Category: Americans
After passing through security, visitors to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Oakland Park, Florida, are greeted by a replica of the Statue of Liberty. To the left of it stands a windowed vending machine, almost as tall as the statue and displaying American classics like Munchos and Doritos. Next to this vending machine stands another, emblazoned with a large picture of a Pepsi.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of salt and sugar.
In his Letters, Saul Bellow writes of Tuley High School, which he entered in 1930:
"The children of Chicago bakers, tailors, peddlers, insurance agents, pressers, cutters, grocers, the sons of families on relief, were reading buckram-bound books from the public library and were in a state of enthusiasm, having found themselves on the shore of a novelistic land to which they really belonged, discovering their birthright, hearing incredible news from the great world of culture, talking to one another about the mind, society, art, religion, epistomology..."
I don't want to suggest a decline, but does that remind you of any high school today?
It's wonderful growing up speaking English. You have all those words (600,000 in the 2nd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary) and all those people around the world who know at least a few of them.
But few Americans take advantage of this dual blessing: 75 percent of us have never had a passport, and our working vocabularies - thanks in part to our pusillanimous newspapers - are actually quite small.
Last night, in my English conversation class, there was mention in the lesson of a book titled "How To Be Your Own Boss." I asked the students what kind of book this was.
"An autohelp book," the woman from Argentina said.
"Close," I said, writing on the board "self-help." I told her that occasionally we use the prefix "auto" and then wrote on the board the word "autodidact." I mentioned that many Americans wouldn't know what it means, though the Argentinian and the Chilean (a housewife and a maintenance man) both knew immediately, as they use it in Spanish.
After slipping in my ballots this morning (God bless early voting) I was handed a little round sticker that read "My Vote Counted." It was a version of the gold stars schoolchildren are given - a reinforcement of good behavior - and I wondered if the United States is the only country in which adults are rewarded for doing what should come naturally. Do French strikers, after rallying in the streets, receive stickers that say: "My Voice Counted"?
I thought of this as I walked to see my South American friend M. I gave him the sticker, telling him he could wear it to ward off immigration police. (Even though he's here legally, he still gets harassed.) "I was going to dress for Halloween," he said, "as a Mexican migrant worker."
A casino has opened in Philadelphia, the former home of Benjamin Franklin, who wrote: "A penny saved is a penny earned."
I'm thoroughly enjoying Fresh Air's country music week, during which Terry Gross is playing old interviews with country greats. Yesterday, I heard Waylon Jennings tell her: "You ask some good questions, girl."
She plays songs as well, mostly classics. I never cared much for country music until a few years ago, when I went to Nashville for the Southern Festival of Books. One night I went to dinner with some people from the Oxford American, and heading back downtown the driver, a local, put on an old Johnny Cash CD. Hearing him and his family sing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" while riding through the nighttime streets of Nashville opened my eyes.
A few months ago I returned to the city and went to the Grand Ole Opry, which was back at the Ryman Auditorium because Opryland had been damaged by the spring flood. The place was packed - Loretta Lynn was on the bill - and the circle remained unbroken.