America to Me – Past, Present, and Future

 

America to Me – a Nostalgic View

I recently turned on the radio and heard an unfamiliar Frank Sinatra song “The House I Live In,” also known as “What is America to Me?” Although not a Sinatra fan, the song brought tears to my eyes. Written in 1943 and previously recorded by Paul Robeson, it was featured and sung by Sinatra in the 1945 film of the same name. Both song and movie were created to combat racial prejudice and anti-Semitism at the end of World War II.

Growing up as an immigrant child of Holocaust survivors, America to me was defined by the faces I saw at school and in the street, people of all races, ethnicities, and religions living and working together free and in harmony. America to me was a country of diversity and tolerance, mutual respect and coexistence, a land of opportunity and freedom for all. I was proud to say the “Pledge of Allegiance” at school every day and to sing the “Star Spangled Banner” once a week at school assemblies. America to me was both a home and a country, a place of comfort and peace.

America to me, the land it used to be, the country I experienced as a child no longer exists. I remember gentler times when we knew and liked our neighbors, when local shopkeepers greeted us by name, when racially and ethnically diverse groups of children played together in the streets, when everyone was welcome to join in the ball games, watch or take part in jumping, rhyming, and turning double dutch ropes, when there was a candy store on the corner, and our classrooms were integrated.

America to Me – Today

The America we live in today is not the same. It is changed, difficult, and disturbing. The melting pot is not working; there is societal fragmentation. We are encouraging diversity at the expense of unity. The notion that we are of different races but share a common culture and a common humanity is eroding. People are feeling deeply anxious because we are more divided than ever, enveloped by a cloud of racial, ethnic, and religious animosity. There is rising anti-immigrant sentiment, bigotry, racism, homophobia, too many guns in the hands of the wrong people, mass shootings by deranged gunmen, religious fanaticism coupled with terrorist violence in the name of religion. Fear mongering has many convinced it is impossible to differentiate between immigrant, refugee, and terrorist.

America to Me – the Future

Art can be used as a vehicle for mending, for peace building, and for the construction of a better future. It can touch people, remind viewers of their humanity, embrace the cause of human rights for all people, advocate empathy as a way of life. Artists can disrupt the norm, awaken and inspire people to come together.  My own artwork introduces the possibility for transformation, healing, and repair. The process speaks of unity and integration; it physically unites disparate pieces of people to create something harmonious and new. I assemble, bring together, and combine diverse fragments to create a heavily textured whole which is more than the sum of its parts. Peace is achieved by piecing together a new world.