, run, or drive toward such barricade?
Is it not better to acknowledge such resistance exist, to still work toward betterment for what one seems is possible?
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”
I had recited that pledge countless times in many classes, in several schools, for many years. It was not until I placed my hand across my chest and to my heart on the day I became an official U.S. Citizen in a room amongst all color and creed, many of whom who chose to wear their traditional native garments, did I feel the power and importance of unity.
I recall deep breaths being exhaled all around me; the joyful smiles being exchanged along with handshakes and embraces to quickly follow. I remember thinking how truly special that moment was, not just for my mere purpose of being there, but witnessing the importance of it all to those in the room with me.
As I review those words of our pledge, I also know my pains. Thankfully, however, I know my journeys to have overcome hardships and bitterness to blessed contentment were not due to any surrender.
Does cruelty exist? As long as there are those who choose to be cruel, wallow in it, or speak of it, sadly and indeed. Will there ever be oneness? Stated republic, do we deem other parties uninvited? One nation under God? Were we all historically known to ever? Have there been such thing to know as indivisible if there are those still fighting to divide? With liberty and justice for all? Had we ever proudly arrived to such?
Is not a pledge a promise? Are we not to act in faith that though we don’t see, we must believe? If we physically give up now, have we mentally already stopped trying yesterday?
Here is what I have gathered. When I dared test my freedom to do wrong back as a child, I faced consequences. When I dared hang out with a group who I look back now as not the best of choices, I was looked at with suspicion. Whenever my parents found themselves with the lower economic levels (because there we too, were) we were looked upon as even lower. As a young mom who found herself a stay-at-home mom of two and then, eventually, three, even with an undergraduate degree and teacher’s certification, I was given the endless looks of being just another teenage mom.
Were these moments to revel on and recall back to as greatest highlights of my life? Clearly, not.
Has history revealed discrimination due to color or creed? Cronyism? Nepotism? Has history revealed such? Aren’t these questions difficult to answer given “history” denotes in meaning as past events? Have we gone past such existences?
One can only be abolished if agreed upon. Until then, there are those making their own history; those who have succeeded in achieving prosperity due to self-determination and great will. Do not all color and creed now succeed beyond limitations under the very freedom practices that we can and thus, we shall?
Thank you to the U.S. Department of Naturalization for understanding and accepting my found predicament. Thank you to the United States Patent and Trademark Office for never discouraging me to believe in my own creations. Thank you to the teachers who, like I witness amongst so many of my colleagues in the present of time, do all in our power to provide help and welcome to those students even from foreign countries who have suddenly found themselves in our classrooms while continuing to teach all as one what we are able and can.
Are we flawed? Is there a nation that isn’t?
Should we believe we will never arrive at justice for all?
Dare we pledge as a promise to try?
