At Last!
Touched by Los Angeles
An NIE professional finds a little bit of patriotism in the heart of Hollywood.
By Carolyn Alford
Hello, neighbor. It’s good to see you here.
I spent a week in May in Los Angeles at the Newspaper Association of America Foundation NIE Conference, telling people about our annual literacy publication we do each September–among other things. They were particularly impressed with how we partner as a community to blend the national literacy information with the local information to promote literacy throughout the community.
We do a lot of good things as a community, and I was proud to say that I was from Onslow County, N.C., home of Camp Lejeune. They all asked me to speak because they like my southern drawl. Of course, there were the jokes about the South where everybody has a garden in the front yard. I informed them that my garden is in the side yard. I reserve the front yard to grow weeds and a little grass. The conference is going to be in Charleston, S.C., next year so the NIE director from Charleston [Robie Scott] passed out books on how to speak Southern. Maybe by next year, Southern will not be their second language.
I loved Los Angeles. It is a beautiful city. We toured Universal Studios, where they busted a lot of my bubbles about movie making. The only celebrity I saw was Norman Lear, one of Hollywood’s leading television and film producers, and creator of “All in the Family.” Lear, the conference speaker, spoke about purchasing the last original copy of The Declaration of Independence. He said he was raised by his grandfather who wrote letters to the president addressing him as “My Darling Mr. President.” Whether he agreed with him or not, it was always the same greeting. Lear said his grandfather was always thrilled to get a reply from The White House.
The Declaration of Independence is being sent across the country on a multi-year tour. I encouraged Mr. Lear’s assistant to bring The Declaration of Independence to Camp Lejeune for our American heroes to see. She said she would pass it on to Mr. Lear. I can’t think of any group of people more worthy to see our founding document than those who sacrifice for it every day.
I got teary eyed as Mr. Lear spoke about the document and what it means to him and this country. He said that families are standing in line for hours because The Declaration of Independence is more than words on paper, it is a document that changed the world and continues to have impact in the world.
Mr. Lear is also involved in a new voter initiative called “Declare Yourself,” which hopes to sign up young voters.
“If you inspire those young people to vote the first time, the chances are much greater that they will vote for the rest of their lives,” he said.
Mr. Lear’s words about freedom were powerful but they did not touch me nearly as much as the words of the taxi driver from El Salvador who drove me to the airport. The driver asked me what brought me to L.A. It was clear from my speech I was not a native. I told him and then asked what brought him to L.A.
“I came for the opportunity,” he told me in broken English. “What people don’t know about America is that it is a country of hard workers and good people. People come to America and they are, what you say, disappointed, because they don’t work hard. If you will work hard you can achieve many things in this country.”
He told me that it had been his lifelong dream to come to the United States. His wife and son had now joined him and “we are very happy,” he said. He said that he starts his day driving his taxi at 4 a.m. Others tell him he should stop driving at 3:30 p.m. but he drives on until 10 p.m. because “I can.... This is not hard work.”
In the words of former President Calvin Coolidge, “Work is not a curse, it is the prerogative of intelligence, the only means to manhood, and the measure of civilization.”
Coolidge also said, “We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp.”
Norman Lear, one of America’s leading citizens, and a new citizen, a taxi driver from El Salvador, understand Coolidge’s words perfectly. I hope we all can.
I have a new appreciation for my work. Thank you for coming each week [to my column] to share my work. You make it light work.
This article is reprinted with permission from The Daily News in Jacksonville, N.C. Carolyn Alford, NIE director and co-creator of the paper’s youth section, Listen Up, writes a weekly column there.