My parents are from India (dots not feathers – love to all my feather friends!).<\/p>\n
I’m a first generation American (born in Tennessee). Love both countries something fierce, but then I love and am fascinated by all<\/em> people\/places!<\/p>\n Through the years, what it means to be “American” has taken on so many forms\/meanings.<\/p>\n Regardless of nationality, we are all fellow citizens of Earth!<\/p>\n What I hope my kids see is: all of us<\/em> recognizing the beauty in each and every culture, honoring the intrinsic worth and dignity of each<\/em> human and increasing our circle to truly be inclusive<\/em> of everyone…especially those different from us (in all the ways).<\/p>\n What does being American mean to you and your family?<\/p>\n Common Day Hero:<\/strong><\/em><\/span> Your kindness and generosity are seen and appreciated. Thank you for including me, like family, from day one. Today, I dedicate this post to you, Rickey and Keia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My parents are from India (dots not feathers – love to all my feather friends!). I’m a first generation American (born in Tennessee). Love both countries something fierce, but then I love and am fascinated by all people\/places! Through the years, what it means to be “American” has taken on so many forms\/meanings. Regardless of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[407,408,410,104,58],"class_list":["post-4133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-america","tag-american","tag-brave","tag-culture","tag-freedom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lalijean.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/brandon-mowinkel-DF1hKdVsn_c-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=1707%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4133"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4142,"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4133\/revisions\/4142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lalijean.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}