Photo: Ruben Natal-San Miguel, TransAMErican (Jesse) 2015, Orchard Beach Bronx, NYC, 24×36 inches, unique C-Print.
Sigmund Freud famously remarked, “America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen.” The very idea that the twin engines of genocide and slavery upon which the nation was built are conducive to the conditions for an “experiment” suggests a quixotic cocktail of cold-blooded aggression and self-righteous entitlement. Such presumptuousness is difficult to top, although not in light of the Republican National Convention’s antics this week. Here we see the second part of Freud’s quote, the part where he acknowledged, “but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.”
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It’s been rather grim, this 2016, like a terrible season of Game of Thrones where you hate everybody. Except, you don’t. You totally dig it. Your America. Not “our.” That’s a lovely illusion we like to tell ourselves, but have you ever noticed the flag has a whole lot of action going on? Three colors. Thirteen stripes. Fifty stars. You could Bedazzle it and folks would love it all the more.
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Because…we love our little corner of this world, a place most of us are not originally from. Many Americans come from immigrants in some shape and form—and then there are Americans who were brought here in chains, against their will. But what we all share, in some shape or form, is the desire to be here, and to be Americans. (SN: Expatriates don’t talk about it; they are just up and gone).
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In the twenty-first century, the United States is a curious place, one that is heavily polarized on countless levels: race, religion, gender, sexuality, class. It’s like the 1960s all over again, if it were happening in the 1930s. Dizzifying, if that’s a word. But it’s where we’ve come, so here we are.
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Photo: Ruben Natal-San Miguel, AMEricano (Star Spangled Immigrant), 2016, Washington Heights, NYC. Copyright of the artist. WE:AMERicans @ Station Independent Projects, NYC.