Independence Day Interrupted

This year, I’m choosing not to celebrate the Fourth of July. Not because I don’t love my country—quite the opposite. I love it so deeply that my heart aches watching what it’s becoming. This year, I’ll sit with that ache instead of lighting fireworks. I’ll remember the man who taught me what real patriotism looks like—my dad—and I’ll honor him not with barbecues or red-white-and-blue, but with truth.

My dad was a proud Marine who served in Vietnam. He was exposed to Agent Orange and the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, a toxic legacy that stole so much from so many. And yet, when he came home, he didn’t give up on this country. He didn’t curse it or run from it. He served it again—first as a patrolman, then a sergeant, then Chief of Police, and finally as a town commissioner. He volunteered with the Lions Club. He fought for his fellow veterans. He showed up, every single day, for his community. That was the America he believed in—one where service, dignity, and decency meant something.

But that America feels like a memory.

This year, I’ve watched in horror as families like mine are targeted, not celebrated. My husband is a permanent resident—he has his green card—but he is still a “brown man” in America, and these days, that alone can make you a target. Immigration enforcement is no longer just about rules or policy; it’s about fear. People are being snatched from courtrooms, sidewalks, homes. Some agents don’t even identify themselves. And still, our leaders call this justice. They call it security. I call it cruelty. I call it betrayal.

I’ve begged our elected officials to see us. To protect families like mine. To remember that this country was built by immigrants and dreamers, not by cruelty and exclusion. But their responses have been empty. They see numbers, not names. Policies, not people. And that, to me, is not freedom. That is not liberty and justice for all.

So no, I will not celebrate this year. I cannot wave a flag while children are traumatized by raids, while mothers like me live in fear, while the American Dream becomes a nightmare for so many. I will not pretend that everything is fine when my heart tells me it’s not.

Instead, I will honor my dad by standing for the values he believed in. I will speak truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. I will light a candle instead of a firework—a candle of remembrance, of protest, of hope.

Because I still believe this country can be the one my dad fought for. But it isn’t right now. And until it is, I’ll keep fighting—not for independence, but for integrity.

And that’s the most patriotic thing I can do.