Letter from Pete

 

Hi Marcia,  Last month, Vice President JD Vance gave a speech laying out his view of American identity, and it’s been on my mind ever since. In his address, Vance suggested that what truly makes someone American isn’t anything to do with our shared ideals and values, but instead comes down to how long your family has been here. It’s a completely backwards understanding of how we have built America, and it totally misses why so many generations of people have been able to contribute to the vitality of the country we love.  The values of this country do matter – deeply – to who we are and what it means to be American. The kind of “blood and soil” nationalism Vance is espousing cuts against exactly what makes America special – and it’s not just wrong, it’s dangerous. America has always been more than a land mass, and we have never been defined by a single ethnicity or religious denomination. What binds us together is a commitment to the freedoms and ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Belonging here isn’t about ancestry, but rather has to do with striving for those ideals. I don’t believe that my father, who immigrated here in the 1970s to further his education and then chose to become an American citizen, was any less American than my mother, who can trace ancestors back to before the Revolutionary War. What unites us with our neighbors isn’t bloodline – it’s our fidelity to the American project: the ongoing experiment in self-government, liberty, and equality. Right now, that project is under attack by those in power who are turning their backs on the freedoms that define us. That’s why I’m working to support leaders up and down the ballot who believe in an America that includes all of us – and why I’m asking you to join me.