Reflections on the Fourth of July

And God provided...

That phrase seems like the perfect introductory phrase for so many aspects of my life here in South Korea.  God really does provide - not just the essential elements, but also the minute and seemingly-unimportant portions too. And today is another example of God's blessing...

For Americans, the fourth of July means something.  This date may evoke different reactions, but for a day - or at the very least, an evening - we all stop and celebrate freedom and inevitably thank our troops.  It's great!  The food, the music, the friends, the family, the fireworks...  It is who we are and it is what we do.  It is an important aspect of American culture.

When I was younger, I used to believe that Americans didn't have a culture.  School taught us that America was a melting pot of peoples and cultures and races.  We were a beautiful mosaic, unique in the world, and stronger because of our diversity.  But while each section of my social studies textbook had a paragraph or a chapter on the cultural heritage of African-Americans or Hispanic Americans or Asian Americans, there never seemed to be anything that was strictly Caucasian-American or random-mixture-of-a-bunch-of-Europeans-American. I used to question whether I had a culture and I was so envious of the people I met who could dress in an ethnic garb (i.e. a sari) or cook food from their "mother country" or speak a different language.  They all had physical symbols to unite them in community and I had nothing. For instance, McDonald's is American, but I don't feel like that represents my culture.   However, today, walking onto base and hearing music from the 80's, seeing people who look like me and those who don't (the diversity was astounding and so welcome in this very homogenous culture!!!), smelling the hamburgers and hotdogs... the scene was completely and totally American - not Korean at all. I realized that I do have a culture and I was so happy to celebrate an American holiday with the men and women serving my country.

Tonight, I am so proud to be an American.