Your American Story

[€uroMeinke]

With the 4th of July celebrating the Declaration of Independence - an occasion that happen in 1776 - I have to confess a bit of a disconnect with me as none of my relatives were anywhere near the new world, rather they were slugging out other conflicts over on the European Continent - somewhere in the amorphous border-zone of what now is Germany, oh and probably France - Europe's battlefield.

Still, I have my own family story for coming to America. It's a rather contemporary one. My parents left Germany after the war as refuges in Canada, where they lived till 1961. They'd be considered economic refuges today, coming to the new world for greater opportunities and something far far away from the politics of 1930's Germany.

My parents became citizens in 1968, something my father was always proud of. His business cards at the time had patriotic quotes emblazoned on the back.

So, back to me - I really am the first American in my family, and probably realizing the success my father had hoped to achieve for himself. I am my father's American dream in that respect. And so, while I may not be able to directly identify with those colonial idealists - I still come to them, from a family that hoped to have a taste of that which the founding fathers created, a world still new and full of promise.

So that's my truncated American Story, what's yours?