Measuring independence

I have the fortune of being "from" three different nations.

There's the country of my birth, the United Kingdom. Really, I consider myself to be Scottish, but I did spend some years in England, and it's not usually worth explaining the difference to Americans in casual conversation. I usually just say I'm British. Don't ever call me English.

Next, there's the country of my parents, my ethnicity, and my adolescence. That would be Bangladesh. I spent my entire decade there feeling like a foreigner, but I still have a fondness for the culture and the language, and my ties are tighter now that my sister now lives there too. Living in Bangladesh and seeing poverty, true poverty, gave me a perspective of what a charmed life I lead. Unlike my parents, though, I'm not moved enough to try to change the world. Perhaps it's because they've done such an amazing, literally world-changing, job in their chosen fields of human rights and environmental policy that I feel free to choose my quiet happy little life.

Instead, my third country is my country of choice. I chose to attend college in the United States. I chose to stay on for graduate school. I chose to marry an American, an American who happens to be a US soldier.

I had lunch in March with a coworker who turned out to be a history buff. He mentioned that it was Bangladeshi Independence Day, the day that the 1971 war that resulted in East Pakistan gaining its own nationhood as Bangladesh, began. Honestly, March 26 isn't a date I remember. Far more pertinent, and far more celebrated is December 16, the day the Pakistani army surrendered, the day that the nation of Bangladesh was born in the eyes of the world.

The fourth of July, to me, celebrates not only the independence of the USA from British rule, but the independence of thinking, the independence of spirit, of the folks who live here.

It's so typically American to celebrate the day on which the denizens of the North American colonies decided they were independent. That's what Independence Day is; it didn't matter, even back then, how the rest of world viewed the United States of America. Seriously, who celebrates September 3, the day the Treaty of Paris was signed, creating the US as a nation, recognized internationally? Who remembers? What Americans care to remember and to honour is the day that they decided they were done with British rule. Forget what the rest of the world thought.

And that is precisely why I choose to live here. (My politics would be appreciative of a greater awareness of the US's place in the world, but I won't get into that now.)

My American experience has been one where we support each other, build strong communities, and sacrifice for the good of the group. It's also one where we all do our own thing, however odd it seems. My American experience is one where my neighbours are a mixture of two-career couples, working Dads with stay-at-home Moms, childless couples, military families and civilians, born citizens and immigrants, and no one judges the decisions others have made.

So, when my nuclear family celebrates our Fourth of July by staying away from the booms of the fireworks, all four of us together, we're celebrating independence. When we call my father-in-law at work to wish him a happy Fourth of July, hoping he's at the fire station and not out saving inexperienced folks from their fireworks folly, we're celebrating community, and sacrifice, and independence. When we include my mother-in-law in our domestic Fourth via webcam, and feel like she's really here, we celebrate our flexibility, and abilty to find normalcy, no matter the distance.

Happy Fourth, everyone.