What to the Migrant Is the 4th of July?
On this Fourth of July, as fireworks explode and patriotic hymns fill the air, we must ask: what does this celebration mean to those who suffer in the shadows of American hypocrisy?What is the Fourth of July to the migrants languishing in ICE detention centers, some abused by masked agents, others—shockingly, including U.S. citizens—deported or imprisoned abroad in El Salvador’s notorious jails? What is this holiday to the farmworkers who labor under punishing heat to put food on our tables, yet live in fear of being snatched by ICE in unmarked cars? What does this “independence” mean to children too terrified to go to school, lest they be separated from their parents?
What is this day to the sick who cannot afford a doctor due to gutted health services, or to those laid off under government “efficiency” schemes designed to further enrich the powerful? What does it mean to the scientists and scholars contemplating leaving America as universities come under ideological assault?
Frederick Douglass once declared that the Fourth of July revealed the “gross injustice and cruelty” faced by the enslaved. Today, his words ring true for millions excluded from the blessings of liberty. Until justice is real for all, America’s celebration is not unity—it is mockery.
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