Happy Birthday America!

I spent the 4th of July in El Paso, TX and Juarez, Mexico. Needless to say I was not happy to be working on a holiday and to spend most of the day in a foreign country.

I have been blessed to meet and become friends with so many people from different cultures. It makes me appreciate where I was born and what I have. We must remember that we share a border with a third world country and every time I am in Mexico I understand why they want to come to America. For what they lack in wealth, they make up for in compassion for family and friends.

I spent the evening of July 4th in El Paso, TX with some of my Mexican friends. They did not want me to be alone on such an important day for Americans so they came across the border to spend the evening with me. We started the evening with the most important 'Ds' - drinks, dinner, dessert! After we stuffed ourselves silly, we went and watched the West El Paso fireworks in the mountains. I have always been very patriotic, but never felt so proud to be an American as I did watching the fireworks with hundreds of thousands of Mexican-Americans, who call themselves Americans. I am sure many of these people are not American born citizens and this is why they are so proud to now be Americans and live in this country. I have never seen such enthusiasm, pride, tears, and joy all at once each and every time a firework was launched. There was so much shouting, laughing, dancing, and partying. I couldn't even tell you if it was a good fireworks display or not. I spent most of the evening people watching and listening to my Mexican friends tell me how lucky I am to be an American. I ended up enjoying being in El Paso for the 4th.

I learned on this 4th of July that it is truly awesome to be an American. It doesn't matter how you received your US citizenship; the important thing is that you have it.