I am the daughter of an immigrant from The Philippines and the granddaughter of Polish immigrants. My deepest roots run far from the country of my birth. I am proud to be bi-racial. I am also proud to be a citizen by birth of the The United States.

I am an American born in the United States of American. I have friends born in Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Canada, and many other American countries. They are all Americans too.

The boundaries that establish the line between one country or another, between one state or another are all designed by humans. And contrary to what some humans seem to believe, we are not masters of the universe. We are only masters of our own domain.

National boundaries are the embodiment of hubris. To think we can divide something as vast and powerful as the earth into little sections independent from each other is ludicrous. Without an arbitrary line telling you otherwise, you would never know when you have crossed from one country to the next. You can stand at either the northern or southern border of the US, reach down and grab a handful of dirt from across the border and not see any difference from the dirt you are standing on.

It’s not money that’s the root of evil. It’s sovereignty and the greed that created the idea. And the idea that one country is better than another. The resources extracted from the ground we call the US have decimated that ground. The United States is 2nd only to China in contributions to global warming while Mexico is 13th.

The arbitrary line that makes me an “American” and someone born south of that line “Mexican” is what is wrong with that line. Mexico is no less American than the US. While the US has a larger land mass than Mexico, Canada has a larger land mass than the US. Combined we make up North America. How are we the only “Americans?”

The landmass of North America is 9.54 million miles. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north and the Isthmus of Panama to the south. In truth everyone born within those borders have the right to call themselves American.