America
New Faces, Old Wounds: America Through My Eyes
I’ve watched the rise of newcomers. Foreigners. Families stepping off planes with two suitcases and a prayer, coming to a country they’ve only seen on TV.
Many come with not much understanding of America. Not the real one. The America they see isn’t the one I grew up in. They see the shine. The movies. The promise. They don’t see the cracks in the sidewalk. They don’t know the history in the dirt. Everything is new to them — the language, the food, the way we say “how are you” but don’t wait for the answer.
And they have a different perception of America than we do. They believe in it in a way some of us forgot how to. They still think it works. That if you work hard, you win. That the police protect. That the schools teach. I don’t blame them. That’s the brochure version. I just know the fine print.
Today we see white leaders that are not well educated to globalism. They talk about America like it’s 1950 and the rest of the world should listen. They don’t understand the modern affects of slavery — not just chains, but the systems that came after. Redlining. School funding. Who gets loans and who gets locked up. Slavery didn’t end. It evolved. And white relationships with people of color still affect long-term growth. You can’t lead a global country when you don’t understand the global wound you helped create.
We built this place on stolen land with stolen labor, then acted surprised when the trauma didn’t disappear in a generation. We tell newcomers “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” while hiding the fact that we cut the straps for some folks before they ever got boots.
And we still have not come to terms with our gay brothers and sisters. We’re still caught up in scripture that was written for a certain time, a certain people, a certain context. We use verses from thousands of years ago to judge lives today, while ignoring the bigger commandments: love your neighbor, feed the hungry, protect the vulnerable. We argue about who someone loves while the country bleeds from greed, from guns, from the poverty we pretend not to see.
The newcomers see it too, eventually. The shine wears off. They learn that America is both beautiful and brutal. That you can be free and still not be safe. That you can be legal and still not be welcome. Some of them become us — tired, wise, angry, hopeful all at once. Others go home. Some build something new here, something better than what they found.
I don’t resent them for coming. I resent that we sold them a myth and handed them the mess. I resent that our leaders can’t tell the truth about who we are, so we can’t figure out who we want to be.
Growing up in Pittsburg in the 80s and 90s showed me the divisions. Now I see them on a national scale. Newcomers arrive and inherit our unfinished business — racism, homophobia, amnesia. We hand them a flag and hope they don’t read the history book.
But maybe their fresh eyes are what we need. Maybe they can see what we’ve gone blind to. That America isn’t done. That the promise isn’t a lie, it’s just late. That we still owe a debt to the enslaved, to the native, to the queer, to the poor, to every person we told to wait.
I’ve seen the country change. I’ve seen new faces land here, full of hope. I just pray we do the work to become the country they thought they were coming to.
