so fourth grade was the Native Americans
were killed by Spanish settlers and
fifth grade was Native Americans were
killed by English settlers and sixth
grade was slavery and seventh grade with
Yellow Peril in eighth grade was
Jefferson raped his slaves and Lincoln
was a racist and Jim Crow and KKK and
police raids on Stonewall and interment
camps and nuclear bombs so this is the
same my elementary education did not
glorify the United States right but this
is also to say that instead of being
disheartened by what I learned in my
American history classes I somehow
emerge from eighth grade I was 13 years
old thinking I love this subject so much
I want to be teaching it someday this is
true now I’ve heard few people of my
generation expressed similar sentiment a
similar degree of love for United States
as I’ve said education has not spared us
the details of past atrocities right so
we’re well aware of those and we were
able to view the current events that are
going on in a raw and often politically
liberal light right so as we see this
prevailing inequality and we see it kept
in place by social norms and crass
political administrations it would seem
almost ignorant to showcase American
pride and this has led me to wonder in
the crudest terms
is it possible today for a
self-respecting not Trump supporting
person to say they love America
now the short answer is yes right
exhibit a being myself but the longer
answer is that as this post 9/11 trump
era version of American nationalism
picks up steam it becomes less and less
possible to identify as a strong
believer in American ideals without also
implying you support a movement
synonymous with bigotry and chaos right
and as I’ve said in the San Francisco
Bay Area which is where I’ve lived my
whole life my peers realized that the
America that nationalists Revere is one
that glosses over the country’s crimes
one that promotes an agenda for the
white majority so we end up grappling
with how we can live in a country of
numerous sins
among these people these nationalists
who attempt to ignore them now observed
illness accumulates into kind of a
verbal backlash against America by my
generation in the form of kind of a
spoken disassociation with American
history with a current American culture
discernible during class discussions
which from my experience can go like
this so a person will say like the
founding fathers are racists or America
always a presence minorities are like
white people what are they doing like I
don’t I don’t get it and the person kind
of sits back in his or her chair like
the discussion has been started and
wrapped up in a single comment and
fellow classmates like not in general
consensus not like yeah like this is why
I come to school these are the
conversations that no no right and too
often have I listened to my classmates
denounced the United States in 30
seconds and too often have I been one of
those contributing voices because the
way I see it is that the amount of
terrible things that happened in our
past it’s daunting right but the
matter-of-fact way in which we can say
Oh founding fathers are racist or
America always oppresses minorities
reflects a massive degree of flippancy
for both the legitimacy of the claim
being made and anything positive the
country could stand for right and I get
why we do this with nationalists
preaching America’s and culturally
superior Haven for white people my
generation seeks to shoot off in the
opposite direction right but to prove we
don’t agree with bigotry is not to be
absolved of responsibility using blanket
condemnation to disassociate ourselves
with fundamental American flaws does not
make up for the fact that fundamental
problems still exist so real quick I
corroborated this tendency to
disassociate with an informal poll so I
pulled 200-mile View High School
students with a survey that I made based
on a study by two professors from
Harvard and NYU and pretty much with
those professors
they analyze data from the General
Social Survey which is a widely
referenced sociological survey and they
separated respondents into four
categories now these four categories had
to do with the relationship and
individual can have to the United States
and they range from our net nationalists
to disengaged
now the ardent nationalist exhibited the
characteristics you would probably
associate with nationalism which would
be high amounts of pride and being
American and a very strict criteria for
who else can be considered American and
will see the disengaged exhibited the
opposite now I predicted based on my
classroom observations that the
responses of my peers would reveal their
views to be most closely similar to the
disengaged
end of the spectrum and we’ll see this
proved true we can see this in a couple
ways one is that my peers respondents
very few of them felt very close to the
United States and just like how the
Nationalists felt this is the
demographics of the nationalist or sorry
the disengaged and Mountview high school
respondents are much more similar than
either of them are to the other end of
the spectrum and also very few of my
respondents believed in any statements
that show strict membership criteria so
this would be something like to be a
true American you need to have been born
in the United States you need to be a US
citizen and things like this and I bring
up these statistics just to draw a
similarity between the disengaged and my
Mountain View High School respondents
and I draw the similarity because if we
look back on the professor’s study the
disengaged respondents while claiming
the lowest amount of pride in America
and lowest identity with America also
reported the highest support for
principles like immigration for legal
protection for minorities for these
principles that are increasingly talked
about that I feel like generally my
