{"id":17724,"date":"2026-07-05T12:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17724"},"modified":"2026-07-05T12:48:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:48:55","slug":"debitos-sna-vm-column-76-the-semiquincentennial-vs-the-bicentennial-after-my-hometown-fifth-grade-class-opened-a-50-year-time-capsule-last-month-a-reflection-how-america-has-made-a-hash-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17724","title":{"rendered":"Debito’s SNA VM Column 76: “The Semiquincentennial vs. The Bicentennial”. After my hometown fifth-grade class opened a 50-year time capsule last month, a reflection how America has made a hash of its 250th Birthday, but foreigners brought a better party instead."},"content":{"rendered":"

Books, eBooks, and more from Debito Arudou, Ph.D. (click on icon):
\n\"Guidebookcover.jpg\"<\/a>\"japaneseonlyebookcovertext\"<\/a>\"Handbook<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\u300c\u30b8\u30e3\u30d1\u30cb\u30fc\u30ba\u30fb\u30aa\u30f3\u30ea\u30fc\u3000\u5c0f\u6a3d\u5165\u6d74\u62d2\u5426\u554f\u984c\u3068\u4eba\u7a2e\u5dee\u5225\u300d\uff08\u660e\u77f3\u66f8\u5e97\uff09\"<\/a>\"sourstrawberriesavatar\"<\/a>\"debitopodcastthumb\"<\/a>\"FodorsJapan2014cover\"<\/a>
\nUPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
\nDEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free
\n“LIKE” US on Facebook at http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/debitoorg<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embeddedrcsmJapan<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.facebook.com\/handbookimmigrants<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/JapaneseOnlyTheBook<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BookInAppropriate<\/a>
\nIf you like what you read and discuss on Debito.org, please consider helping us stop hackers and defray maintenance costs with a little donation via my webhoster:
\n\"Donate<\/a>
\nAll donations go towards website costs only. Thanks for your support!<\/i><\/p>\n

Hi Blog. \u00a0Sorry I’ve been so quiet. \u00a0I’ve had a couple of vision quests over the past month, with trips to Japan and a road trip from the US East Coast.<\/p>\n

VISIBLE MINORITIES: \u00a0THE SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL VS. THE BICENTENNIAL<\/h2>\n

Subtitle:\u00a0 <\/span>The United States should be celebrating the best of itself on its landmark birthday, like it did fifty years ago.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s not.\u00a0 <\/span>But the party is actually elsewhere.<\/h3>\n

By Debito Arudou, Ph.D. \u00a0 Shingetsu News Agency column 76, July 4, 2026.<\/h4>\n

Courtesy https:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2026\/07\/05\/visible-minorities-semiquincentennial-vs-bicentennial\/<\/a><\/h4>\n

Last month I had the priceless pleasure of getting together with my fifth grade class in my hometown of Geneva, New York.\u00a0 <\/span>As planned.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On June 25, 1976, the last day of school, our teacher, Mrs. Curtis, said we should reconvene in fifty years.\u00a0 <\/span>Our class had just sealed a time capsule \u2014 a metal tube big enough to encapsulate a bodybuilder\u2019s arm \u2014 and stuffed it with contemporary paraphernalia for safekeeping in our local museum.\u00a0 <\/span>When we reached age sixty, we were to open it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Back then we were only ten or eleven years old.\u00a0 <\/span>Sixty seemed positively ancient, like Mrs-Curtis-ancient. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Class<\/a>
(Can you find Debito, who was then Dave Aldwinckle?)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

But now here we were, our careers, investments, births and deaths, marriages and divorces, children and grandchildren, accidents and recoveries, and major life lessons behind us.\u00a0 <\/span>Eight of our class of 22 sitting in our original classroom, completing our longest-ever homework assignment.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
(Our classmates in our sixties.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OPENING PANDORA\u2019S BOX<\/h3>\n

