Make America Great Again!

Make America Great Again! I heard this phrase a few times, especially during the last election. Both of the main candidates repeated that. I am new in this country and just try to analyze the information around me. I was wondering what it means and why it is so important for a blessed country like America with a lot of land, mountains, deserts, and surrounded by oceans. There are a lot of people living there. The population is over 321 million. I think the slogan Make America Great Again! is a marketing decision to unite people from different countries, cultures, ages and religions.

The immigrant's life is not easy. At first, we are struggling for language. The second challenge is getting a job and making our lives and the lives of our families comfortable with food, an apartment, neighbors, schools. Very often, we feel disappointed, we do not know what to do, how to get what we want.  The feeling of being a part something great makes us determined to keep going. This is a general view. Every member of this big project named America has their own story.

Andy Warhol's watercolor artwork is hanging on the wall in my apartment in New York. In this picture, there is a hand with spring flowers and the title is Thank You for Being So Nice. I read this sentence very often when I am passing by. This is my new home. I never dreamt I would be here.

I have a new friend.   Her name is JJ. She gave me this artwork for my birthday.  She is the same age and we have a lot in common. She was born in New York, I was born in Ukraine but we listen to the same music, watched the same films. When we were children she was scared of the USSR and I was scared of the USA, because of the Cold War and the idea of bombing each other. Now, we are living in another time and another reality. She is my America: I have questions about life here, and she helps me to adapt. She has shown me a lot about how she grew up. We go to museums together and go out to take pictures as we both love photography. Also, she helps me with my English.

I celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas together with her family. They gave me a lot of gifts, which is very different from Christmas in Ukraine. Their neighbors came to greet them and celebrate. Later, we played games that surprised me in two ways. The first surprise is that all generations, seniors, adults and teenagers, played together, all of them had fun and no one was bored. The second one, they prepared those games with questions, quizzes, and prizes very seriously. All these people are very friendly and I feel I am at home.

JJ teaches me how to be a New Yorker to make this place comfortable to live in. For example, never stop moving forward: if you need to tie shoelaces or want to shoot a nice view, get off the sidewalk and do not block the stream of people.  I have known JJ about 1 year and she is one of my best friends.   Supporting and encouraging each other, it is nice to live and build my new life in the country with the slogan Make America Great Again