The Foundation
What America was actually built on
I didn’t grow up believing in America.
I grew up believing in human rights for all humans, in places that did not care about human rights. Places like Bangladesh. Then Haiti. Places the powerful ruined, abandoned, and would rather forget exist.
Flashback to 1971. I was adopted by a Mennonite and Amish couple who believed in God, in community, and in plainness. They didn’t believe in the myth of American exceptionalism because they didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t part of the vocabulary. The world was the world, and you served God in it, and that was enough. America wasn’t the greatest country on earth in my house, because my mom was from the northern neighbor — Canada — which is where I was born, and where they adopted me.
Growing up everywhere and nowhere changes your perspective.
When we moved to the United States, I was old enough to notice thin…
