America

I remember flying to Houston for the first time. We flew over St Louis. You could clearly see the St Louis Arch - the gateway to the "West". As we ourselves flew westward it made me think of the history of the US, the people it has attracted over the years and how they have turned this into a Great country in many ways in a relatively short time. I love the idea of the "American Dream" that you can achieve anything here. In many ways that is true and the pioneering spirit of the people who travelled to the west is quite amazing. I suppose that I feel a connection with them (and many people in the US in general) due to the different but comparable journey made by my grandfather's grandparents to Suriname. A trip to a new place in search of something better than what they had where they were from.
I feel passionate about some of those ideals and what they represent here in the US and in other places where people have travelled to in search of something better. Something that is particularly true of most people in America (in the correct sense of the word), but also in other places. Despite the promise of something better, going someplace where you don't know anyone, may not have a support network is a big challenge and a big risk. I think people who do that for themselves or their family are pretty amazing.
Because there are so many people like that in NY -not just people who have been there for generations, but those who may have arrived pretty recently- I love that city. It's a harsh place but it is so characterisitic of peoples ambitions to improve their lives.
The incredible multicultural aspect of New York is fantastic - so many stories of the pursuit of that dream. It is probably one of the few places where I would want to live without hesitation. Despite everything, I think it is a place where people have not become as insular as they may have in other places about who is entitled to pursue the dream and who is not. In the Netherlands, you sometimes hear the argument that the country is Full - there is no more room for foreigners, immigrants (and to think that the Netherlands are pretty open-minded in many respects). Here you can't really use that as an argument but others are used. It makes me really mad to hear people come up with excuses why others should not be entitled to the same things that they were able to pursue before (I will concede that this is more relevant in the US than in the Netherlands with it's very different history, but who are we to deny others an opportunity to improve their lives).
I was thinking about my future flying back to New York for a long weekend a few days ago and I was not sure where it would go.

I'm not really sure where I am going with this train of thought. On the one hand America makes me nostalgic. On the other I hand I have a lot of concerns about where the country is headed and where it is leading the rest of the world in its quest to do right. Those concerns gnaw at my feeling of appreciation for what the US represents. I'm anxious about where we're headed.