On June 17, 2026, we convened at our old Prospect Avenue School.\u00a0 <\/span>Built in 1926, the building was celebrating its own centennial, but had long since been repurposed into a lodge for the local Sons and Daughters of Italy.\u00a0 <\/span>They had left the upper floors, where our classroom was, derelict. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Prospect<\/a>
(Old Prospect Avenue School, Geneva NY, as seen from the old kickball diamond home plate. From here Darryl R. once kicked the ball so hard that it landed on the roof. Game over. It’s probably still up there.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Turns out the classroom was a time capsule in itself.\u00a0 <\/span>Windows boarded up and unopenable, the room was stuffy, dusty, and claustrophobic to the roughly two dozen adult family and friends who had made the pilgrimage.\u00a0 <\/span>Peeling ceilings were glumly illuminated by the remaining original yellowed fluorescents.\u00a0 <\/span>We were duly warned not to linger because of the asbestos, but laughed that if our years of classroom exposure hadn\u2019t felled us yet, no worries now.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Amazingly, Mrs. Curtis\u2019s handiwork was still there a half century later.\u00a0 <\/span>The room\u2019s still-functional black slate chalkboards were framed by her history timelines on the walls in black tape, designed to give even the most bored fifth grader something to absorb by osmosis.\u00a0 <\/span>I remember the earliest date was written on a piece of construction paper in Mrs. Curtis\u2019s elegant cursive: \u201c1000:\u00a0 <\/span>Leif Erikson visits America.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Fifty years later it was still there, affixed by clearly immortal scotch tape, nearly crumbling to dust at the touch.\u00a0 <\/span>The timelines snaked around the room, ending at 1970 when our educations began. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Mrs<\/a>
(Mrs Curtis’s elegant cursive on her timeline note, with an explanation below it in Steve’s elegant non-cursive.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After organizer Steve offered a few words about the significance of the event, the capsule was readied, rivets removed and duct tape easily peeled off, and out poured an un-oxidized snapshot of youthful knowledge. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
(The very moment the time capsule was opened.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

A sample:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A TIME Magazine from June 14, 1976, unopened in its delivery wrapper.\u00a0 <\/span>A Geneva Times front page mysteriously headlining, \u201cPlants may produce germ weapons\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>Car catalogs and newspaper Sunday comics.\u00a0 <\/span>Images from the 1976 Winter Olympics.\u00a0 <\/span>Advertisements for polyester clothing and milk for 49 cents a gallon.\u00a0 <\/span>A Geneva PennySaver offering tacky handdrawn furniture that would fill your living room for only $459.\u00a0 <\/span>An empty Pepsi can with the old ring-pull tab attached.\u00a0 <\/span>A profile of President Gerald Ford.\u00a0 <\/span>A folding paper map of New York State.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Accompanying each item were classmate explanations rendered in our crude but careful cursive pencil, depicting an assumption that future America must be completely different with flying cars, George Jetson fashions, and the metric system.\u00a0 <\/span>One classmate put in a ruler with a careful explanation of feet and inches.\u00a0 <\/span>Others carefully explained how zippers, pins, and needles fastened clothes.\u00a0 <\/span>Another explained the concept of taxes, collected at multiple government levels.\u00a0 <\/span>One mentioned how the Sunday comics were called \u201cthe funnies.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My contributions were a current 50-star American flag and an obscure 35-star haloed medallion version I described as a \u201cFlag of the Union\u201d (as in the Union side of the Civil War).\u00a0 <\/span>Turns out the flag commemorated West Virginia\u2019s admission as an anti-slavery state in 1863, but I doubt I knew that.\u00a0 <\/span>I was clearly a weird kid destined to dominate bar trivia games.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But I also put in something mundane:\u00a0 <\/span>a quarter, half-dollar, and silver dollar, with a description of what dollars and cents were.\u00a0 <\/span>But they weren\u2019t random pocket change.\u00a0 <\/span>They were coins specially minted to commemorate the American Bicentennial. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what occasioned Mrs. Curtis\u2019s time capsule.\u00a0 <\/span>Nothing in it about us as students or individuals.\u00a0 <\/span>No personal messages.\u00a0 <\/span>No self-introductions beyond our names on a roster.\u00a0 <\/span>The point was to interest the historians, not send a message to ourselves.\u00a0 <\/span>To teach future America about what our America was like during a special year \u2014 America\u2019s 200th birthday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That brings us to the point of this column:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

