I’ve never been more proud to be an American.
Yeah, he won. Awww yeah he did.
First World Progress by mdumlao98 on Flickr
All day today I felt like a kid on the first day of school. Everything seemed new, I wanted to learn and do so much, and I was—funny that this has become to boilerplate to say—freaking hopeful.
As I’ve said before, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t be in the U.S. for this one. But walking around Jhongli today, I got thumbs up and wide grins from strangers. I ordered a lunch to go and the guy behind the counter pointed at the TV and said, “Obama!”
I concurred wholeheartedly.
My Taiwanese friends have been asking me what it feels like to have a black president. They don’t ask because they think it’s a big deal themselves, they ask because they’ve read that we Americans think it’s a big deal. Maybe it is, I don’t know. This election has never been about race to me. I think it’s fair to say that while it might be about race for many pro-Obama Americans, I think it’s more a racial matter for some anti-Obama Americans.
I’ll never forget how I lost my breath seeing the main page of the New York Times today:
Yes, I did select that picture to contrast the headline, because they had a nice little embedded applet for browsing pictures. So it’s not the New York Times’s message, but still, the juxtaposition of profound change and staunch, petulant conservatism really resonated with me. Maybe this will be a rocky start. Maybe it won’t be.
What I felt today reminded me of what I saw from the world immediately after 9/11. People looked at me on the street and wanted to share joy. “You’re America! Remember: we love you.” It was like they knew all along that we would do the right thing. They weren’t afraid at all.
There are many things America means to me. I don’t think lack of fear is necessarily one of them, but hope definitely is.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have a beer with my friends.
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- Published:
- 11.05.08 / 7pm
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- musings
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