Vocabulary and rhetoric are charged entities I've come to learn, and reflecting on the way your words sound to others can inspire some serious personal revelations. The word 'entitlement' is defined as "the belief that one is deserving of certain privileges". In high school I became quite obsessed with the application of this word to my own circumstance.. as I heard its synonym thrown around in political debate and my own government class. What privileges was I born with? What privileges are Americans born with? And perhaps more importantly... do I believe that I am deserving of these privileges?
I concluded simply... I am insanely lucky. I was born in America, a land of relative safety... a nation founded on the principles of human rights. I realize that millions, perhaps billions, of people are forced to fight for safety from an early age, as their homeland provides them no such comfort. I was born to parents that planned diligently for my arrival, painstakingly insuring that I would always be fed, sheltered, and loved. I have seen heartache in my family, but have known the profound peace that comes with the realization that my parents would make any sacrifice for my happiness. I could get fired from my job... my house could burn down... I could be a drug addict... I could have a baby... but I can think of several people who would provide for me unconditionally. I cannot believe how crazily lucky I am. I did nothing to deserve this comfort... I inherited it. It's as if I was given the rarest gift on the day I entered the world. I've done nothing profoundly noble. I'm not a hero or a scholar. I make coffee part time to pay my rent and spend way too much money traveling to Malibu to visit my best friend.
I know few exceptions to this luck. Most of my friends were similarly born in America... to families that love them.. however dysfunctional. We sleep on store bought mattresses, drink clean water from our faucets, and laugh at dumb videos we watch on the Internet. Some of my friends live more luxuriously than others, but even those of us who live pay check to pay check know we can find an easy way to eat our next meal. We are so lucky. I am so lucky. And I have done absolutely nothing I can think of that could inspire me to say "I, Crosby Damron, deserve this."
The portrait of someone who deserves such a stress-free life is easy for me to paint. She wakes up at five to go to work. She works over forty hours a week in a crazy, loud, hot kitchen making food for picky customers who are rarely satisfied. She exits the kitchen for her break sweating, smiling, and laughing. She never complains, thankful for the opportunity to support her children. Her personality is magical, known for loving everyone and being beautifully open with her affections. She has seen far more than her share of fear and heartache, as she fled her home for the promise of a country that would keep her future babies safe. She has taught herself English piece by piece, and seeks opportunities that will make her speech more fluent. She lives in fear of deportation, hiding from the government that she hoped would protect her. Her children attend public school, and she pores over their homework every night, relishing in her own dream that her children lead the lives she blissfully imagines for them. She immigrated here from Mexico and manifests the ideology of the American dream in a way that puts my peers and I to shame.
If one of us has to be deported... I nominate myself. My merits for the inheritance of the privileges are painfully unfounded. If hard work and constant ambition for betterment are stipulations of the American Dream... those of us who have earned our privileges on luck alone have no more right to the entitlements of being an American citizen than those who have snuck across the border. We simply snuck into hospitals.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
If this country can find in its heart to abide by its promise to the fearful of this world... I can possibly find it in my heart to declare once again someday that I am proud to be an American.
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