As a first-generation Indian American who grew up in 1980s Reagan-era New York City shaped by efforts at multiculturalism, I had social studies classes that were filled with lessons about America’s guiding principle of tolerance. My teachers pointed to the Statue of Liberty as this virtue’s crowning symbol, asking us to bring in pennies to help underwrite efforts to restore Lady Liberty marred by decades of pollution. When we learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and his fight for civil rights for black Americans, “tolerance” also took on the tacit assumption that we had now achieved his dream, even if it had cost him his life.
As a first-generation Indian American who grew up in 1980s Reagan-era New York City shaped by efforts at multiculturalism, I had social studies classes that were filled with lessons about America’s guiding principle of tolerance. My teachers pointed to the Statue of Liberty as this virtue’s crowning symbol, asking us to bring in pennies to help underwrite efforts to restore Lady Liberty marred by decades of pollution. When we learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and his fight for civil rights for black Americans, “tolerance” also took on the tacit assumption that we had now achieved his dream, even if it had cost him his life.