THE AMERICAN BICENTENNIAL WAS BETTER DONE<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m fortunate to have experienced two commemorative years for America:\u00a0 <\/span>the Bicentennial 200th Birthday in 1976 and the Semiquincentennial 250th Birthday this year.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m also fortunate to be a columnist with a loose deadline, so I\u2019ll consider it my job to compare them. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I can say without reservation that 1976 did it better.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

From the beginning the mood was festive.\u00a0 <\/span>The build-up was there.\u00a0 <\/span>I remember New Year\u2019s Eve 1975 watching the Times Square ball dropping on TV.\u00a0 <\/span>Just after midnight, the crowd spontaneously broke out singing \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d to America.\u00a0 <\/span>Shortly after, we learned the novelty song in school, \u201cFifty Nifty United States,\u201d which to this day helps us recall all fifty states in alphabetical order.\u00a0 <\/span>We even sang it together in our classroom last month, fifty nifty years later.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Back then, Bicentennial gear was everywhere, making it easy for us kids to find stocking stuffers for the capsule:\u00a0 <\/span>A pamphlet we plucked from some newspaper offered all the flags of American history.\u00a0 <\/span>A beer-can piggy bank, produced by Geneva\u2019s long-gone linchpin employer American Can, offered an image of the Founders signing the Declaration of Independence (mentioning only in passing the factory\u2019s own 75th anniversary).\u00a0 <\/span>All manner of media offered article and advertisement that was star-spangled and thirteen-striped.\u00a0 <\/span>An enclosed Reader\u2019s Digest dated June 1976 had an article from astronaut Neil Armstrong entitled, \u201cWhat America means to me.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a happy time.\u00a0 <\/span>But the happiness was also tempered by history.\u00a0 <\/span>Legendary journalist Walter Cronkite signed off a 16-hour show entitled \u201cIn Celebration of US:\u00a0 <\/span>Our Happiest Birthday<\/a>\u201d on July 4, 1976 \u2014 mere weeks after we had sealed the time capsule \u2014 where he said, poignantly:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the party\u2019s just about over.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019re 200 years old.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s a milestone that makes us wonder what will become of us as a nation.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019re not sure of the future.\u00a0 <\/span>No one can be.\u00a0 <\/span>We don\u2019t know what\u2019s behind the doors that we must open.\u00a0 <\/span>We only know that the keys we have \u2014 keys cut in Independence Hall which became our ideals:\u00a0 <\/span>Liberty, justice, equality.\u00a0 <\/span>Our people have suffered and died for those ideals.\u00a0 <\/span>We have as a nation have written a remarkable history, certainly.\u00a0 <\/span>But we should remember that we have not fulfilled our ideals, even after 200 years.\u00a0 <\/span>Correcting wrongs will be part of our future.\u00a0 <\/span>It will demand courage.\u00a0 <\/span>But correcting wrongs has been a dramatic part of our history.\u00a0 <\/span>Courage is a remarkable part of our heritage.\u00a0 <\/span>It can open the doors to justice for everyone.\u00a0 <\/span>We will be alright if we keep in our hearts the story of America.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY ON THE BRINK ON ITS BIRTHDAY<\/h3>\n

