beckyo

If you are old enough, you may remember a series of biographies for children-- distinctive two-tone books, biographies that leaned heavily on the childhood of each person but also summed up their notable achievements. I found those in 3rd or 4th grade, and read all of them that I could find, in both school and public libraries.

One of them was on Eleanor Roosevelt. It focused on her work with the United Nations late in her life. I remember reading about her horror at learning that there were children, babies, who were not citizens of any country. In many cases their parents were refugees after World War II, and their babies were legally neither citizens of the countries the parents had left, nor of the countries where the babies were born. Roosevelt was horrified; ultimately under her leadership the Universal Declaration of Human Rights addressed this situation (Article 15).

Roosevelt's horror became my horror; it's probably the first political idea I ever adopted. I was (obviously) deeply moved by this story, and deeply proud that that didn't happen in MY country; any baby born in America is American, we don't cause babies without a country.

Now powerful people in my country are trying to take this away. My anger runs so deep, and I will do all in my power to oppose any such change, and to get these people (who have not made even a single compassionate exception to their hate-filled policies) out of power.