Dear Editor,
On July 4, 2026, The United States lit up in celebration of our semi-quincentennial.
Each town, village, city, and district illuminated by gunpowder and metal in vibrant red, white, and blue, each citizen celebrating this country for their own, very personal reasons. For some it's the long weekend, an excuse to light off explosives in the back yard after drinking all day in anticipation of the boom. Others may celebrate the greatness America has now voted for a second time, a man who has lit Iranian skies with bombs and machine guns, who has landed such atrocities upon schoolhouses, innocent lives traded yet again for ego disguised in Cheeto dust. How can I in good consciousness and faith acquiesce to the partaking of nostalgia and patriotism when we still have so much to atone for?
This land is your land and mine, but it was someone else's first. On the bridge where my hometown will have its own fireworks display, an enemy of freedom stuck vitriol on a lamp post. The silhouette of America braced with the words "Conquered, Not Stolen" scratched off easily, and the pulp of what the issuer thought had any place in the city where I grew up felt delightful rolled between my thumb and forefinger as it made its way to a trash can. The entire sentiment is based on an idea less stable than the paper it was printed on. Operating under the notion that Conquered land is in any way better or more reasonable than Stolen is equivalent to saying "Bombed, Not Murdered."
I love the indigenous peoples we have tried so hard to erase that are more American than I ever have been or ever will be; the people still owed 40 acres and a mule. I may not love how we got here or where it looks like we are headed, but because of my love I know that we are worth fighting for. Because of my love, I will not abandon America but embody the version of her that I know to be true. The America that stands hand in hand against oppression, that knows love has no gender or allegiance to political malaise, the America that stands from sea to shining sea.
If I resigned myself to the anger in my bones I would lose sight of what exactly makes America great; the opportunity to right our wrongs. The America I love is a smile shared with the bus driver, a good morning to each person I pass on my way into work. It is a summons for jury duty, a ballot box, "Harlem" by Langston Hughes. Isn't love a sacrifice, an exchange? It's easy to hate the way things are right now, and maybe that's why so many of us are feeling that way.
Isn't the love I have for my country worth fighting for? Is peace won with heavy artillery or an open mind and heart?
Sincerely,
Monica Glovier
Eastern Michigan University student
