Land of the Free?

While in the school library with a friend one day, doing my government homework, I quietly read the information on my worksheet aloud. When I came to the requirements to be President of the United States, I blinked and reread one item, thinking I'd made a mistake. I hadn't, though: the President of the United States has to be a natural-born citizen.

I realize this seems reasonable – if the U.S. were at war with the president's home country it would be difficult, to say the least, for the resident to make decisions based on what's best for America if it could seriously harm the other country. That is, it would be difficult if the president actually remembered this country. What happens if, as an infant, your family moved from Spain to America? What happens if you were adopted from Thailand or India as a baby?

One might argue that you would still have family in your home country even if you left as a baby. But let's say your grandparents live in another country, and your parents moved to America before you were born; you'd still have family in a foreign country, but you'd also have the opportunity to be president.

People argue that any foreign-born citizen would have special ties to their country. But personal heritage means a lot to most people, and many still practice the traditions of the country of their ancestors, regardless of their country of birth.

I'm half Native American, a member of the Nanticoke tribe, and proud of it – just as I'm proud to be an American. To my people, America's founders were English invaders who took my ancestors from their land, killed large numbers of them, and forced my Cherokee forebears to walk the Trail of Tears. Many people whose ancestors lived alongside mine now live on reservations, where long ago they were dumped in the middle of a wasteland by the British.

If you look at that situation and consider the heritage argument, it makes no sense for adopted Russian children to be banned from a chance at the presidency, but not the Native Americans. Yet I know that if a Native American ever were banned from becoming president solely because of his or her heritage, I could count on the nation to stand up and make such an uproar that the problem would be fixed. It's too bad the adopted Chinese baby, or the Cuban infant whose parents moved to the United States in hope of a better life can't expect the same.

America has many names: the free world, land of liberty, and the United States of America. What's “free” about not being allowed to run for president because you weren't born here? We honor Martin Luther King Jr.'s efforts against discrimination, yet it seems as though we've forgotten what it means to make a place free of discrimination, to fight for equality for all people. America is the Land of Liberty? I propose a correction: America is the Land of Liberty to all born in our country. The United States? What's united about separating ourselves into native-born citizens and those born elsewhere?

We can start to address this right now – with the Pledge of Allegiance. Every American citizen knows it, but when was the last time you recited it and thought about the words, not about your next class or the homework you forgot to do? Is the pledge honest? What would it sound like if we changed the language to reflect this inequality?

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Disjointed States of America, and to the discriminatory republic for which it stands, a separated nation, under God, divided, with liberty and justice for some.”