Coast Guardsmen march in the Juneau Fourth of July parade on July 4, 2021. (Dana Zigmund / Juneau Empire file photo)

Coast Guardsmen march in the Juneau Fourth of July parade on July 4, 2021. (Dana Zigmund / Juneau Empire file photo)

Opinion: The ideas and places that make America

After a week of enjoying Colorado’s sunshine, and tolerating its intense dry heat, it’s good to be back in the cool, moist air of our temperate rainforest. It’s home and has been for 34 years.

But I wonder if that’s long enough to be considered a real Alaskan.

The question has been on my mind ever since I read the speech J.D. Vance gave when accepting his party’s nomination for vice president. He argued that America is more than an idea established by the brilliance of our Constitution. “It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.”

History, however, isn’t that simple. Americans still dispute the significance of the Civil War and the one we fought in Vietnam. Tragically, we can’t even agree on the results of the last presidential election.

And there’s a lot of disagreement on the path the country should follow into the future.

Vance emphasized two personal stories to make his point. He talked about growing up in Middletown, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati “where people spoke their minds, built with their hands, and loved their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts.”

But like most steel mill towns, it “had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington.” Illegal drug addiction was a problem in his youth and is now. More specifically, he referred to the negative impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement and trade deals with China.

For the record, blaming President Joe Biden for the problems those created was a partisan rewrite of history. It’s true he supported both, but he was joined by far more Republicans than Democrats.

The other place Vance tied to his definition of a nation is a sparsely populated county in Eastern Kentucky that’s “one of the 10 poorest” in America. But the “very hardworking people” who live there “love this country, not only because it’s a good idea, but because in their bones they know that this is their home, and it will be their children’s home, and they would die fighting to protect it.”

And someday in the distant future, he hopes to be “laid to rest” in a nearby cemetery where five generations of his family “who have fought for this country” are buried.

While Vance is very much connected to his Appalachian roots, aside from the fact my father fought in World War II, his idea of a homeland would leave me homeless.

Dad was born in Wisconsin to an unwed mother and never even knew his father’s name. Mom was the daughter of Sicilian immigrants who settled in Boston. They raised a family of seven in a suburb 25 miles north of there.

I left after graduating from college and during the next six years lived in four cities in three different states. Three and half of those were spent in Ketchikan.

I arrived in Juneau in 1990, the same year my youngest sister Christine graduated from high school and left to attend college in Boulder, Colorado. My parents moved to a southwestern Denver suburb to be closer to her and my other sisters. They chose to be buried less than ten miles from their new home of 25 years.

For us and countless others, the idea of America freedom has always been a wide open invitation to explore this great land. To settle wherever we choose to raise our children. For them to find their own path. And as my parents did, to move again to watch their grandchildren grow.

When I came back to Southeast Alaska in 1990, I was struck by the unexpected sensation of coming home. It hasn’t changed in 34 years. Christine understands. “You can never leave here” she told me when visited last summer.

“Home is where the heart is,” as the old saying goes. I may not have been blessed with an Alaskan heritage, but just like anyone who came from outside and stayed, it’s loving wherever in this great land we chose to live that makes us Alaskans.

And in every state, there’s a collection of such places populated by lifelong residents and relative newcomers who are all real Americans.

• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.

More in Opinion

Web
Have something to say?

Here’s how to add your voice to the conversation.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, at the Capitol in Washington on Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. Accusations of past misconduct have threatened his nomination from the start and Trump is weighing his options, even as Pete Hegseth meets with senators to muster support. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)
Opinion: Sullivan plays make believe with America’s future

Two weeks ago, Sen. Dan Sullivan said Pete Hegseth was a “strong”… Continue reading

Dan Allard (right), a flood fighting expert for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, explains how Hesco barriers function at a table where miniature replicas of the three-foot square and four-foot high barriers are displayed during an open house Nov. 14 at Thunder Mountain Middle School to discuss flood prevention options in Juneau. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire file photo)
Opinion: Our comfort with spectacle became a crisis

If I owned a home in the valley that was damaged by… Continue reading

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Letter: Voter fact left out of news

With all the post-election analysis, one fact has escaped much publicity. When… Continue reading

The site of the now-closed Tulsequah Chief mine. (Michael Penn / Juneau Empire file photo)
My Turn: Maybe the news is ‘No new news’ on Canada’s plans for Tulsequah Chief mine cleanup

In 2015, the British Columbia government committed to ending Tulsequah Chief’s pollution… Continue reading

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage. (Alaska Department of Family and Community Services photo)
My Turn: Rights for psychiatric patients must have state enforcement

Kim Kovol, commissioner of the state Department of Family and Community Services,… Continue reading

People living in areas affected by flooding from Suicide Basin pick up free sandbags on Oct. 20 at Thunder Mountain Middle School. (City and Borough of Juneau photo)
Opinion: Mired in bureaucracy, CBJ long-term flood fix advances at glacial pace

During meetings in Juneau last week, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)… Continue reading

Rosa Parks, whose civil rights legacy has recent been subject to revision in class curriculums. (Public domain photo from the National Archives and Records Administration Records)
My Turn: Proud to be ‘woke’

Wokeness: the quality of being alert to and concerned about social injustice… Continue reading

The settlement of Sermiligaaq in Greenland (Ray Swi-hymn / CC BY-SA 2.0)
My Turn: Making the Arctic great again

It was just over five years ago, in the summer of 2019,… Continue reading

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage. (Alaska Department of Family and Community Services photo)
My Turn: Small wins make big impacts at Alaska Psychiatric Institute

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API), an 80-bed psychiatric hospital located in Anchorage… Continue reading

President Donald Trump and Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy pose for a photo aboard Air Force One during a stopover at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage in 2019. (Sheila Craighead / White House photo)
Opinion: Dunleavy has the prerequisite incompetence to work for Trump

On Tuesday it appeared that Gov. Mike Dunleavy was going to be… Continue reading