Inauguration Nation

Everybody's talking about it, CNN is covering it non-stop, Colbert and Stewart are joking about it, some are celebrating it and others are bemoaning the end of an era, but it's true what they say: tomorrow everything changes. Barack Obama is soon to be inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States, and whatever he does or faces, whatever his administration decides, whatever new policies greet us in the new day, this much is clear: it is a momentous occasion. But as we consider the momentous nature of tomorrow's event and the sense of "hope" and oncoming "change" that drew millions of first-time voters to the polls in November, I think it's important to consider the thing that is on the tip of everyone's mind but hardly ever discussed: who are we?

Now, I don't mean to suggest a mass existential crisis or widespread searching for ancestry or genetic records; what I mean to ask is who are we as a nation? With the election of Barack Obama and his arrival as President of the Union, are we the same nation that we have been since 2001? Clearly, the answer is no. But this is a larger question than just which administration is in power; it is a question hinted at by the latest Pepsi commercials and the massive turn-out among young voters. The unique thing about the United States of America--a quality it alone can claim among the many nations of this planet--is that it is a nation of no majority ethnic or racial makeup. From Native Americans to the early Pilgrims, the descendants of slavery-era Blacks to the Quakers fleeing persecution by order of the Crown, and Irish, Italian, German, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, and the hundreds of other immigrant groups, each and every one of us has a unique ancestry that rarely comes close to those around us. It is at once our blessing, the thing that makes us the nation of opportunity whether the economy is strong or not, and our curse, our great divider. And with the eve of this election, I think (and correct me if you think I'm wrong) that we as a people have moved one tiny step closer to accepting our sort of multiple identity disorder.

In what was probably my best class in college, loosely titled Race and Politics in the United States, one class section was devoted to this very question of who we are as a nation and, more importantly, as a culture. Having just returned from a six-month sejour in Paris when I took the class, I found the question particularly compelling as I and my compatriots [pun intended] faced questions of what it meant to be an American abroad--who were we, for example, to the waiter in the cafe, to the guy across from us on the metro, and to ourselves? I have to admit that in Paris was one of the first times I truly contemplated what it meant to be mixed race--as well as to be black--in the United States. In the US we cling to our ethnic and racial identity, trying to be a part of as many minorities (or majorities, as the case may be) as possible. I myself can claim at least 4 minority statuses (each of which has an associated lobbying group), statuses to do with my racial make-up, my sexual orientation, and my health issues (if I really searched I'm sure I could find many more). The question becomes, though, if we are so focused on what makes us different, what makes us unique, how are we ever going to find out what we have in common?

For example, is it more American to eat a hamburger and fries from McDonalds or to eat a prime New York steak with peppercorn gorgonzola glaze, long-grain rice and fresh picked vegetables? Is it more American to offer schooling and temporary work permits to immigrants, or to build a wall to keep them out? Is it more American to pursue a policy of active, pre-emptive invasion of purported enemy territory or to pursue multi-lateral negotiations mediated by UN representatives? Is it more American to embrace prayer in the classroom or to take the word God out of all public speeches, writings and displays?

These questions are just a few of the examples of the types of questions that we divide ourselves over these days, but, as we've learned recently, as a divided nation we stand to go nowhere. Critics and skeptics have decried the laziness of the younger generation, the inactivity of college students when it came to the Iraq war and Katrina (as opposed to the violence surrounding Vietnam), and our seeming disengagement with the real world in favor of the Internet. But what our elders oft fail to see is that the Internet and increased communication and access to information have brought about something that has taken nearly a decade to arrive but is now arriving with full force: the arrival of diversity as our defining principle. As we embrace our new President, I think it's time we throw out questions like what it means to be American and instead embrace one defining principle: to be American is to be whoever you are. Until we accept every American for who he or she is, we will never achieve what I believe to be the dream of our greatest historical figures from the founding fathers to Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr., from Susan B. Anthony to Hillary Clinton, and from Vietnam to Iraq: a nation that does not judge and does not discriminate, but that gives the right to citizenship and to the rights of our Constitution to all who want them. After it all, do we, "The People of the United States of America," still hold those eternal truths to be self-evident.