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Fam,

I have a complicated relationship to patriotism. Much of my professional life is spent analyzing the ways that this country has failed people. I have never felt fully, unconditionally American, despite how long members of my family have lived in this country — and despite the fact that I can’t really lay claim to anywhere else. The phrase “American Dream” often solicits an eyeroll from me, and the sight of stars and stripes feels like a warning at least as often as it feels like a welcome. (As a kid during the prime “War on Terror” years, it seemed to me like the people most eager to wave the American flag were often the ones least likely to consider Black and Brown people “American.”)

Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

Suffice it to say, the Fourth of July is not my favorite holiday. And the slogan “Make America Great Again” has never resonated with me. Like a lot of Black Americans, there is no historical time period that I really look back to with unadulterated nostalgia. And yet, when I look to the future, I find that there’s a part of me that is stubbornly optimistic. The patriot in me can never fully give up on the idea that some day this country will make good on that promissory note on which we keep defaulting.

So on “Independence Day,” I often find myself rereading a poem that captures some of those feelings: Langston Hughes’ famous, “Let America Be America.” Each year, a different part of it hits me the hardest. This year, it’s these stanzas:

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be — the land where every man is free.

I still don’t love the Fourth of July. But reading that poem is often enough to convince me to crack open a beer, marvel at the fireworks, and keep on keeping on. Not out of pride in the land that is, but out of hope for the land that must be.

OK, your turn. I want to know how you feel about all this. Do you like the Fourth of July? Do you consider yourself a patriot? What does that mean to you? And what else is on your mind in these dog days of summer? As always, you can write to us at CodeSwitch@npr.org.

I’ll be back next week. Until then, stay safe.

-Leah Donnella, senior editor

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Written by Leah Donnella and edited by Dalia Mortada

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