From Sea to Shining Sea

I went to public school — the kind of school that you’d send your kid to because you couldn’t afford to consider any other. We pledged allegiance during home room, hands on hearts with somber tones, the teacher in her brown, dusty cardigan that she wore every day for five days a week. There was one boy that would often stay seated, completely unaware that this was required for his social grade. He would be told repeatedly: “Stand up, John! Everyone has to do it. You’re not special.” Yet, we all ignored this spectacle, worried that we may be reprimanded for steering our eyes away from the flag that swayed from the pole on the beige wall next to the chalkboard. One man under God, indivisible. I was benevolent to this process, numb and writhing with the temperance of a toddler.

We were told that this was important. This was part of being American. From sea to shining sea, I collected myself and went to class, wondering to myself if I could ever live in my American dream. Except that dream came with conditions. The kind that was filled with intolerable professors, electronic devices, a laundry list of degrees to choose from. We could be successful they said. We just had to work hard because when we became adults, there was no going back. I told myself that I was grateful to be the daughter of an immigrant family. The pressure was building and I knew that I had to pledge allegiance not only to the American flag, but to all the people in my community.

Here, we are destined to the capitalist culture. Go to class, get good grades, and prepare yourself for the real world. American in every sense of the word. The stars that made up our flag sparked and gleamed. It was easy to go along with the game because it was designed that way to keep us in an infinite loop. One nation, under God. Improperly placed and definitively bogus, my American dream was desirable only because it was attainable through the lens of the Media, Presidents, McGraw textbooks, and my number two pencil. I needed an encore, something that would tell me: “You are doing well! You got this!” The thrones were limited in fact and if I crossed to the other side, witnessing the disparity among the upper class, it brought to bended knee.

Spacious skies filled with drones of watchers, the ones that told us we were not allowed to do what others did. Our parents may have cared too little or too much, yet that did not stop us from the filters that were pressed onto our minds. We knew what we had to say happened, even if it didn’t. The game was like a system. Teachers were at the top, wrangling their lesson plans and checklists. We were in the middle, unfolded at our old and used wooden desks, indented at the top center with scratched names of students that were there before us.

We were American through and through, even with the burden of industrialization and technological advancements in the horizons. Conferences came and went, perhaps with a beating because we laughed too much in class. An American dance to ease our minds, the fruit punch bowl filled with discarded thoughts and no alcohol. We brought our own and sneaked our way into the gym, hoping no one found us. The promised land was just outside those steel doors, waiting for us to arrive with printed resumes and smiling faces. The days started to blend together. By graduation, I was part of a drowning collective. We threw our caps and drank beer behind the bleachers, dreaming our American dream that just in reach. I still dream of it every night, hoping that one day every pledge I’d taken, gospel of tried and true, bursting at the seams. It’s not really a game anymore. The players have resigned to watchers, harboring the next generation of American children.