The Fourth of July is coming around, and everyone’s focused on the fireworks, barbecues, and the “all-American” way of store discounts and deals on that new car that you’ve been wanting for a long time. It’s become a holiday we celebrate ignorantly without any true meaning behind it.

Looking back on our history, it’s obvious that the American colonial period was a time that is so foreign to us that it’s practically impossible to relate to it. Back then, it was about forming identity and core concepts that were uniquely American because they didn’t have an identity yet. There was the Stamp Act, the unending taxes, the Boston Tea Party, the colonial revolts, the unfair British military rule, and eventually the Declaration of Independence that caused a five-year revolution that forced the colonies into the future of what is now modern-day America. However, America didn’t even truly form until after the Civil War because of the conflicts that the North and South had on their viewpoints of an American nation. The North valued the preservation of the Union, while the South relished in the past of the Founding Fathers and constitutional rights for independence. We then flourished from there and became a nation that is so prominent in the world that, nowadays, many other countries are sick of our patriotic egos overrunning the world.

Our focus on the concept of freedom and justice has been changing whether people realize it or not. Countless wars have already happened, both overseas or in our own homes. We’ve been establishing our identity as a nation for years, but has our American pride become a joke? In my opinion, the fourth of July has become a former façade of its older self, because the idea of patriotism and American pride has been abused many times to fit the older generations’ needs for rosy-tinted nostalgia. Nevertheless, from the debates that have been going on recently, our younger generations are actually trying make a better country, even if it’s not the way our older generations see it. The problem we’ve been having is that the differences in political ideology get in the way of making progress. Because of the "blame game" in politics, our future generations are now focusing on creating a society with respect for other cultures and an understanding of the human condition, like social justice movements and a practice of acceptance for other cultural differences. That’s what patriotism and American identity means to me -- to make progress in a country that gives us the right to choose.

So, if we are going to be patriotic, we should be celebrating our growth and our right to choose rather than relish on a false image of patriotic bias. This Fourth of July should be about how we as a country create our own way of living and our own freedom to be who we want to be, and it should be a celebration of the progress we hope to make towards equality and our rights as human beings. America has a long way to go and a lot of struggles to face, but hopefully we’re all aiming towards a better country, a better America.