What happened to our American ideals?
These days I’m singing “America, the Beautiful” with a sense of nostalgia and longing. I fear that the America I grew up in, the America I’ve called home for 63 years, is on the brink of demise.
An America that no longer welcomes the foreigner, that no longer offers sanctuary to those fleeing persecution or seeks to aid those who are hungry, homeless or destitute is an America unrecognizable to me.
How did we lose our ideals, and how can we regain them?
Perhaps it will take a sudden invasion of Earth by extraterrestrial aliens to make President Trump and the rest of us realize that we humans have more similarities than differences. That Syrians, Sudanese, Iranians and Americans are all inhabitants of one small lonely planet orbiting in space. And that only by caring for, protecting and loving one another can we ever hope to survive as a species.
Edythe Corum, Clovis
This story was originally published February 10, 2017 at 10:36 AM with the headline "What happened to our American ideals?."