To all our readers: Happy Independence Day! This week we’ve published a handful of essays about how much we love this country: Nikki Haley wrote about the speech Calvin Coolidge gave on America’s 150th; Rod Dreher explained why he’s moved back here from Europe; and Caitlin Flanagan reflected on loving her country even when it troubles her. There’s no Weekend Press today, because we want you to spend as much of today as possible celebrating the U.S. But make some time, between the grill and the Popsicles, for Larissa Phillips’s latest essay. It’s about how her patriotism was challenged in an unlikely place: her own classroom. Larissa runs a reading group for adults, and her students are immigrants—middle-aged women who crossed oceans to become U.S. citizens, but have lately come to believe their country is taking away their rights. Hearing their complaints, Larissa bristled. Then she asked: Have any of you ever read the Bill of Rights? They said no, and the rest is history. —The Editors
“We don’t have any rights!” said one woman.
“That’s true,” another woman agreed. “They’ve taken all our rights away.”
“And they’re not done,” another added. “Everything is getting worse. They’re going to bring us back to Jim Crow.”
This might sound like the rhetoric of activists, but we weren’t at a rally or on a college campus. This was an online reading group I lead, attended by usually middle-aged adults who are studying to pass the GED. The women in the class were mostly legal immigrants from African and Caribbean countries, who have become American citizens through naturalization. The majority came here in search of a better life for themselves or their children—or both. They’d grown up hearing stories from friends or relatives who’d moved to America and came back home to visit with suitcases bursting with gifts for everyone—sneakers and jeans and sweatshirts.
Now, they’re the ones expected to bring home presents. “They think you’re making so much money, but they don’t know how expensive it is to live,” one woman said wearily, during a recent discussion.
These women have been nannies or nursing home employees throughout the boroughs of New York City. They clearly believe in the necessity of hard work, and also believe in themselves enough to come to classes night after night in their quest for the thing that gets you ahead in America: education.
I’ve been working with immigrants since 2006, when I randomly fell into a job in an adult literacy center (work that eventually led me to start the Volunteer Literacy Project.) I was immediately moved by this self-selecting crowd of make-it-happen types. Their optimism, stoicism, and toughness—on the part of the women, especially—even inspired me to face some of my own demons. How could I quail at life’s challenges when surrounded by people who face them with such resolve?
