THIS AMERICA – Katherine Burger
I don’t have to tell you how bad thing are here in America – the escala9ng and
terrifying insults to democracy, the rule of law, civil rights, the environment,
everything. Several friends of mine are looking into getting dual citizenship, or
leaving the country altogether. But I think that I’m too old to reinvent myself in
another country. And I feel that I am profoundly American; this country’s history is
my own, my forbears are part of the American story.
Ancestors on both sides of my family came over on the Mayflower and fanned out
across New England and beyond. On my mother’s side, Mercy Otis Warren was a
poet, playwright and political activist before and during the American Revolution.
When the British imposed the stamp act in 1775, she and her husband James
began holding protest meetings at their home in Plymouth. After the British fired
on civilians at Lexington & Concord, she wrote to John Adams, who would
become our second president, that it was time to act: “You should no long piddle
at the threshold. It is time to leap into the theater, to unlock the bars and open
every gate that impedes the rise and growth of the American Republic.” After the
war began, my father’s ancestor Henry Knox brought captured British cannons and
ordinance from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, pushing the war towards a rebel
victory. Another of my mother’s forebears, James Otis, was one of the signers of
the Declaration of Independence.
Then in the years leading up to the Civil War, my great great grandfather on my
mother’s side, Sidney Howard Gay, a fervent abolitionist and conductor on the
Underground Railroad, helped over 3,000 souls escape enslavement. My great
grandfather on my father’s side, John Jay Elmendorf Rothery, gave pro bono legal
advice to the Mashpee Indians on Cape Cod over land disputes, helping to ensure
their rights. A few decades on, other ancestors of mine fought for women’s
sufferage and other social justice issues.
My father’s grandfather Joe Burger was a Bavarian Jew, who married Scottish
Lizzie Knox in Tennessee, where Joe founded the Knoxville Bank. America wove
both of my father’s grandparents into the fabric of these United States. Their son
Carl, my grandfather, product of the marriage of Bavarian Jewish and Scottish
immigrants, was an artist; he illustrated the classic American children’s books “Old
Yeller” and “The Incredible Journey.” As a young man he fought in World War I, in France.
My father Knox was in the Pacific Theater in World War II, and was a
reporter for Yank Magazine.
Anita Parkhust Willcox was married to my mother’s cousin Henry. She was a
professional commercial artist and a political activist, attending peace conferences
in India and China, working for nuclear disarmanent and running afoul of the
McCarthy crowd. My mother Otis worked with city planning theorist, Jane Jacobs,
in opposing Robert Moses’ insane plan to run a highway through Greenwich
Village.
So I come from a long line of interesting, patriotic Americans who got into good
trouble. I feel both the honor and the charge of obligation to all of them. I too
want to be a stalwart, resiliant, patriotic and compassionate American citizen and I
want to honor my ancestors.
I want to bear witness in an America which is under attack. And I try not to just
piddle at the threshold, but to be proactive: I vote in every election and stump for
candidates I believe in; I give money to groups who are fighting the good fight on
many fronts; I write and call to my representatives; I march in demonstrations –
“B.B.King yes! King Trump, no!!!”; I try to be civil to my Trump-y neighbor .
And every morning I check the headlines to see if Donald Trump’s fast food diet
has caught up with him. Not yet. But when he does die – probably clutching at all
his gilded gew gaws as he goes down – I hope he will not take the whole country –
the whole planet – down with him. These are deeply disturbing and discouraging
times, but I try to find shards of joy where I can.
I hold a vision of a freedom loving, progressive and inclusive America in my heart.
Even though I came of age in the 60’s, my American vision board reflects an
earlier era, looking like WPA posters and scored by Woody Guthrie or Aaron
Copeland, maybe directed by Frank Capra.
But I glory in the fact that every American has the right to their own American
theme song – by Eddie Palmieri or Bad Bunny, Beonce, Coltrane, Cherish the
Ladies, Lin Manuel Miranda, or Lawrence Welk. America is a country that has
both welcomed and reviled immigrants, but has always been made stronger, more
resilient, more interesting with each new wave. It’s a big country, and we all
belong and we all have a lot of work to do. I’m not going anywhere.