My new American friend

Over the last week I have been emailing with a deployed soldier who is of Lebanese decent. He immigrated to the U.S. only 5 years ago. During our emails, I mentioned two people I have known in my life who had also immigrated from Lebanon, one a very fine gentleman who was well educated and well thought of in the community, and the other a girl I went to high school with. He was Christian and she was Islamic. He wrote me back to thank me for saying such nice things about his countrymen. This hit me in a weird way. Can you imagine saying something similar to someone, “Thank-you for saying nice things about fellow Americans”?

America is so strong that we generally expect people from other countries to like us, or hate us, and we don’t generally feel it too deeply one way or the other. Sure we feel entitled when they like us, and when they don’t we don’t really care too much about it.

In the same email he asked what my race was. I had mentioned that when we first moved to the Pacific Northwest from Houston that we were more than a little disturbed about the lack of racial diversity here. The answer was easy, I’m not just white, I’m bright white. I’m glow in the dark white. It’s sad how white I am, but there’s nothing I can do about it. God knows I spent my teen years burning in the attempt to change my condition, all to no avail.

My new friend also tells me that he speaks 4 languages. I had to admit that like most Americans I am very poorly educated in languages and only speak English, and sometimes that’s debatable. I can make myself understood in sign language, but at points I get pretty frustrated, the signs get really basic, and might involve only one digit.

He worked as an RN before he came to America but was unable to get licensed here and hasn’t able to practice. He hasn’t said exactly what he does for the Army but I know part of it involves interpreting.

So, here’s a guy with better manners and education then I have, who’s family has been here only 5 years, and who is now helping to keep me safe, and representing my country to the world. I just don’t think there’s a way to convey how humbling that is. I think about my ancestors who came here over 200 years ago to make their futures, all the families that have gown from those first ones. Capt. James Davis fought in the Revolutionary War for the Americans. We’ve had family in just about every war since. There is a feeling of entitlement that we often feel from a history like that, until we come across someone like my new friend and think about how our ancestors must have felt when they hit these shores and were the new kids on the block. Am I entitled by what they did? Will my children be entitled by what I do? What will it mean to be an American in the future?

I feel very fortunate to have made a new friend and to be exploring these questions, because knowing him has opened me up to them.