To the Editor:
Thank you for “It’s America’s Birthday. What Are We Celebrating?” (Sunday Opinion, June 28).
I have been struggling with that question for weeks now as I find myself angered and embarrassed by what the current administration is doing that flies in the face of so much that I have always believed our country stood for.
Reading each sensitive and thoughtful essay by the cadre of Opinion writers magnified my sense of hope.
I was moved to tears repeatedly as I read, because maybe there will be a wonderful country for my great-grandchildren after all!
Dorothy Cantor
New York
To the Editor:
As an American, I was tremendously moved by the essays in the June 28 Sunday Opinion section. A few were especially powerful.
My grandparents and their families came from Germany and Austria to find brotherhood (Thomas L. Friedman’s essay), refuge (Michelle Goldberg’s) and openness (Bret Stephens’s), as did my husband’s family from Japan, who were interned in American camps during World War II. All were eventually naturalized in that “beautiful and bittersweet ritual” (Carlos Lozada’s message).
As a gay man, and one who has been H.I.V.-positive since 2002, I found that M. Gessen’s account of the fight for AIDS funding and Frank Bruni’s reflection on America’s capacity for global good resonated profoundly with my own experiences.
As a lifelong pianist and professor of musical theater, I agree wholeheartedly with John McWhorter’s tribute to the musical as a truly unique American form.
The lyricist Yip Harburg wrote, “When all the world is a hopeless jumble … heaven opens a magic lane.” While far from perfect, America remains that place “somewhere over the rainbow.”
My thanks to each writer for reminding me of the strengths of our shared vision of America.
Eric Richard De Lora
Salem, Ore.
To the Editor:
Even before being sworn into office, President Trump was given a golden opportunity to rally the country, and indeed the world, around the 250th anniversary of the nation’s birth.
This should have been a gimme. It was already on the calendar, a singularly and naturally unifying moment to showcase American achievement, recommit to mending our flaws and reaffirm our belief in the aspirations and ideals of the founders’ dreams.
How, though, does a president lead a celebration of what he’s worked so hard to destroy? A president who mocks the conviction that all are created equal, systematically ending the careers of devoted military officers who happen to be Black or female. A president who assaults our unalienable rights to free speech, assembly and a free press. A president who betrays the foundation of government by the consent of the governed by trying to deny millions of Americans a vote.
And so, instead of a collective tribute to all we cherish and strive for, we get a human cage fight on the South Lawn of the White House. A vanity rally on the National Mall. The East Wing in rubble, the Kennedy Center in a tarp and algae creeping across the face of a Reflecting Pool that mirrors only the corruption and ineptitude of a failed and fraudulent presidency rent by reckless and useless war.
Two hundred and fifty years later, the Declaration of Independence doesn’t cry out to be celebrated so much as it demands to be defended. That’s our call, as patriots. That’s our charge, as American people. On this Fourth of July, and always.
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Reimagines America With His Face on a $250 Bill” (Business, June 26):
Left unsaid in Donald Trump’s latest headlong effort to honor himself by having his face placed on a $250 bill is that few people — you know, the ordinary working people who helped put him in office — will have any practical use for a denomination of that size. However, his billionaire pals will.
In that sense, nothing could be more appropriate in reminding history of where this president’s loyalties lie.
Greg Joseph
Sun City, Ariz.
Lawyers, Mobilize for Immigrants
To the Editor:
Re “This Decision Is a Slap in the Face to Immigrants Who Followed the Law,” by Elora Mukherjee (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, June 25):
Lawyers across the country should mobilize a cadre of volunteers to assist these hard-working Temporary Protected Status immigrants in filing for asylum. Time is of the essence.
Kenneth Olshansky
San Rafael, Calif.
