Stuff & Nonsense: All-American by Celeste Parsons

We have now celebrated three of the major summer holidays, and are a month and a half from the holiday that traditionally brings summer to an end. While winter holidays are occasions for gift-giving and family merriment, the summer holidays are times when we reflect on what makes the United States of America what it is. Memorial Day is for honoring those who have fought and died for our country and for its ideals.  Juneteenth remembers the day when the final communities of enslaved African-Americans learned that they had been freed. The 4th of July is Independence Day, when we commemorate the events and personages who declared that the American colonies of Great Britain "are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States." And Labor Day recognizes the contributions of the working men and women of this land to our national prosperity, and their rights to have a level playing field in negotiating working conditions with their employers.
 
When my husband and I were bicycle touring along the upper Mississippi River, we rode into Quincy, Illinois, past All-American Park, which turned out to be a dirt bike course. This got me to thinking about all the ways in which we use the term All-American and resulted in the following poem.
 
All-American
 
(Angie)
I’m the All-American girl, that’s me, 
And my forebears fought over stamps and tea.
They came to this land with their hopes and dreams
And a passion to succeed.
They were people of thoughtful and learned bent,
And invented our laws and our government,
But applying a theory to practice means
Things weren’t always what was agreed.
 
(Shandra)
I’m the All-American girl next door.
My forebears came chained from a distant shore.
They were snatched away from their hopes and dreams,
And they hungered to be free.
So they persevered through the toil and pain
Till the words of freedom were proclaimed,
But applying words to actions means
Things weren’t always what was agreed.
 
(Kaydee)
I’m the All-American girl you know.
My ancestors hunted the buffalo,
And they passed to their children their hopes and dreams
And a reverence for the land.
They were stripped of their homes and the lands they knew,
And their children were stripped of their language, too,
For the ones who said what the treaty means
Didn’t always state what was agreed.
 
(Nina)
I’m an All-American girl also.
My grandparents walked in from Mexico,
And they held on tight to their hopes and dreams
As we lived ten to a room.
We worked in the fields, we cleaned, we learned,
And we took the jobs that others spurned.
We paid our taxes on what we earned
Even though that wasn’t agreed.
  
(All)
We are all Americans, just like you.
We are choosing to live red, white, and blue,
And we all have different hopes and dreams
And different lives to lead.
But the Liberty Tree will grow strong and tall
If it’s nourished by and shelters all.
Separated we fail, but together succeed—
And on this, we are all agreed. 

Celeste Parsons lives in a log house built on a former dairy farm with her husband Jim, her Westie dog, Spook, and a revolving population of deer, turkeys, chipmunks, hummingbirds, and other wildlife. She has written poems, plays, technical documentation, and newspaper articles since childhood, and is the editor of Nelsonville from A to Z. Her first children's book, Wait Until I Grow Up!, was released in 2021.