Advocates of the “Common Good”

Home is the place where, when you got there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

One morning this week I was at the Utah State Capitol. During past annual six-week legislative sessions in the early spring every year, I had spent a good deal of time in that building as an elected official advocating for Utah schools—(which often proved to be both exhilarating and frustrating). But this visit was all joy. It was a celebration for two brand new American citizens, sworn in only an hour before the event began. One was my friend Carlos, an immigrant from Venezuela, the other hailed from Canada. It was soul-stirring to have them stand before we the participants in a good-sized audience and have these two new citizens lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Simple words, but for a new (or even long-time) citizen, powerful promises.

I’d never been to a citizenship related ceremony before. The first year I went back to work fulltime in Jordan School District, my vice-principal at Midvale Middle School had come with his family from Mexico as a child. He often talked about working in the Texas fields picking onions when a fairly young kid, and his father walking up and down the rows chiding he and his siblings as they worked: “You like this job? Too hard for you? Want to do something else? Then get an education so you have another choice.” Apparently, the message took. This vice principal told me that the day he became a citizen of the United States (sometime before I was hired), he rented an Uncle Sam costume and wore it to school all day. He was justly proud of his accomplishment, but he didn’t dress up to show off. He wanted to visually demonstrate to the students around him–whom he loved–many of them brought from other lands by their parents as he was, that citizenship was possible for them, too.

My invitation to the citizenship celebration came from a fellow member of the Jordan Education Foundation Board of Directors whose involvement in our organization’s goal to support the education of all students had clearly already exhibited his commitment  to the wellbeing of his new homeland. Similar to my administrator friend, his father had had advice for him as a young man. “Go to the Country of Miracles,” he told his son—a beautiful name for the home I love. The audience gave our two new citizens a standing ovation in part for the contributions they have both made to our communities in advance of earning their citizenship—my friend for his tireless efforts to ease the road of Hispanic immigrants into our schools and businesses, and the other equally impressive new citizen, a well-respected professor of American government and federalism at Utah Valley University.

Once the applause died down, these two citizens were escorted to a nearby table where they registered to vote in their first election. A memorable literal and symbolic conclusion–especially since my husband and I, along with many others in the audience I suspect, had dropped our own ballots in the mailbox only days before. I was struck by Alexander Hamilton’s words repeated by Representative Ken Ivory in his introductory remarks: it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether the societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection or choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident or force. The everyday behavior of these exceptional men was unimpeachable evidence of their commitment to good government by reflection or choice.

Voting has become a rancorous endeavor in this country. Too often it feels as though democracy is in danger of sliding into hypocrisy. I’ve walked through Independence Hall in Philadelphia and seen the historic pages of the documents which underpin our constitutional society at the National Archives in Washington, D. C. Despite the roiling political upheaval across the country, every time I visit, guests still tread with reverence past those revered documents, even children recognizing the atmosphere of quiet awe which permeates the buildings around them.

Listening to the citizenship celebration, I realized my friend Carlos’s father was right. Upon reflection, the vast majority of our citizens are likely to acknowledge this is a “country of miracles”. For almost 250 years we have somehow managed to hold together a government not simply by external force or power, but by “words”–a pledge of fidelity to the core principles which promote our combined belief in the superiority of civic virtue and the common good.  

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, One Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”

Words to live by, indeed.