Picture This
Annual Youth Initiative contest
I Am American Democracy
Graduate Winner
Jonathan Fletcher
Columbia University School of the Arts
That’s American
Born the citizen of another country, like George Washington, I only became an American later. As did he. But I’m no less proud to be one than him—uniformed in blue wool: the cuffs and lapels of his coat buff in color, his waistcoat and breeches buttoned in gilt. Incomplete without a hanger sword. Every Patriot had one. Mine’s my heart.
That’s American.
Raised by a single mother, as was Washington, I celebrate mine. I celebrate Mary Ball Washington. And the five children she raised in the British colony of Virginia. And a country big enough for families of every size, makeup. Partners with children. Or none. Or ones from a previous relationship. As were George’s and Martha’s. I celebrate it all.
That’s American.
Though baptized as an infant, gifted religious books as a child, like Washington, I attend no house of worship regularly. But I still think, as he did, in terms of the numinous, the ineffable, the sacred. Yet, like him, respect those whose ideas of them differ from mine. Or who hold none. And surround myself with such diversity, count such company as a positive, a blessing.
That’s American.
Witness to turbulent, transitional times, a participant, too, I, like, Washington, try to learn, let my actions be changed through experience. Though none so dramatic as his evolution on slavery—hastened by seeing black Patriots fight the Redcoats, his bond with William Lee, Phillis Wheatley, all of which moved him to finally free his slaves—many of my views, loyalties, have also changed. That’s not unpatriotic.