What Does America Mean to Me

What does America mean to me?

Posted by Tawan , Reader : 315 , 14:57:26
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With the American elections coming up, I thought it would be a good time to think about not just candidates or policies but to go back to the simple but difficult question of what is America. What is so great about America? What is the American dream? What does America mean to me? I would like to try to answer. My answer is immigration and Hollywood.

America is made up of people from every single country in the world. I still have an inner laugh when I hear people in Thailand say “that person does not look like an American” because I also had the same Hollywood image of clean cut W.A.S.P. faces living in beautiful white picketed fence houses before my limited stay in America. America is like the United Nations but with one big difference. After all of the socializing and ideology discussions at the UN they can pat each other on the back and go home. Not so for America, America is one large living breathing laboratory where every race, nationality, creed, colour. Philosophies and religions learn to live together in this world of ours. Through trial and error, success and failure all of mankind is living in the great laboratory called America.

America attracts talent and dreams from people in every corner of the world. Children are taught that they are unique. Science teaches them that from all the DNA genetic code sequence and human genome switches can offer amazing combinations through the sum of mankind’s history and future all available in one laboratory America and every life is special and everything is up to you, and yes, you can be a bum or a president, up to you, does not depend on the way you were born.
You really do not need to understand all the zillions of laws created in modern times to explain America. The founding fathers said it best all men are free and all men are created equal that is the attraction that brought mankind to America. Maybe America’s isolation period and being so far away from the troubles in Asia and Europe or the escaping of destruction from two world wars gave time for the basic freedom of mankind to incubate and grow in the great laboratory America. I am sure there are other reasons but to understand America you would have to understand her Mother England and that part of the puzzle I do not have.

In my life time two great influences were Hollywood and Bollywood. Bollywood, there is nothing better to explain human nature, but for the dreams of mankind nothing better than Hollywood. Hollywood can be seen in every adventure of mankind all the way to the moon where man first set foot on the moon we came in peace for all of mankind to the messages of the Voyager space craft’s or Hollywood’s “to boldly go where no man has gone before”. Nothing sparks the imagination of mankind than Hollywood.

So what is the American Dream? It is the words from the Founding Fathers that gave birth to a safe and stable environment for Mankind to incubate and grow. What is so great about America? It is a place to meet and learn from Mankind from every corner of the globe. What is America? Look in the mirror it is you.

Thailand will always be Thailand, China will always be China, Japan will always be Japan and India will always be India. But America will always be Mankind.
What does America mean to me? America is Mankind.