This Fourth of July, celebrating America feels harder than ever before | Opinion

For years when I was a child, my mother would organize our street’s annual Fourth of July block party.

Mom, starting in the mid-90s, would apply for a permit to barricade our block in Foothill Farms, so us kids could run wild all day. We often welcomed both friends and strangers from the surrounding streets, and even other towns and states. The day was filled with pie-eating contests, water balloon fights, bike parades for the kids, grill parades for the dads, house decorating and chalk art contests, music, and a massive amount of drinks and food piled on long tables stretching down the middle of the street.

Opinion

The evening culminated in the whole neighborhood pooling their fireworks for an hour-long show. Our dads would compete in friendly antics to see who could stand under the most sparks to light the next flare, with a beer in one hand and a lighter in the other.

It was picture-perfect, sweet Americana.

But over the years, the block party fizzled out. Us kids got older and started to move away from home or go to college. Mom got tired of planning it every year, and frankly — as the country got deeper and deeper into an unpopular war in the Middle East — it became harder to celebrate America with the kind of childlike naivete we all once possessed, the adults included.

It’s been many years since our last block party. Now, my relationship to the holiday has changed so drastically, that these days, I’ve found it incredibly hard to celebrate what was once my favorite day of the year.

Our country is in a tailspin: The Supreme Court has abolished my bodily autonomy as a woman by overturning Roe v. Wade. On Monday, they all but declared the president a king, with immunity for illegal acts done while in office. Inflation, healthcare, gun violence, a rise in crime, racism, education cuts and budget deficits are all at the top of American minds this summer, according to the Pew Research Center.

And don’t forget (as if you could) that we are now staring down the barrel of the single most contentious election season of our lives. Americans seem further apart than ever, so how can we possibly celebrate a country that is causing us so much daily angst?

This year will be the 248th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Then, as now, it was a bold and stirring statement to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

But what does it mean to be a patriot in 2024? Can I still hold love for a country when its leaders often feel intent on hurting me, my friends and my family? The American Dream seems impossible to reach, and even the traditional markers of success — homeownership, marriage, a steady job — don’t feel like strong enough bulwarks against such national chaos.

I find some small comfort in my memories of those block parties, because my mom didn’t just teach me that the Fourth of July is about pies and water balloons and fireworks: She deeply believed in America, and taught me that our country is a wonderful and tenuous experiment that needs constant tweaking and updating.

Our laws are a living document, and nothing needs to be permanent if the people decide it doesn’t work for them. Ultimately, she taught me that it’s up to us as Americans to decide what our country looks like, how it treats people and how it operates. If we don’t like it, then we have a responsibility to fight and change it — and that’s true patriotism.

So I think the most patriotic thing we could possibly do this year, and in the coming years, is continue to voice our dissent in order to create a more perfect union. Our country was built on the ideology of making things better. It’s in our blood as Americans.

It’s obvious the next few decades are going to be extremely different from those halcyon years of serene Americana that my generation grew up with — perhaps the last generation to do so. I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything, but they’re only that: Memories.

It’s time to grow up. It’s time to be real patriots, and real patriots risk their lives, honor and financial security to do what’s right. For the Fourth if July this year, we have to seriously discuss what we can do to create an inclusive, loving and successful America — as individuals and together.

If the holiday doesn’t feel hopeful and celebratory to you this year, as to me, then we can at least make sure it’s not hopeless. There’s still time to speak up for what is right and do what is right.

Because when, in the course of human events, it sometimes becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another — and create something new.

I’m scared for the future, but my mother never gave up hope that America could and would be better, and neither will I.