Now in our 250th the mood is very different.\u00a0 <\/span>And I\u2019m not so sure we will be alright.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, local governments are rightly doing their commemorations, and no doubt billions will be burnt in fireworks.\u00a0 <\/span>But at the national level, the celebration is muted.\u00a0 <\/span>Many of festivities are reserved for a segment of the population \u2014 the people who support the current President.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Consider the America250<\/a> bipartisan initiative launched a year ago, to <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cengage every American\u2026 to inspire our fellow Americans to reflect on our past, strengthen our love of country, and renew our commitment to the ideals of democracy through programs that educate, engage, and unite us as a nation. America250 will foster shared experiences that spark imagination, showcase the rich tapestry of our American stories, inspire service in our communities, honor the enduring strength, and celebrate the resilience of the United States of America.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That feels like 1976. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s been hijacked by the President Trump-affiliated Freedom 250, which offers no readily found goals on its website.\u00a0 <\/span>It has siphoned off most of America250\u2019s budget to headline one person (himself) instead of one nation. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This year\u2019s metaphorical time capsule has been filled with images of Washington DC in disarray:\u00a0 <\/span>A demolished White House with superglued gild<\/a>, a violent UFC fight that tore up The Ellipse, a Kennedy Center closed to celebratory events, a profoundly unattended Great American State Fair establishing chintz and Christianity on the National Mall, the Reflecting Pool fenced off and patrolled by the National Guard, and hallowed institutions such as the National Park Foundation<\/a> corrupted with suspected personal profiteering and wire fraud<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>Even DC\u2019s July 4 celebrations are not about promoting inclusive narratives of \u201cWe The People,\u201d but rather \u201cthe most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all<\/a>.*<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Cronkite\u2019s ideals of \u201cliberty, justice, and equality\u201d have been overwritten with \u201coligarchy, corruption, and anti-Woke.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The narrative of the Semiquincentennial is replete with White Christian Nationalist imagery and programming that showcases only part of the American Story \u2014 when Americans downplayed the stain of slavery and fought to keep American power majority white.\u00a0 <\/span>This is their reaction to America becoming inexorably browner, with the share of foreign-born population more than tripling since 1970, and the white population decreasing from around 83<\/a> percent in 1976 to less than 56<\/a> percent today.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hence the efforts to restore power along racial lines and ethnically cleanse the country.\u00a0 <\/span>Since 2025, more than half a million \u201cillegals<\/a>\u201d (including US citizens<\/a>) have been deported via more than 200<\/a> deadly ICE detention centers.\u00a0 <\/span>To stifle diverse opinions and social movements, the machinery of the Federal Government has been weaponized to cow the media and suppress minority votes in elections.\u00a0 <\/span>The Department of Justice has targeted Trump\u2019s opponents and threatened critics with lawsuits and loss of livelihood.\u00a0 <\/span>This year\u2019s Supreme Court rulings alone have further strengthened the powers of the Executive Branch while weakening voting rights and independent oversight institutions; several \u201ctextualist\u201d Justices even argued against the Constitution\u2019s explicit text granting birthright citizenship!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

America is also being narratively cleansed.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cAmerica\u2019s story\u201d is being sanitized from the Smithsonian<\/a> on down, with the presumption that America\u2019s diversity of voice and view is a threat, not an underlying strength.\u00a0 <\/span>The multicultural pluralistic society fostered by America\u2019s \u201csecond founding\u201d after the Civil War, with the creation of the Constitution\u2019s 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, is being steadily undone. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally, the Constitution is being ignored if not violated daily, with but one example seen in the Emoluments Clause, as Trump has profiteered from the presidency to the point of his net worth increasing by an estimated $4.2 billion<\/a> since he re-took office in 2025.\u00a0 <\/span>America\u2019s accelerating concentration of wealth in the top 1% of income earners has produced the world\u2019s first trillionaire in Elon Musk, while more than half<\/a> of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.\u00a0 <\/span>People who can\u2019t afford the basics, due to capricious wars and high fuel costs, are grousing that the Semiquincentennial is less a vacation than a \u201cstaycation<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Party?\u00a0 <\/span>What party? \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s changed since 1976?\u00a0 <\/span>The one truly revolutionary thing that nobody in Mrs. Curtis\u2019s class could have foreseen is the Internet.\u00a0 <\/span>All the world\u2019s information is in the palm of your hand in your smartphone, but the flip side of the coin is social media.\u00a0 <\/span>Our attention span has been commoditized, and the tech oligarchs\u2019 algorithms are designed to polemicize regular discourse and divide people into warring camps. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe the People\u201d has become \u201cUs and Them.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cRed white and blue\u201d is more \u201cred vs. blue.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, even if you don\u2019t agree with my read of this situation, let\u2019s just view the situation commonsensibly.\u00a0 <\/span>Parties are best when everyone is determined to have fun.\u00a0 <\/span>That can\u2019t happen when one side is trying to spoil it for the other.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

