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Yesterday was July 4th, but it was yet another birthday I didn't feel like celebrating. Not that I ever celebrated July 4th the way many Americans do. My Salvadoran mother, who became a U.S. citizen when I was 5 or 6 years old, observed Independence Day with gusto. The rest of the family followed suit. Mommy encouraged the whole clan to wear red, white, and blue. She cooked up a feast worthy of a TV commercial: hotdogs, macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, baked beans, the requisite green vegetable (usually green beans or peas.) And don't forget the fireworks! She was all about them, and whatever parade or concert led up to the show. We weren't celebrating the United States and its "victories" so much as we were celebrating a new home and beginning for my mother. A fresh start. An escape from civil war in her country of birth. Gratitude for survival. At a young age, my siblings and I learned about the sins of our home country, the land of Reagan, and how those sins had impacted El Salvador and other countries around the world. Our father, a product of the American public school system, opened our eyes to the sins committed within our country, too. American exceptionalism was never our family value.
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Stars to Follow
By Alex Carrigan
There are way too many things we inherit from our ancestors that resonate with us. Some families pass down stories and religion. Others pass down specific hair and eye colors. Some pass down genetic illnesses and health conditions. Others inflict trauma or suffer from trauma that affects the successive generations. There are so many things to consider when looking at ones familial history and how it affects you in the past, present, and future, and reckoning with that can be the sort of thing that reveals more about oneself than previously thought.
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2024
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