This is my painting shirt. I’ve been using it for a long time, so it has lots of little blotches of color all over it. This is one of my favorite shirts that I own, because it has a big American flag on it. I love America. I love the idea of America and what it stands for. But what is that? America is all about freedom – my ancestors came here searching for religious freedom and economic opportunity. I recently saw a newspaper article that my cousin found, which was written about my great grandfather Louis McKee, Sr.. He was a doctor in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and the article mentioned his father William McKee, and his father John McKee. John was a farmer, William worked as a foreman in a car shop, Louis Sr. was a doctor, Louis Jr. (my grand father) was a high school principal, Susan (my mother) was a probation officer, and I am an artist. I see that and I see a story of each generation stepping up and into a new idea, a new way of seeing. America has given us a place where we can each pursue our happiness.

And that opportunity, that option, to seek your own expression of self, is the center of the American Identity. Everyone, no matter where you are from or who your parents were, has the opportunity to be something new and exciting, to express their own search for happiness. In America, if someone moves here from, let’s say, India, that person is Indian and of Indian Culture. But if they have a child here in America, that child will grow up with that freedom of opportunity and culture, and the child will be, without a doubt, American. We may say Indian-American, but American is at the core.

So back to my shirt, each color splotch, each blue or green or fucia, to me represents that diverse origins that make America great. One, the shirt itself represents free expression, but the menagerie of colors represents how anyone, from any part of the globe, can come to America and re-invent their future. America is the only place where you can find people of all races and from all countries, living together for one common goal: freedom in the pursuit of happiness. We say whatever we want, we do what we want, we express ourselves in many different ways.

When people come to America, they often realize possibilities that weren’t available in the home country. Their children, who are Americans now, will grow up and complete high school, perhaps even go to college and will be teachers and nurses. Their grand-children will be lawyers and engineers. Their great grand-children will be artists, poets, and philosophers. And it shows: the old country may be chaotic, but the people are not. That’s what makes America great.