PLUCKING CELEBRATION OUT OF TOXIC POLITICS<\/h3>\n

Fortunately, there is one thing where the best of America is still being brought out, and it\u2019s not even American. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Three cheers for the FIFA Soccer World Cup 2026, where North American co-hosts Canada, Mexico, and the United States have created one big party inside and outside the stadium.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite America\u2019s lukewarm attitudes towards soccer as a sport, attendance and viewing records are being set, and the American team at this writing is doing quite well.\u00a0 <\/span>More importantly, despite the federal government\u2019s best efforts to scare people away from America\u2019s borders, people from all over the world are seeing American hospitality, helpfulness, even inventiveness. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ice machines in hotels are something the world never knew it needed.\u00a0 <\/span>Charming American capitalistic excess (such as Buc-ee\u2019s) has gone viral.\u00a0 <\/span>Ranch dressing is such a big hit that Kraft has already come out with TSA-friendly<\/a> suitcase packaging.\u00a0 <\/span>Places as far afield as Lawrence, Kansas, have embraced the Algerian team despite Trump calling African countries \u201csh*tholes.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>And so on.\u00a0 <\/span>I guess FIFA bribing Trump with a few baubles to keep him out of the event was a smart idea after all.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe the lesson here is that American civil society, when left to its own devices, will reflexively make good on its promises when everyone is focused on having a good time. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I also think healing power of sport, with a level playing field, clear refereeing, and the spirit of fair play, is just something the Americans aren\u2019t used to anymore after more than a decade of Donald Trump. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Once again, foreigners are bringing out the best in America.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

RESEALING TODAY FOR TOMORROW<\/h3>\n

Back to our event in Geneva, New York.\u00a0 <\/span>After a tasty spaghetti dinner in the refurbished lower floors of Prospect Avenue School, we personalized the contents of the time capsule. \u00a0 <\/span>We added information about ourselves and our lives.\u00a0 <\/span>Some put in business cards and keychains from their businesses, others pictures of their families and grandkids, others letters of personal struggles and lessons learned.\u00a0 <\/span>I put in an \u201comamori\u201d (a Japanese good-luck talisman) I bought in Yokohama Chinatown a few weeks before.\u00a0 <\/span>And a copy of this column from the Shingetsu News Agency you are now reading.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This time capsule will be reopened in another 50 years for America\u2019s Tricentennial, when we are all long gone.\u00a0 <\/span>Future readers, I wonder how you see 2026 in historical retrospect.\u00a0 <\/span>Did this trying time eventually pass like a painful kidney stone?\u00a0 <\/span>Or were the flaws in the American system of government, ignored for 250 years, ultimately too deep to overcome? \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What is the story of America now?\u00a0 <\/span>As Cronkite wished above, I hope you kept it in your hearts.\u00a0 <\/span>The good story, I mean \u2014 the one that embraces diversity and sees tolerance, empathy, and equity as virtues.\u00a0 <\/span>A society that knows how to come together and celebrate what\u2019s good about it. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Because that\u2019s not happening during this Semiquincentennial, alas.\u00a0 <\/span>I predict that the American Republic will either come out of this experience stronger, or cease to exist as we know it. \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Either way, it won\u2019t ever return to how we had it in 1976.\u00a0 <\/span>I hope the readers of 2076 have found themselves on the right side of history.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

=========================================<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n

Local Finger Lakes Times newspaper covers the time capsule opening in print:<\/h4>\n

https:\/\/www.fltimes.com\/news\/a-reunion-to-be-remembered-former-fifth-grade-class-in-geneva-opens-time-capsule-50\/article_50bb0594-f792-4883-b95c-c0c389eae811.html \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

