Five Things We've Learned from Americans We Admire, Part II
A second look back at collected reflections from "Five Things I've Learned about America"
A second look back at collected reflections from Five Things I’ve Learned about America
Thanks to everyone who reached out following last week’s post showcasing selected reflections from our Five Things I’ve Learned About America series. We’re delighted to share these written pieces, short videos, and bursts of inspiration from people we admire. We’re equally pleased that these dispatches seem to resonate with so many.
You can find the full series of print and video reflections on our website. Today, we’ve collected posts from five more of our favorite contributors from across the country. Just follow the links and images below to view more of the corresponding individual reflections.
If you missed last week’s collection, you can find it here. As ever, you can find Five Things I’ve Learned About America at myfivethings.com/america.
More to come. All the best to you in the meantime,
—The Five Things I’ve Learned team.
See America First.
“In the early 1900’s, the Great Northern Railroad created a marketing campaign to promote domestic travel called “See America First.” A century later, the idea behind the slogan is still important: a call to enjoy – and better understand – the land and people of this magnificently diverse country.
Over 20 years ago, my husband and I, and our young daughter, left suburban life, careers, and everything familiar, to travel through America and try a different way of living. When we left home, I thought I already knew this country.
I’d crossed the US a few times as a kid. I’d seen the Grand Canyon, the beaches of Florida, and the cliffs of Big Sur. But I’d also spent most of my life in the suburbs of New York City. I was accustomed to being five minutes from a food co-op and an independent bookstore.
I didn’t know then, there are many Americas. Our regions can feel as varied as foreign countries.
Everyone says, “people are the same everywhere” and it’s true, we want the same basic things: love, safety, respect. But my life has been enriched by the differences I’ve encountered.
Living on the road with our young child, we visited playgrounds everywhere. We’d roll into some small town, find the local park, and quickly try to make new friends. I found myself talking to people very different from myself.
These days, I’m not going to playgrounds, but I’m still connecting with strangers out here on the road. I don’t always like everyone I meet, but I like broadening my world. If I’d stayed in one place, I might still think I knew everything I needed to know about my country.
There’s much about America I still don’t know.
Sometimes when I’m trying to fall asleep, I let the vistas of this country roll through my mind like a movie. The plains of Kansas, the desert of New Mexico. The Permian Basin oil fields. The South Carolina low country. The freeways of LA. So different, with unique environmental and economic concerns, distinct cultural differences, regional foods, and of course, those cinematic landscapes.
America the Beautiful. It’s not all beautiful but most of it is just spectacular.
Our lives as Americans are enriched by learning what we can find to love about a region beyond our hometown or state. And we will always want to protect what we love.
Yes, travel the world if you can. But first, start here.”
— Tina Hedin, Traveler, Writer, Volunteer, Alstead, New Hampshire · Read more
Every state has beautiful wild places.
“The first thing that I've learned about this country, especially in traveling around, is that every state has beautiful wild places. I mean, we think of Montana where I lived as the epitome of beauty, but I lived in California for a long time. They're incredible places there. New Jersey, I used to think New Jersey was just Passaic, New Jersey, um, which is just a urban kind of blight, sorry, Passaic. But New Jersey actually has the most forested land of any state in the union in terms of percentage. I've seen beautiful places everywhere.
And of course, my concern is that we keep these places wild and beautiful because the thing about mountains and rivers is they ain't making 'em anymore.”
— Phillip Aaberg, Pianist, Composer, Songwriter, Helena, Montana · View more
It’s the American way that makes prosperity possible.
“Of course, our land provides great resources, and with them great opportunity for prosperity and success.
I’m a proven example of what’s possible: I’m going to be 50 this year, and I haven’t finished my degree, but – just by working hard, having some education, and being able to apply what I’ve learned together with a positive, consistent work ethic – I have had the opportunity to be prosperous.
I’ve been sure to take advantage of that opportunity. And, I’ve been able to advance, to learn, and to take advantage of all the things afforded to me because America is a capitalist country. It’s through our American version of capitalism that the people who do the work and the companies that employ them are afforded opportunities. Thanks to America’s free market, I’ve done well and the owner who put in the equity to create the business that employs me also has the ability to prosper.
This success is twofold, and I appreciate that.”
— Tony Alcaraz, Sr. Director of Operations, Fedaral Contractor, San Antonio, Texas · Read more
If you’ve ever lost faith in the American dream, spend some time with a foreign-born cabdriver. They are wide-eyed optimists.
“If you’ve ever lost faith in the American dream, spend some time with a cab driver who moved his kids and family here from a foreign country. It’s absolutely miraculous stories. They’ve moved here because of a dream that their kids can go to college, that they can find a good job, that they’ll have a much better future. If you stick around long enough with them in the cab, they’ll pull over and literally show you pictures of their kids. It’ll give you a lot of faith about what’s right in America. And for those people, it was just a short cab ride to freedom and prosperity.”
— Scott Klug, Former Congressman, Reporter, Author, Madison, Wisconsin · View more
Important frontiers remain open.
“Rollerblading highs aside, this country often breaks my heart. There are only so many times you can relearn who we are before it sounds familiar; there are not enough Back Boards to hold all the colonization we shouldn’t have bankrolled, the CO2 we shouldn’t have spewed, the billionaires we shouldn’t have tax-cut. Feeling stuck, I asked my friend for help with a fifth thing to say. But instead of a lesson, he came up with an anagram: You can rearrange the letters of the ‘United States of America’ to make the anagram ‘A More Sanctified Statue.’ I thought it was interesting. It made me think about the movement to replace racist statues with ones we can celebrate. It made me think of the fight to stay truer to our Statue of Liberty, and the words: ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ But more than anything, it surprised me that when I googled this anagram, no results came up. Could it really be possible that no one had thought of it before? That after hundreds of years, there was still room for reinvention—room to rearrange the state birds and state nuts and dark lore and bright legends that comprise this strange confederation, into something we are more inclined to worship? New statues, new diamonds, new sacredness. The great American tradition of starting over again, thinking that this time will be different, and every now and then, being right.”
— Eve Driver, Author, Strategist, Brooklyn, New York · Read more
Join us live Saturday, July 25th
And: a reminder that Maya C. Popa returns to Five Things I’ve Learned Saturday July 25th at a special time (10:00am, 1:00 eastern). She’ll share the literature that has shaped her writing and that informs the poems in her wonderful new collection, If You Love That Lady, available everywhere July 14th.
We’re trying something new in advance of this session: Pre-order Maya’s new collection and join her class, Five Things I’ve Learned about Manuscript Mixtapes, live with our compliments.
Read more here.
Discover more from Tina Hedin, Phillip Aaberg, Tony Alcaraz, scott klug, Eve Driver, and Maya C. Popa – and more than 150 more creative thinkers we admire at myfivethings.com.