I used to write occasionally for the Miami Herald, my local daily newspaper. One day some years back I visited the newsroom to make changes to a story I’d submitted. I sat amidst the din, my head bent over a computer keyboard in pronounced concentration.
“May I have your attention?” I looked up to see a knot of people. One woman carried a little cake covered with chocolate frosting and crowned with a lit sparkler and a plastic American flag.
About three dozen people formed a semi-circle around the desk that held the cake. In the midst of everyone was a young man in pleated trousers, tasseled loafers, and a red, white and blue tie.
“My name is Etienne, as you all know, and today is one of the proudest days of my life,” he said in a soft voice, laced with a Caribbean cadence. “Although I was born on the island of Haiti, I had to leave my country because of the troubles. And though my island will always be in my heart, another country is there, as well. Today, I became a citizen of the United States.”
Etienne beamed as if he’d just won the lottery. “I am so proud, so thankful. And I would like to sing this song to you.” He cleared his throat, ceremoniously clasped his hands in front of him and began “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Etienne’s voice stumbled a bit as he negotiated the tricky melodic patches. I hummed along, wondering when the last time was that I had sung the national anthem with so much genuine emotion. Ever?
“O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave,” his voice rose into a crescendo. Tears leaked from his eyes and fell toward his prideful smile. Silence coated the air before the crowd again broke into applause. A handful of reporters went forward to congratulate him. I returned to my computer to complete my editing. The memory of that afternoon has been flickering in my mind.
I’ve spent more than 12 years as an ex-pat, working and living abroad. I view my country’s maneuverings refracted through the eyes of friends and acquaintances from Eastern Europe. Sometimes I am asked to explain our foreign policies, to decode our relationship with guns, to help make sense of political leadership. I cannot. Instead of feeling the strain of pride I saw I Etienne, I’ve spent my adult life questioning, bemoaning and criticizing the United States, a practice whose acceptability is dwindling even though we are a country where challenging the status quo is baked into our national DNA.
The summer after I watched Etienne sing the national anthem, I was in the midst of a two-week business trip to a handful of Caribbean islands. Jetlagged and sunburned, I arrived the morning of July 4 on Saba, a rocky, green speck of an island within eyeshot of St. Martin. Saba has fewer than 1500 people living quietly on four square miles of stingy soil. I spent the afternoon with Will Johnson, the local newspaper editor, talking about his minute Dutch island and his 25-year-long, self-appointed mission to produce and distribute the only newspaper his island has ever known. As his wife refilled our coffee cups and served us our second slices of carrot cake, Will and I segued into loftier subjects.
“You must be very proud of your country,” he said. “You are lucky to live there and to be able to practice journalism in a place that cherishes freedom. You can write anything without any fear. You won’t lose your job or your life. Journalists the world over envy that freedom,” he said admiringly.
I smiled and nodded, finished the interview and returned to my hotel room as twilight blacked into night.
I lay on my lumpy hotel room bed and read for about an hour, but couldn’t shake a restlessness and a whiff of shame that had crept in after my talk with Will. Itchy to distract myself with conversation and company, I ventured to the hotel restaurant and bar; both were desolate. The streets of the tiny village of Windwardside were empty as well. The hotel owner begrudgingly scraped together a salad for me for dinner. As she handed it over the bar I smiled ruefully: Atop the salad sat triangles of American cheese.
I ate in silence on a terrace overlooking the water, wishing I were home with friends, having a barbecue, watching kids play freeze tag in the backyard, hoisting a beer and craning to see the traditional, annual pyrotechnics turn on their celebratory dazzle.
I returned to my room, turned out the lights and retreated to my bed. Later, on that woozy precipice between awake and asleep, I heard a loud boom. A cannon? I stumbled to the window, parted the curtains and looked outside. I saw the inky outlines of the mountains against the night sky and the Caribbean Sea shimmering below beneath a shard of a moon.
I heard another boom and then the falling whistle of what sounded like fireworks. A weak, white spray of light spread its tentacles against the sky and drizzled toward the sea. There was another boom and another. A half-hearted red spray fanned out and then a faint blue one. Then silence. The show was over.
I still saw no one on the streets, heard no cheers, no faint strains of a John Philip Sousa march. In my sleepy haze, I was airtight certain that the light show was a nudge from the vast and mysterious forces beyond. As I stood at my window staring at the patch of sky where the fireworks had ignited, I felt an urgent rush of homesickness and pride. I saluted and smiled and began to sing.
“Oh, say can you see?”
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