I am a member of what they call ‘Generation X.’ I was born in the year 1983, after many of the significant events of American history. I came after the American Revolution and the establishment of our Constitution by our Founding Fathers. A ‘Redcoat’ is, well, a red-colored coat as far as I’m concerned. The Civil War is an event that I experienced while falling asleep in history class. It divided our country, literally, but that makes sense to me because that’s what ‘civil war’ means, literally.
I love space shuttles and NASA. I had the privilege of riding the Vomit Comet and experiencing zero-gravity but have only seen old recordings of the Apollo 11 flight to the moon. Though honestly, in an age of rapid intercontinental travel and an International Space Station, those clips aren’t that impressive. Come to think of it, I’ve never lived in a time without airplanes, televisions, or microwaves.
The ‘Day of Infamy’ is a coined phrase that my teachers used to describe December 7, 1941. I know a lot of people died – a staggering number that had no reason or rhyme for dying. In my head though, the tragedies of World War 2 are stored facts, not memories that elicit emotion. I can sympathize with the many losses that came with both World Wars, but I know that deep down, I can never truly empathize with them. They say, “Never forget history, or it is destined to repeat itself.” Well, I agree, but we need more than rote recitation of history to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. It’s like being told that a stove is hot without ever touching it.
The idea of rationing food or basic commodities like gasoline sounds ridiculous. When I first learned to drive, gasoline was about $1.00 a gallon and everybody drove Ford Explorers or Ford Mustangs or Honda Civics. Manual transmission vehicles are something that are cool to know how to drive, but that’s about it. The color of a car seems to matter more than the number of years it will last. And ten years seems like an awfully long time to own a car.
I was born after the Civil Rights movement. I can say that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches genuinely inspire me. At the same time though, I can’t help but feel a little lame in looking to the past for inspiration because leaders of the past will never witness the accomplishments of the present. I never personally experienced the reintegration of schools after Brown v. Board of Education, though I was one of the few Asian students in my elementary school. I know that racism exists because I have been the victim of it, but I’ve never seen racism so bad where the overwhelming weight of popular opinion promotes it with fire hoses, police dogs, and lynch mobs.
To me, Vietnam is something that an older generation hated but that my generation never understood. The original Woodstock, is well, just crazy people-with-music-having-sex-while-doing-drugs. If I did that today, I would have no chance at a career. But people who were at Woodstock in ’69 thought it was pretty awesome. Actually, I even have to watch the pictures that get posted on Facebook.com and screen ones that I think a potential employer might find disturbing. It’s annoying, but ‘it’s not worth the risk’ according to career counselors.
Nintendo was the best invention of my childhood, and the iPod was the coolest invention of my adolescence. People started carrying cell phones in my lifetime, but it’s hard to care much about cell phones besides the convenience that they provide. My justification for carrying one around is ‘just in case’ I need it in an emergency. I can probably count the number of times I used a cell phone for an emergency. I can use a cell phone to order pizza and send little short messages to friends that incessantly do the same. We all spend hours a day on the Internet, probably the single most democratizing creation of modern America.
9/11 came and when I heard about it from my roommate after I collected my tray to eat breakfast at my college dining hall, my brain couldn’t process it. It was so crazy that I couldn’t understand until I saw footage of the World Trade Center towers fall. 9/11 and the events following 9/11 were a shock to the world that I knew. I realized there are bad people in this world, not through a textbook or through old videos, but through direct experience. It woke my brain up from its mindless wandering through a seemingly pristine world, and our lives changed because of it. Some argue that our lives are better; some argue that we’re worse off, but no one argues that everything has stayed the same. September 11, 2001 is the first historic moment of my generation.
I watched as national security took center stage for years in the political and social arena. ‘Terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ are widely used terms now, but I’m not sure that will be the case twenty or thirty years in the future. Time will tell. As years went by, economics replaced national security as the urgent issue. Wall Street collapsed . . . several times. Seeing how most people don’t follow the stock market closely, it’s hard to gauge what a 700 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Index means for my ability to get a job or the cost of my electricity bills. I don’t get it, but some people say that it’s very important. I don’t believe them, though I decided, or at least my Congressmen decided, to bail them out anyways with $700,000,000,000.
And finally, I have witnessed the election of the first African American President of the United States. In one night, I felt anger, happiness, tears of joy, fear, hope, and excitement over a political figure that doesn’t fit my world view of a typical political figure. He’s been compared to Lincoln and JFK, a comparison that means little for people of my generation. What is important is not just the substance of the event, but also the emotions that I felt during this historic moment. My personal experience as I watched history unfold has significance because it is unique. And when I talk to someone ten years from now, I can bring a facet to the table that no history book can explain. My experience is different than other supporters of Obama or McCain, and all of our personal experiences surrounding this historic campaign make up the collective American experience during this presidential election.
When I hear speakers on television say “We’ve come so far,” I can’t help but wonder what it was like before – not just through a textbook, but what it was really like. I accept that I may never know, but the election of President Obama will bridge multiple generations of experiences. When people say, ‘Berlin Wall,’ I don’t understand. When people say, ‘Cold War,’ I don’t understand. When people say, ‘Elvis,’ I really don’t understand. But now, when the generation before me, the Baby Boomers, say, ‘first African American President of the United States,’ we both understand.
Tonight was the second great historical moment of my generation. America turned the page of history again, and this time, I was there to watch.
“Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.” – John McCain, November 4, 2008.
“This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change.” – Barack Obama, November 4, 2008.
