[제 2회 드림에세이 수상작] Elise Lee - 'America the Revolutionary'

Grade: 11th / High School: Crescenta Valley High School

Anthony Walton, a political party president, once said, “America’s greatest strength, and its greatest weakness, is our belief in second chances, our belief that we can always start over, that things can be made better.” Such is the contradicting and powerful truth pertaining to the great nation that we hail today as the United States of America. The country’s civilians are subject to incidents and ideals that are marked in the books as having forever altered the very course of history. Living in America, we are presented freedoms that exist nowhere else in the world, and we are exposed to life-changing opportunities that we would only dare dream of, but despite all this, we have also seen the limits of what this nation can achieve.

Freedom, defined as the lack of restrictions, is ever present in the daily lives of those who reside in America. From what we choose to attire ourselves in to what we choose to view on television, the choice is ours to make. In fact, the United States is the very epitome of freedom, having decided to wrest itself from the oppressive bonds of its mother nation, Great Britain, in the year of 1776. From thereon, Americans have made the most of their freedoms. On occasions, when it was felt that certain liberties were being denied or unrecognized, amendments were made to the Constitution of the United States, known as the Bill of Rights. A prominent demonstration of the freedoms granted in America was displayed in 2004, in which Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage. Other states followed soon after.

However, in the majority of other regions in the globe, such as the country France, same-sex marriage bills have been repeatedly rejected. America has slowly warmed to the idea of offering the freedom to those within its borders to establish a permanent bond with the person that an individual loves, a show of what the nation is capable of. Furthermore, America puts forward religious tolerance, and consequently, the nation has become a melting pot of a variety of cultures and their religions. In areas, such as the Middle East, many would be persecuted for not adhering to a set god or codes. Living in America has granted its civilians potential to become superior individuals and has offered them countless opportunities to revolutionize the world.

Opportunities, or chances, are not an uncommon sight in the United States of America. The nation has become a magnet of sorts in recent years, as many migrate towards the irresistible pull of America and the dreams that it has to propose. The United States is the only realm of its kind to harness the ability to offer what has been termed as the “American Dream”, in which individuals have at their disposal the supplies to provide bountifully for themselves and their families. This dream has instilled in many the hope that they might possibly fashion better lives from the rusty and disused ones that they held previously. Living in America, this “rags-to-riches” story is not unheard of, made renowned in the illustrations of a select few, such as Christopher Paul Gardner.

He and several others have risen from the ashes of their unfortunate pasts into wondrous futures as brilliantly-colored, ever-rising phoenixes. Existing in America offers us the momentous prospect of being able to tinker ourselves into great entities and legends. Perhaps, more exemplary of living in the United States is the opportunity to exceed certain barriers to achieve one’s dreams that might have been deemed impossible only half a century earlier.

President Barack Obama, sworn into office in 2009, has surpassed racial barriers that had previously restrained individuals of color from entering elections and holding government positions. President Obama is an astounding example of America’s capability of changing and accepting with open arms those who would make a difference both within and without its national borders. Living in America allows us the occasion of breaking with limiting and oppressing traditions and being able to turn to tomorrow with hope gleaming in our eyes.

On the other hand, the United States of America has had its boundaries to what it could expand upon. Although the Constitution guaranteed equal rights to all men, the nation, in times of difficulties and troubles, has taken to subverting itself to certain alarming policies. A glaring instance would be the terrible concentration of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans into camps in Midwest America.

The Supreme Court legalized this war-time action under its ruling in the case Korematsu vs United States. Living in America at this time, not only were Japanese Americans subject to such discrimination but those with Japanese ancestry in addition to majority of many Asians as well. Families were torn apart and would have difficulty recovering following the end of such internment after World War II drew to a close. Additionally, the United States has also demonstrated inability to endure mass hysteria and speculation for too long.

In the years following World War II and the onset of the Cold War, Americans were made victims by others like themselves. Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed he had the names of communists working in the government, and although he never revealed them, it threw the nation into disarray, questioning the loyalties and allegiances of all around them. Living in America at the time proved difficult as the first Americans, the Rosenberg couple were convicted and executed of espionage during peacetime.

This “red scare” depicted the nation’s vulnerability to fear that it was not quite ready to confront. As civilians in this nation, we often take for granted the freedoms that we are endowed today. We turn a blind eye to these various examples offered in history that have assisted in creating the dramatic transformations that we see implemented presently.

In the end, America poses as a symbol of change that many other nations around the globe cannot possibly comprehend. Living in this country that we know as the United States of America, it has become all too simple to underestimate the struggles and hardships that time and time again it has had to overcome. But that is not the end of it—America also rises as the nation in which dreams are forged and hopes are created. Ultimately, America is the one of the only places in the world where we, its people, can proudly declare that united we stand and united we fall.
We are revolutionary.