generation here would support and these
things that I believe should define
America right but isn’t it interesting
that a group of Americans who believe in
following the inclusive values that have
made our country so diverse is also a
group that see
relatively anti-patriotic you know would
it not be contradictory to claim belief
and some of these American values but
then not claim belief in America and
again I want to reiterate that why it’s
understandable that we might ask
ourselves you know why should we believe
in America when we look in the past and
we see this terrible things when we look
in the present and we see these terrible
things but I would argue that if we
embrace a standard that we want for
America you need to embrace the country
as well to help it realize and reach
that standard right people are behind
progress that like plot of land can’t
change itself and I would say that we
can set an achieve a standard because
alongside the terrible and shameful
truths I’ve learned since fourth grade I
learned principles that most Americans
can unemotionally recite right freedom
of expression and democracy where all of
aged citizens can vote hardwork leading
to opportunity these things we take for
granted right but really really do
define America in a positive way right
these are positive things and be in a
distinct way even if we’re not as unique
as some nationalists would have us
believe right so I feel like we need to
realize that there is a way to reject
the beliefs of bigoted nationalism and
still express love for a country right
love for a country that’s imperfect but
has a good foundation you know I saw
legal institutions that rejected
progress at one point in time but later
turns such as in the case of same-sex
marriage I saw a constitution that was
written by slaveholding white men yes
but slaveholding white men who are now
less important and less alive than this
population right and no matter who wrote
the Constitution no matter what
prejudices they held if we today wanted
to argue that America inherently
supports equality our founding documents
would support us on equivocally right
while disavowing those who would argue
that the United States is only open to a
space
thick-set of people and something I like
to think about when I am discouraged by
the nationalist movement when I feel
like if I’m discouraged then immigrants
hoping for better lives must surely be
discouraged is I think of ghosts our
Father Kizer Khan and what he says to
these conflicted Muslim immigrants is
show me where in the Constitution the
United States is against Islam and then
he says that such a clause doesn’t exist
because these discriminatory nativist
and nationalists they don’t have
leverage right the things they advocate
for are not written into these American
doctrines and of course the country is
composed of more than value stated on
paper but I would say that the fact that
most much in my generation can find
issue with nationalism already shows
that there is hope for a more tolerant
future right but I think we need to take
the next step as I said realize that
there’s a way to reject the beliefs of
bigoted nationalism and still express
love for a country right and if you want
a definition for non nationalistic pride
you can take Dan Rather’s definition of
patriotism which is patriotism it’s a
dialogue about what you love about your
country but also about how it can be
improved a big part of being a young
person and I speak specifically to
self-respecting non Trump supporters in
my in this area I feel like is realizing
the United States is not finished you
know we don’t need to make it great
again because we need to make it great
for the future right it’s the American
experiment because it’s not over yet and
we can realize that when we commit to
being American we’re not committing to
defending the founding fathers hypocricy
we’re not committing to defending our
stiff immigration policy we’re not
committing to defending any chauvinistic
social norms or punitive political
legislation right but we are committing
to upholding the American dream and to
do this through maintaining tolerance
instead of condemning others when they
do not they’re not cynically stating
during class discussions maybe that
nativist and nationalist tendency have
wrecked opportunity through ending
conversations just like
casual conversations with something
better than dude Americans because it’s
a really easy end to a conversation I
know I’ve had way too many of those and
while acknowledging that my extreme
optimism about this country has so much
to do with my extreme privilege I don’t
think it’s ignorant to believe the
American Dream is real I think it is
dangerous to believe that it’s not and
I’m a third generation korean-american
and I have been advised on several
occasions to learn my real culture it’s
not a racist dig it’s usually from my
well-meaning peers but it’s sort of a
way to suggest I disassociate myself
with American culture right investing
some sort of get out of jail free card
so that whenever an event occurs that
goes against my liberal values I can
somehow prove that like this isn’t me
but I’ve never considered doing this and
nobody should feel I’ll ever feel
obligated to because I would rather
think of myself as a full American with
all the terms fluctuating implications
than to duck out right when the country
doesn’t go in the direction that I wish
for it so I’ve come to the conclusion
that yes it is possible today for a
self-respecting non Trump supporting
person to say they love America we just
have to realize that loving any country
requires a degree of humility and only
after we distinguish between what it
means to be a nationalist and what it
means to love a country can we choose
the latter to move forward and make
America truly great thank you [Applause]