I was born barefoot in Kansas in the heat of summer and remained barefoot until I was ten years old. No one needed shoes to run to Main Street or play in the neighbors’ lawns. A village raised a child nametags were never needed a handshake was a deal and cow tipping was a weekend adventure.
I starred in community theater when I was eight years old because only 12 people in the entire town considered themselves singers and I had stage presence. I began to work in my father’s small Mexican-American restaurant when I was six years old serving as a host and developing my manners and a somewhat forced love for customer service. By the time I learned the cash register I knew every person in town. I would spend hours talking to community members about taxes church building plans crop rotations and all other topics that I pretended to understand. I listened to truck drivers describe far-off lands of coastal highways and the people they met along their routes.
After my family moved away from that small town it began to die. Times changed people changed the country changed and community itself lost its inside luster of the American hyper-speed lifestyle.
I wish everyone could have lived in the small town of my youth because it taught me a love and care for people that could be cultivated no other way. But the winds of change have blown a new player to the public stage a player who promises to remember even the most average of Joes.
Barack Obama has the potential to reunite the divided states of America in ways no candidate has envisioned within recent memory. I remember my father clearing tables in his restaurant for families in need and meeting hunger with no expectation of a return or favor. I remember our town doctor charging little to nothing for office visits. I remember community members giving out their monetary surplus to meet the needs of both friends and strangers. I was told that sharing was a necessary part of life. I was taught that giving was the glue that quietly holds society together and keeps people afloat. I was instructed to always provide my neighbor with “sugar” when in need.
Now the idea of social responsibility provokes talk of socialism. Suddenly the idea of meeting the needs of our national community is scorned. Obama’s focus on ideals has drawn stark criticism from Main Street to Wall Street but his ability as a visionary may rescue this nation from its own cynicism. As a Kansan in California I am beginning to reconcile the truck stop conversations of my youth with a broader worldview.
As a Kansan in California with half of my family in Iran I seek a leader who is willing to swap weapons for cultural understanding. From my conservative roots to my contemporary “left-coast” life I see a need for change in both camps – the need for optimism; the need for hope.
I chuckle when it is suggested that this country will be destroyed through the promotion of equality. I also know that the strength of our nation will in no way be compromised through more delicate military dealings and the future of our country cannot be questioned simply based on a new tax plan. Rather with a desire to raise the quality of life for everyone I see the need for community to be the focus again. I am willing to rally behind Obama and strive after the ideals he has articulated – not solely because of my political opinions but because I remember what a community can be.When I left for California the more conservative members of my town counted me for a loss.
But now I find myself standing on the edge of what I understand to be a very diverse country and also on the edge of progressive thinking. I know my hometown would be shocked to find that I have continued in my education of becoming a socially responsible citizen. The average blue collar hard-working dedicated citizen was lost in the clamor of political gib-gab.