And FLT in video:<\/h4>\n

https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/reel\/5042349755991486<\/a><\/p>\n

ENDS
\n======================
\nDo you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0Please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>. Or if you prefer something less complicated, just click on an advertisement below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This column is about living history, where I returned to my hometown of Geneva NY to unseal a time capsule we created in 1976 in fifth grade, and unlocked a lot of memories of the Bicentennial. I take this occasion to compare it to the current Semiquincentennial. Excerpt from the middle:<\/p>\n

============================
\n“I\u2019m fortunate to have experienced two commemorative years for America:\u00a0 the Bicentennial 200th Birthday in 1976 and the Semiquincentennial 250th Birthday this year.\u00a0 I\u2019m also fortunate to be a columnist with a loose deadline, so I\u2019ll consider it my job to compare them. \u00a0I can say without reservation that 1976 did it better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From the beginning the mood was festive.\u00a0 The build-up was there.\u00a0 I remember New Year\u2019s Eve 1975 watching the Times Square ball dropping on TV.\u00a0 Just after midnight, the crowd spontaneously broke out singing \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d to America.\u00a0 Shortly after, we learned the novelty song in school, \u201cFifty Nifty United States,\u201d which to this day helps us recall all fifty states in alphabetical order.\u00a0 We even sang it together in our classroom last month, fifty nifty years later.<\/p>\n

Back then, Bicentennial gear was everywhere, making it easy for us kids to find stocking stuffers for the capsule:\u00a0 A pamphlet we plucked from some newspaper offered all the flags of American history.\u00a0 A beer-can piggy bank, produced by Geneva\u2019s long-gone linchpin employer American Can, offered an image of the Founders signing the Declaration of Independence (mentioning only in passing the factory\u2019s own 75th anniversary).\u00a0 All manner of media offered article and advertisement that was star-spangled and thirteen-striped.\u00a0 An enclosed Reader\u2019s Digest dated June 1976 had an article from astronaut Neil Armstrong entitled, \u201cWhat America means to me.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a happy time.\u00a0 But the happiness was also tempered by history.\u00a0 Legendary journalist Walter Cronkite signed off a 16-hour show entitled \u201cIn Celebration of US:\u00a0 Our Happiest Birthday\u201d on July 4, 1976 \u2014 mere weeks after we had sealed the time capsule \u2014 where he said, poignantly:<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the party\u2019s just about over.\u00a0 We\u2019re 200 years old.\u00a0 It\u2019s a milestone that makes us wonder what will become of us as a nation.\u00a0 We\u2019re not sure of the future.\u00a0 No one can be.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know what\u2019s behind the doors that we must open.\u00a0 We only know that the keys we have \u2014 keys cut in Independence Hall which became our ideals:\u00a0 Liberty, justice, equality.\u00a0 Our people have suffered and died for those ideals.\u00a0 We have as a nation have written a remarkable history, certainly.\u00a0 But we should remember that we have not fulfilled our ideals, even after 200 years.\u00a0 Correcting wrongs will be part of our future.\u00a0 It will demand courage.\u00a0 But correcting wrongs has been a dramatic part of our history.\u00a0 Courage is a remarkable part of our heritage.\u00a0 It can open the doors to justice for everyone.\u00a0 We will be alright if we keep in our hearts the story of America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now in our 250th the mood is very different.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not so sure we will be alright…
\n============================<\/p>\n

This event was covered both in print and video by the local Finger Lakes Times newspaper, and links are provided. Photos from the event and from 1976 are also in this blog entry. You can see my class and me fifty nifty years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,18,22,19,34,50,35,20,12,26,13,77,11,17,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-academia","category-cultural-issue","category-education","category-exclusionism","category-gaiatsu","category-good-news","category-history","category-immigration-assimilation","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-media","category-on-democracy","category-problematic-foreign-treatment","category-sport","category-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17724"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17739,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17724\/revisions\/17739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}