Democracy is not an easy ride. This Thanksgiving, choose pursuit of happiness. | Opinion
We're privileged. We have each other. We know we can have a republic, if we can keep it. And for the America our family wants to keep, we'll need love, wisdom, courage, patience and hope.
On Nov. 5, after voting in Northern Virginia where the ballot comes in English, Spanish, Korean and my native Vietnamese, I posted on social media: “Never ceases to amaze me every time I vote here to see my mother tongue on the ballot of the USA. My throat tightens every time. You’re my America.”
My war refugee family fled here from the fall of Saigon in 1975. I grew up in Phoenix and graduated from Arizona State University. Then I married you, America, and I’ve had children with you.
My expanded immediate family and all our blended family histories – from the Midwest, from the South, from Japan, from Vietnam – have witnessed you at your worst and at your best. Despite your nightmares, we still believe in the dream of what America could be.
What our America is supposed to be, according to the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
What does 'the pursuit of Happiness' really mean?
"The pursuit of Happiness."
I never thought much about those four words in that order until I read a New Yorker article in which John Lanchester writes: "To non-Americans, talk of 'the pursuit of happiness' can seem an amazing mixture of the simpleminded and the unexpectedly complex. What seems simple is that happiness is so straightforward that we all have a right ‒ a right! ‒ to seek it; what seems complex is the idea that what we’re entitled to is, indeed, a pursuit, something strenuous and not necessarily successful."
Being a citizen of a democracy is not meant to be an easy ride, the Declaration of Independence tells us so. It wishes us a right to life and liberty, but if you want happiness, you have to track it down ‒ like a fugitive, according to historian Darrin McMahon. Because that's the 18th century understanding of "pursuit."
And isn't that what everyone who's ever landed on these shores ever done? Just like the first people to seek a new life on this American continent tens of thousands of years ago, my husband's European ancestors tracked happiness here.
My parents-in-law have two sons ‒ the oldest married Vietnamese American me; the youngest was stationed in Japan when he married his wife. Now we all live in a cul-de-sac together outside Washington, D.C.
Thanksgiving for those seeking refuge from wars
Hollywood is known as a company town, and so is Washington. Many live in the DMV ‒ D.C., Maryland and Virginia ‒ because we work in the government or in industries supporting, opposing or monitoring the government. Which side you're on depends on how policies coming from the White House and the U.S. Capitol affect you.
My husband, Bob, works for a refugee resettlement agency. Wars create refugees ‒ the pursued who flee to a new land to seek life, liberty and happiness. These days, most of the people he's helping are from Afghanistan and Ukraine.
His employer is the Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC), which started in 1983 to help Ethiopians displaced by conflict but is now among about 10 U.S. resettlement agencies authorized by the State Department.
As my Americanization and Bob's work can attest, refugees, immigrants and migrants want to become you, Americans.
For Halloween, two of his colleagues ‒ Afghan refugees who now help more recent newcomers ‒ asked him to take them out, Bob said, "because they wanted to see how Americans dress up in costumes and go trick-or-treating."
Last Saturday, ECDC hosted an early Thanksgiving dinner for nearly 500 refugees. Where else can one see Ethiopian Americans serving food to Afghans while listening to Ukrainian music? It's so America. Historic.
On Thanksgiving, my multiethnic American family of three generations will be making our own history in our cul-de-sac. For the first time, our grown children voted in group texts for no turkey. Roasting it was among my main annual jobs, and I loved doing it. But fine by me. Why waste food and energy when the kids and the family vegetarians don’t want it?
We’ll give thanks. We're privileged. We have each other.
We know we can have happiness, if we pursue it. We know we can have a republic, if we can keep it. For the America our family wants to keep, we’ll need love, wisdom, courage, patience and hope.
Whether you’re celebrating or mourning this Thanksgiving, best wishes to your cul-de-sac of history.
Thuan Le Elston, a Paste BN Opinion editor, is the author of "Rendezvous at the Altar: From Vietnam to Virginia." To help refugee families, please donate to ECDC resettlement agency.