America & me: A love story
SAN DIEGO -- At the risk of setting off more fireworks, I've spent the days surrounding the Fourth of July trying to answer a question that has perplexed U.S. Latinos for generations. Whether the yardstick is starting businesses, creating jobs, spreading opportunity, serving in uniform or displaying optimism in hard times, America's largest minority has shown time and again that we love this country.
But does the country love us back?
Honestly, sometimes, it's hard to tell. This nation of second chances offers unlimited opportunities to those who are willing to work, hustle and innovate. In the United States, people may be born in poverty but that doesn't mean that poverty is born in them. Our society is one of the freest on Earth, which we've learned has its downside; we have been known to use that freedom to do things that harm us -- like shouting down opposing views rather than debating and refuting them.
A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds that about 70 percent of Americans say the level of civility in Washington has gotten worse since Donald Trump became president. Only 6 percent say it has improved. Twenty percent say it's about the same.
There are times when Latinos feel cradled in America's warm embrace -- just like the waves of Germans, Irish and Italians before us. But just like those other immigrant groups, living in this country hasn't been all ethnic celebrations and parade floats.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, immigrants got mixed signals from America. They were often pushed away, discriminated against and prohibited from living in certain neighborhoods. And then, a generation later, they'd get lectures about how they should assimilate and not segregate themselves.
Today, the same thing happens with Latinos. We're told that we're not full-blooded Americans, that we're more loyal to our ancestral homelands, and that we're not as good as our countrymen. To many, Latinos are dangerous, deficient and detrimental to society.
I've even heard someone stupidly say that a federal judge born in Indiana to parents who were born in Mexico couldn't be trusted to do his job fairly because he is "Mexican."
A fellow journalist -- who was born in Mexico but has lived most of her life on this side of the border -- tells me she's writing a book in which she asks America if it's finally ready to accept her.
Another friend, a lawyer and academic, was recently fired from a university because, he says, the liberals who run it turned out to be -- on race -- not as liberal as they pretend.
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