by Stacey Torres

Created on: July 04, 2010   Last Updated: July 05, 2010

Adapted from an editorial written by me, published by The Courier-Times, (New Castle, IN) on July 3, 2008.

It is 6:30 in the morning on Thanksgiving 1984. I had come home for the holiday, and after visiting with friends on Staten Island, was traveling to my grandparents’ home via the Staten Island Ferry.

Cold, damp and rainy, I sit on deck savoring the view of lower Manhattan, which I had missed so much. In the distance through the early morning fog, is the World Trade Center. And there she is to my left, bursting through the morning sun in a gleam of copper patina.

At once, the deck becomes full as everyone comes outside to see her, standing in respectful silence as we pass. The people around me stand arm in arm; some, like me, are alone, and many are crying. All of us are grateful for the chance to pay homage to Lady Liberty.

I Love the Statue of Liberty! A small replica sits on my desk – a tribute to a love affair since a first grade field trip to Liberty Island. Many legends follow her history, including one that she was originally designed to be a black woman, representing the freedom of slaves after the American Civil War. French artist Frederic Auguste Bartholdi’s original model was potentially offensive to Americans, with her shackled feet and hands (now holding a tablet instead of broken chains), and supposedly was redesigned. Is this urban legend? I don’t know. The U.S. National Parks Service claims it is a rumor.

Seeing her that cold Thanksgiving morning was a wake-up call for me. Months earlier, I had an epiphany. I was working as an executive secretary at a small pharmaceutical company in Indianapolis. The owners of the company were not born in the United States, and had no intentions on becoming permanent citizens. I was livid when the director told me I had to work on the Fourth of July. You see, I had plans to go to barbecues, parties and the fireworks downtown. He stared at me awaiting further explanation, and I reminded him it was Independence Day. The director regarded me another moment, and then said, "either be there on time, or be fired." Scrooge could not have put it any simpler.

That night, I fumed as I rode home on the bus and thought about my dilemma. But, whose Independence Day was it really? In 1776 when those guys were hanging out in that hot, sweaty upper room in Philly, my ancestors were not present, except to bring food and drink. It was not my ancestors’ independence that was being deliberated.

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