A Good, Old Fashioned Patriotism Parade

As the school year draws to a close, elementary classrooms around the world are putting second graders on center stage and requiring them to recite lines with the enthusiasm of an overworked roofer.

On Tuesday night Shahin called me to see if I wanted to go to Laila's school play on Wednesday morning, and since I didn't have anything too important until 12:30 and since Mack has wholly embraced public transportation in the face of $4.79/gallon gas, I decided to brave rush hour traffic and head to West Hollywood for what I was sure would be a morning worthy of a smirk.

Hancock Elementary School did not disappoint. Hancock, because it is situated near the oldest and most sprawling apartment township, could probably be named Park La Brea Elementary. And because Park La Brea is known for its mix of Koreans and Russians and other distinguishable accents, the elementary school committed to its residents is an ethnic rainbow. This palette of little people is one of the reasons I liked L.A. so much when I first stayed here and walked Laila to school every day.

But, it's also why the Patriotism Parade felt a little, uh, off color.

Like, there is probably one "white" girl in the whole school, and she landed the role of Harriet Tubman. And during the part about the Civil War, all the little Korean kids were digging in the air with garden spades, sporting Mammy rags on their heads and talking about Abe Lincoln without being able to make the L sound. And during the Cesar Chavez chapter, which featured a nice variety of color waving "Viva la Causa" and "Don't buy grapes" signs in protest, the namesake lobbied for farmers' rights through a thick Russian accent.

All the while there was a banner the size of my apartment hanging behind them that proclaimed, "I love America."

It was very cute, especially the little "reporters" wearing their fathers' trenchcoats and looking like cartoon characters, but after the flashes from the million digital cameras stopped blinding me, I felt a little bit like I felt the time I watched the Wal-mart morning warm-ups that go on in China. Or the time I watched Jesus Camp. It was cute, but it was also indoctrination parading around as American history.

They are seven, and like 2-year-olds, 7-year-olds repeat what you tell them (although more robotically and without pauses suggested by commas). Maybe it is better to teach them all the words to "This land is my land, this land is your land" before they really understand what that means, but maybe these kids, who are most likely the first generation born in America, have a better sense of what that means than I do.

And even if they don't now, maybe they will when they see their kids doing this play in 20 years. If they can put their cameras down long enough to see what's really going on.