Diverse America divided on various symbols

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO

The oldest Latino civil rights group in the United States opens every meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, a tradition resulting from a long fight to prove Hispanics belong in this country.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, a white father of two says he would never require his young daughters to recite the pledge to show their patriotism.

And in North Dakota, Native American protesters whose ancestors were here long before there was a United States waved American flags as they fought a proposed pipeline near sacred tribal land. Some demonstrators flew the flag upside down as a distress symbol.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during “The Star-Spangled Banner” in protest against racial oppression and police brutality has brought to light deep and sometimes surprising differences in the way Americans view the flag, the national anthem and the pledge.

The symbols, people say, inspire skepticism and heartbreak, pride and joy, sometimes all at once in the same person. Some minorities, in particular, have conflicted feelings about symbols honoring a country that has not always treated all people equally.

“The flag is important to us because we have so many relatives in the military,” said Justin Poor Bear, a 38-year-old member of the Oglala Lakota tribe from Allen, S.D. “There is also a lot of pain.”

Following Kaepernick’s example, pro athletes and high school students across the country are taking a knee or linking arms during the national anthem before sporting events.

The protests have raised questions of who gets to be called a patriot.

Jason Pontius, a 46-year-old white resident of Alameda, Calif., said the U.S. of all countries should realize that blind devotion is not the American way. Sometimes when he drops off his second-grader at school, he sticks around while she recites the Pledge of Allegiance with her class. But he doesn’t join in.

“What makes America great,” he said, “is that people have always challenged the idea of what America stands for.”

Yet there are organizations that embrace the flag precisely as a way to declare that their members, too, are Americans.

The League of United Latin American Citizens – the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights group, founded in Texas by World War I veterans – has historically opened all its meetings with the pledge and a prayer similar to one George Washington is said to have recited.

Dennis W. Montoya, the league’s state director in New Mexico, said the group’s emphasis on American pride is connected with a long fight by Latinos to prove they belong in this country.