“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Land of the free, home of the brave:
In the quest for global expansion, Europeans embarked on voyages seeking to establish colonies and extend their influence from their small yet potent corner of the world. Early colonists and settlers who arrived in America saw it as a place to taste freedom, escaping the rigid class-based societies they had left behind. They aspired to create a new world not predetermined by the monarch's power.
Monarchs wielded lifelong power, often passed down through their hereditary lineage. Their core values typically remained aligned, and while cultural traditions held significant importance, they often slowed innovation and progress.
This system heavily relied on enslaved labor, enabling cost reduction and accumulating immense wealth, using spiritual and societal justifications to legitimize forced labor to seek redemption. Consequently, people could theoretically earn forgiveness for their sins, but achieving redemption meant the end of free labor. This paradox led to a never-ending cycle of generations toiling towards redemption without the possibility of attaining it, ultimately locking entire family lines into their societal positions for generations to come.
Declaring Independence:
People in the American colonies understandably decided they did not want to live in a fixed and frigid world. They declared their freedom from Britain, leading to one of the most significant documents in American history: The Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence unequivocally proclaims that all men are created equal. Still, historically, this equality has primarily been applied to people of European descent, regardless of whether they originated from Germany, Scotland, the U.K., or elsewhere in Europe. This equality was a significant advantage for them. An example is the historical conflict between the U.K. and Scotland, where people from conflicting European regions were acknowledged as equals in America.
However, people of non-European descent and women were not covered under the newly established blanket of equality.
Whose Land is it Anyway?
I learned about the pilgrims in grade school- and how the pilgrims sat down with the "Indians" in a Thanksgiving Day celebration. But I never stopped to ask why I didn't see any "Indians" around. Where did these mythical saviors go?
America's history tells the story of the side that prevailed while erasing the story of those eradicated or "domesticated" along the way. European elopers gained their freedom while taking the freedom of so many along the way.
One can argue that if a person wants a beautiful house, but someone is living in it, it’s morally and ethically wrong to burglarize or harm the home inhabitants to get it. Similarly, early American settlers took land that was already inhabited. They transplanted on American soil, erased millions of its original inhabitants, and established themselves as Americans.
And perhaps they are right, in a way, to feel entitled as "true Americans." This country wasn't known as America until an explorer called Christopher Columbus and a cartographer called Amerigo Vespucci entered the picture.
This leads me to ask, “What was America called before it became America?” And this question isn't easy to research or answer. One name I found is Abya Yala.
I've also read accounts of how Natives didn't know anything else existed outside this continent and some coastal islands. To them, this land mass was the whole world.
Imagine people whose entire world was taken from them- their land, culture, and language. It must have been deeply traumatic.
And this isn't just in America. It's happened in other lands around the world that faced colonization. It took a long time for me to realize that indigenous Australians didn't look like Nicole Kidman or Hugh Jackman. They looked more like the characters from the movie "Moana," yet we rarely see them in news, movies, or other modern-day storytelling.
This historical recount isn't to make anyone feel bad. Americans living today didn't create the world we live in. It was inherited from our ancestors.
Maybe the descendants of colonizers feel horrible for what happened, so they act like it never happened. Disassociation is a coping technique often used when the truth feels too painful to face. But we must accept that humans of all races have basic needs- many of which have not been met across the untold pages of history.
Privilege & Needs:
All human beings have very similar needs, regardless of race and skin color. However, in modern history, only the needs of people of European descent have been considered. We've used words like white privilege to describe this global phenomenon, and I know it's a word that is triggering. Maybe we need to look for another descriptive word or phrase. But we need language to be able to talk about it. And we need to talk about this collectively.
There are entire books written on the complexity of privilege, but I like to boil down concepts into ideas that are simple and easy to digest. Here's my definition:
Privilege- the needs and emotions of one race are prioritized over everyone else's.
But all humans are similar and have similar emotional and basic needs. This nation promises to allow all citizens a path toward fulfillment if they choose. The pursuit of happiness.
Final Thoughts:
I'm grateful to live in this country because it offers me more rights and opportunities for personal growth and self-expression than I would have had if I lived in Mexico, where my family is from. However, I can't help but feel that I don't enjoy the same access to happiness and fulfillment as the privileged citizens of our country do.
Our Declaration of Independence contains fantastic ideas of equality and equity for all that, after hundreds of years are starting to come alive. I view America as a rough draft because, as a collective, we haven't accepted that ALL men are created equal and have equal basic needs.
History will continue to repeat itself until we face who we are. There is a reckoning that we are all facing together. There should be no winners or losers, only collective healing and solution-finding.
We are not the same people we were just a few hundred years ago. We are also evolving as a society and learning that collaboration yields more productivity and innovation than exploitation and extreme and unjust forms of punishment.
I can't speak for everyone, but I don't want anyone's hand-outs. I want the space and support to bring my desires and goals to life because I cannot pursue happiness if I struggle to survive physically and/or emotionally.
So, I ask that our world gives those neglected throughout history safe spaces for healing. It's time to step out of that scarcity mindset because we can all create value. The more value we bring from within, the more we can pursue happiness collectively.
Let's not build walls; let's build bigger tables.
Amor y Canela,
Monica
