The American Experience?

Over the past year, I got to know the Italian foreign exchange student at my former high school. During that year, she and I become extremely close. I had also learned about the several experiences that you and I consider to be normal, aren't exactly normal. For example, prom. It's a sacred life ritual in America, that some say is terribly overrated. For them, it's something that they only see in the movies. But for us, it's something that we look forward and dream about since we enter school and watch our older cousins or siblings look like something straight out of a Disney movie. Some of us even get to have the experience twice or even three times depending on how popular you are.
That got me to think about the American Experience. What makes us American? What makes us so different then the rest of the countries that are out there? What is the American Experience exactly?
Well, I don't know the answer. But in my usual flare and style, here is my opinion.
Being American is being united. In good times, when we celebrate a major victory, and in the bad times when some sort of tragedy strikes like in Newtown, 9/11, and the Boston Marathon bombings. It's when we come together every summer to celebrate our country's birthday, or every November when we sit down and eat a giant bird. It's when our grandparents were buying war bonds, and planting victory gardens. It's fireworks, and it's Memorial Day barbecues. It's the melting pot of several different cultures mixed together to create a delicious mixture that is just ours. It's appreciating our freedoms, our past generation's sacrifices, and expressing ourselves freely. For anyone who wants to experience America, they have to go through prom, celebrate the holidays, and truly becoming a part of the melting pot that makes us, well us.
That, in my opinion is the American Experience. And I'm proud to say that I'm an American.