Redwood Mary writes:
"A New Anthem for America?"
Redwood Mary
I was pondering this week how to celebrate the 4th of July, the birth of our country. It was a grand experiment — an act that shook the world when a group of men, all immigrants, convened to draft a declaration of independence for freedom and liberty — a declaration that sparked the War for Independence from British rule. War and freedom so interlinked. How can that be I asked myself?
Recently, within the last six months I was able to talk to a dear friend of my father as he was struggling in his last days with cancer. He and my dad were both immigrant refugees. They were like brothers to each other. Coming from war torn Europe and liberated by the British Army they later found themselves in a DP (Displaced Persons) Camp and grateful to be under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army. They landed on these shores in the 1950's — in NY Harbor — greeted by the Statue of Liberty. They were on fire with dreams of a future in a land of the free. My Dad's best friend said to me before he died, “You know that your father and I went through war and it was horrible and war solves nothing and war has to stop. We have to stop all war. and Mr. Bush was wrong for starting this war. This war was not right.”Yesterday, at the opening of San Francisco Opera’s free “Opera in The Park”, in honor of the 4th of July, the program was started with the Star Spangled Banner. I did not stand I sat with my head down and cringed as I heard the words, “And the rockets' red glare”, All I could think of was my dad's best friend's words: “We got to stop all war”.... and the Divas and the crowd continued to sing: “the bombs bursting in air”... “And in Afghanistan and Iraq!” I shouted out. And I looked around thinking I was the only one awake to this? To my surprise a woman next to me and another woman a few rows in front of me also did not stand and both turned toward me and shook their heads “yes” in acknowledgement. There were also a few other brave souls not standing.
I sat there and thought if my dad came to America today, in 2006, with the same dreams, how would he be treated with his dark swarthy features and black nappy hair? He hid his origins I discovered. His best friend said that my dad claimed to have been born in Poland. But in reality he was born in the Ukraine. My great grandfather was a revolutionary for the Poles. Apparently there was ethnic cleansing. My dad was ashamed to tell anyone that his sister and her baby were murdered for their ethnicity. Then the war came.
I never was able to ask was my dad Romani? Was he Jewish? Was he???...What was he really? Then who am I really? Whose blood runs through my veins? Whose people am I tied too? My mother used to call me her “Gypsy Rose”. Was that just a pet name — or did it have a deeper hidden meaning?
I turned out with the features of my mother...unmistakably white, blonde and privileged. But I was taught to assimilate and be ashamed of my language of origin, of my dad’s accent and my mother’s (My babci) mother’s peasant ways that she still held onto.
I am still the daughter of an immigrant, union made, a product of a grand romance between an émigré laborer and his wife, who worked in a garment factory (now termed a sweatshop). They were two brilliant people, a handsome dashing couple who could have been university professors or maybe lawyers, or inventors if given the opportunity.
And I still find myself still torn and confused. How can I sing about “Bombs bursting in air?” Having grown up in a country that helped liberate my dad from the evils of war and Nazism, I see a country where the poor are not free, where health care is falling out of our grasp, where the hatreds of race and religion still divide us, where homeless veterans wander the streets, where drug addiction and prisons are enslaving our youth, where a world has gone insane with conflict, where greed and money has become the new idol of worship, and the destruction of nature and the environment go hand in hand with the exploitation of workers — the new slavery — tied to wages of poverty.
And today, I awoke to the beauty of another sunrise stirring my soul. The song of birds greeted me with the praise and joy of life and the possibilities of a new day.And a homeless man smiled at me. And today I heard in church our pastor, in her sermon to the congregation, put this holiday in a different context from what I was envisioning. This holiday, this 4th of July is a time to reflect back on the values and vision of what this commonwealth yearns to be. “If we take seriously our current planetary predicament,” said Pastor, “ the war the violence on a local and global scale, the growing injustice and destruction of the community of life that is God’s creation, it is easy to see that we need salvation — not from God, but from our own destructive impulses.” Then she quoted Langston Hughes “Let America is America again. Let it be the dream it used to be.” We must be the ones to liberate each other not hold each other separate.
What would it be like if women worked for the liberation of men, if blacks worked to liberate whites, if we worked to liberate those in government, for the liberation of those who oppressed the poor, of those who destroy nature and the environment...what if we all worked for the liberation of all of us, for each other... for isn’t that what it is about...freedom for all...to raise the bar for all of us to reach our highest potential?
So, when I arrived home I had to look up this poem she referred to. And here before we celebrate the 4th of July —
I want to share with you this amazing poem by Langston Hughes and maybe wherever you go and however you celebrate (or not) the 4th of July — I invite you to read his poem and then to really think about this poem. I hope it moves you to speak out, stand up and take action for an outcome, for a vision, for a dream, for another step toward leading all of us forward so that we together will let America be America again!
But Before you read this poem — to get in the mood – please go to http://www.halihammer.com/irefusetobelieve.html
And click on #2 “America The Beautiful Revisited” A song we all know but with words rewritten by a dear friend Hali Hammer. I hope you will be moved and inspired!
Langston Hughes — Let America Be America Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed —
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek —
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean —
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today — O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home —
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay —
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again —
The land that never has been yet —
And yet must be — the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine — the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME —
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose —
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath —
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain —
All, all the stretch of these great green states —
And make America again!
