What I Learned In Washington DC on Vacation Last Week

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”  

Sounds like hospitality to me, but I didn’t find that poem in Washington. It was written for the Statue of Liberty. But as I walked around the nation’s capital, I kept thinking of the “yearning to breathe free.” That’s how it all started. 

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.” That sounds hospitable, right? But the ALL has been a stumper to the USA.

In 1830 we passed an Indian removal act, we all live on somebody else’s land. Women fought for the vote from 1852 until 1920. Lincoln freed the slaves and their descendants were arrested as they sat at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960. The lunch counter is in the Smithsonian. 

 “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,” Jefferson said, yet we run a risk when we mention God in public schools.

It seems that hospitality runs on an alternating current in this country. Seems it might be up to individuals, like the woman who repeatedly said excuse me and even followed us through the subway station. I was thinking, “Who is this weirdo?” and she said, “Can I help you? Where are you trying to go?” I guess I have a thing or two to learn about hospitality still.