Great piece! You conjured up many early memories of the interplay between flags and Americaness. Maybe my earliest memory of flags comes from realizing around 5 that the few Irish flags in my neighborhood were not defective faded out versions of the majority Italian flags. My strongest memories of the American flag came from public school, which very few kids from my ethnic white neighborhood attended because it was majority black. That peculiar experience left an imprint in my mind of Americaness as something that transcended whiteness rather than something that was synonymous with it.
Beautiful.
Great piece! You conjured up many early memories of the interplay between flags and Americaness. Maybe my earliest memory of flags comes from realizing around 5 that the few Irish flags in my neighborhood were not defective faded out versions of the majority Italian flags. My strongest memories of the American flag came from public school, which very few kids from my ethnic white neighborhood attended because it was majority black. That peculiar experience left an imprint in my mind of Americaness as something that transcended whiteness rather than something that was synonymous with it.