Ain't That America

I was talking recently about America and one of our seemingly most simple entities: our currency

It dawned on me a while ago that, as far as my knowledge extends, our coins lack something that no other coin that I have ever seen does: numbers. Most people in the US are oblivious to this and whenever I point it out to anyone, they are often surprised or even disbelieving. But if you reach into your pocket I assure you that none of the American nickels, dimes, quarters or pennies will have a number on them.

This isn't entirely true. Our coins have dates on them. Interesting, perhaps, but useless if you are trying to determine their value. Pennies and nickels offer the most help, stating "one cent" and "five cents" respectively. Quarters offer the cryptic mathematical quotient of "quarter dollar," while the dime offers the most enigmatic, "one dime." Nor are the coin sizes intuitive. The dime is the smallest, yet worth more than the penny and the nickel.

These issues may seem trivial, but as someone who has travelled extensively, struggled with computing exchange rates in my head and fumbled with foreign currency, I can't imagine the dismay of not knowing English and struggling with coins without numbers.

Perhaps I'm making too much of a big deal over a few cents. But the sentiment runs much deeper than our change pockets. The United States has no official language. While English is the de facto national language, none has ever been officially declared. Yet if you deplane at most international terminals in the US, you will rarely find an alternative translation for "Baggage Claim," or "Transportation."

My favorite, and what I can only assume to be an absolute nightmare for any visitor, domestic or international, is my home airport of Boston Logan and the subsequent labyrinth known as the "Big Dig." Assuming you find your rental car and navigate your way out of the airport, you are immediately faced with a toll booth, the price of which continues to rise but what I believe is now $3.50. Assuming you know what a toll booth is, that you have American money, and that you can figure out how much 50 cents is, you are then funneled into a tunnel. Next, assuming you can read the sign that says, "Government Center/Storrow Drive," that it isn't blocked off for construction with no detour provided and on the chance that you follow the correct fork in the road, you will be spit out into a maze of poorly named and one way streets to fend for yourself. Welcome to America.

There is a reason for this American hubris. The US was long-entrenched in a policy of isolationism. It sealed itself from the rest of the world in its developmental years, determined to stay out of other peoples' business and have them stay out of ours. From its early years, Presidents Washington and Adams avoided intervention in the war between Britain and France in an attempt to solidify America's neutrality. Yet since that time we have deviated from that path. America is at the epicenter of world events and, as the only remaining superpower, is the most influential player on the world stage. At the same time, the US has become a destination for immigrants, refugees and visitors alike.

The inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door." Just make sure they can speak English.

We Americans are proud of our country, our history and our heritage. But we must be careful of where our patriotism oversteps its bounds into arrogance. And while many will be up in arms at any sign of accommodation (even those who struggle with English as a first language), we must at least consider some small simple changes like multi-lingual signs or numerical values on our coins.

Penny for your thoughts. It's the brownish one that says one cent on it...

Don't Tread on Me

The Tea Party movement is destroying my love of American history.

As a young student growing up in Massachusetts, I learned of the politics, the battles, and the patriots of the American Revolution which had begun just miles from my home. I woke up before dawn on April 19th to watch reenactments of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. I visited landmarks like the Old North Church, the Bunker Hill Monument and the Old State House, just outside of which the Boston Massacre took place. I memorized Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride," and saw the gravestones of the famous Boston patriots.

Over Christmas break, I took a day to re-walk the Freedom Trail, the 2.5 mile brick pathway that winds through the streets of Boston and the North End, passing by some of the most important landmarks of US history. It made me proud. Proud to know that this was where our country began. And it made me sad.

It made me sad because I have seen defiant symbols of the American Revolution exploited by the Tea Party movement. I would have liked, if it were not undergoing renovations, to have visited the Boston Tea Party Ship and Museum. This is the site where the real, and in my mind, the only, Tea Party took place. It is where, in the dead of a cold December night, dozens of patriots, led by Samuel Adams, boarded British ships disguised as Indians and proceeded to ax and dump boxes of tea into Boston Harbor.

The scene was not a riot. There was no shouting, no pitchforks, no torches. The men worked efficiently, diligently, and quietly, then left in the morning, fearing that they might be attacked or arrested for treason. Yet their protest against Britain was strong and symbolic. The Boston Tea Party was a public demonstration against a British tax on tea, levied against the colonist without their representation in British Parliament. It was a protest inspired by the adage that every American schoolchild learns in history class: "No Taxation without Representation."

Yet now, the recent populist and anti-federal government movement has taken on the name of what is arguably the most famous political protest in our country's history. The Tea Party Movement, while still largely disjointed and comprised of members on a wide spectrum of anti-government sentiments, is dedicated to the opposition of a large federal government, government spending, and taxation.

While I respect every American's right to dissent and to voice their opinion, I find the efforts of the Tea Party protestors to invoke the spirit of the American Revolution a shameful and contemptible comparison that sullies the great history of this country which I have known for my entire life. The patriots of American colonies opposed the taxes imposed on them because they had no voice in Parliament with which to express dissent.

In today's America, every citizen is represented by a Congressman and Senators who are elected to represent their constituents in Congress. Citizens are taxed. However, they are also given a voice of representation. The fundamental difference is that the Tea Party participants don't want to pay the taxes that are implemented fairly and legally.

Indeed, historians acknowledge that a more accurate historical reference point to the Tea Party movement is Shays' Rebellion in 1786. Shays' Rebellion was an uprising of poor farmers in Western Massachusetts, angered by debt and taxes, who modeled their rebellion off of the recent Revolution by trying to use the same tactics of the Sons of Liberty. In many ways, the Shays Rebellion is similar to the Tea Party movement of today. Preceded by a financial crisis, the Rebellion was aimed at the government of Massachusetts and its agents across the state. It is to this movement that the Tea Party is similar. Yet they compare themselves to the greatest American patriotic heros.

And they have also tarnished symbols of that Revolution.

Many Tea Baggers, as they are called, show up to rallies in tri-cornered hats while prepared to besmirch another life-long interest of mine: flags. In particular, the Tea Party movement favors the Gasdsen flag. The famous yellow standard features a coiled rattlesnake with the motto, "Dont Tread on Me." Named for Christopher Gadsden, a Sons of Liberty leader in South Carolina and later a Colonel in the Continental Army, the flag was presented to Commodore Esek Hopkins as a standard for the United States Navy by Gadsden in 1775. The motto served as a defiant warning to the British not to impose their rule on the colonies, and the flag served as a symbol of the Revolution.

And now this patriotic symbol is being exploited to promote the Tea Party cause. Attempting to incite sentiments of "true patriotism," protestors wave Gadsden flags and 13-star American flags. As if the Obama administration is as oppressive and tyrannical as the British Empire, and they equate to the patriots who formed our country.

So as the Tea Baggers march and wave their flags and call the President a Marxist, a Fascist, a Socialist and any other "-ist" that they can come up with, they stifle a little bit of my love of history. But while they can try to justify their hatred of government as patriotism, they'll never crush the true spirit of the American Revolution that I know and love.