We Are America

The following was taken from the book, “All The Women In My Family Sing.” It was adapted from the speech given at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., on January 21, 2017.  It’s called, “We Are America,” by America Ferrera, who is most known for her role on ABC’s comedy, “Ugly Betty.” 

It’s been a heart-wrenching time to be both a woman and an immigrant in this country.  Our dignity, our character and our rights have all been under attack, and a platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday.  But the president is not America.

His cabinet is not America.  Congress is not America.  We are America.  And we are here to stay.  We march for our families and our neighbors, for the future, for the causes we claim and for the causes that claim us.  We march for the moral core of this nation, against which our new president is raging a war.  He would like us to forget the words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free” and instead take up a credo of hate, fear and suspicion of each other.  

  But we are gathered here, and across the country and around the world to say:  Mr. Trump, we refuse.  We reject you demonization of our Muslim brothers and sisters.  We demand an end to systemic murder and incarceration of our Black brothers and sister.  We will not give up our right to safe and legal abortions.  We will not ask our LGBTQ families to go backward.  We will not go from being a nation of immigrants to a nation of ignorance.  We won’t build walls and we won’t see the worse in each other, and we will not turn our backs on the more than 750,000 young immigrants in this country currently protected by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA):  they are hardworking, upstanding, courageous individuals who refuse to live in the shadow of fear and isolation.  They bravely took to the streets to declare themselves and provide a voice and hope for their community.

We march with and for them together, we, all of us, will fight, resist and oppose every single action that threatens the lives and dignity of any and all of our communities.  Make no mistake:  we are, every single one of us, under attack.  Our safety and freedoms are on the chopping block and we are the only ones who can protect each other.  If we do not stand together, march together and fight together for the next four years, we will lose together.

Our opposition knows how to stick together.  They are united in their agenda to hold this country back and to thwart progress.  It is in their slogan.  So, we, too, must stand united.  If we, the millions of Americans who believe in common decency, in a greater good, in justice for all, if we fall into the trap of separating ourselves by our causes and out labels, then we will weaken our fight and we will lose.  But, if commit to what aligns us, if we stand together, steadfast and determined, then we stand a chance of saving the soul of our country.

So let’s march together.  This is only Day One in our united movement.  Let’s march, united together.