What Does It Mean to Be an American Citizen

This essay delves into the question of "what does it mean to be an American citizen," a multifaceted concept that resonates differently with each individual.

Being a U.S citizen can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people it can mean being free, having more rights, or just being proud of where you live. America is a safe place where you be yourself and not be punished because your different. A lot of people take being an American for granted but in reality we live in a better place than most people in other countries, yes we still have our own issues but there not as bad as other places.

U.S citizens have a lot more rights than other countries all kids can go to school we have a choice of where we want to live we can vote and select our leader in most places you don’t have a say and you have to deal with who is leading. We have the freedom of religion in a lot countries where you can get killed for practicing your religion, as long as you’re not hurting anyone then you have the right to believe and practice your religion.

Many countries aren’t as developed as America most people take the smallest things for granted like clean water or food maybe even if it’s just a small amount. Taking the bus to get to work in other places some kids have to walk miles every day to go to school or to get to work. We should be proud of our country and what accomplishments we’ve achieved and what we have. We are legal citizens of the U.S with more rights than some people will ever have, we should be proud to be an American and be proud in our country and support it as much as we can.

Freedom is a big part of America and what it was built on was the idea of freedom Americans have a lot more freedom than most other places in the world. We have the freedom to do almost anything within our laws in some places women aren’t allowed to wear pants or t-shirts we have the freedom to wear what we want. In other countries there are arranged marriages we get to marry who we want as long as they want to marry us too. A lot of places don’t have the freedom of speech you can get punished for expressing what’s on your mind. America is a place where you can be yourself and have freedom we are lucky to be U.S citizens and have freedom.

America is a place where you are free to be yourself, in some places like North Korea men’s hair can’t be longer than 1-5 cm in length and it has to be trimmed every 15 days. In America you can be a guy and have hair down to your ankles and it can be bright pink if that’s what you want. In Sudan women faced getting 40 lashes for wearing slacks in public they have to wear long skirts they have to be covered up all most completely when in public. Every woman in America can wear pants a lot of women love to wear leggings and jeans and we can without worrying about being punished. We have so many more rights and freedom that we can wear what we want and style our hair as we want, be proud you live in America for those reasons.

Being an American means many things to many people, but when being asked “what is it to be an American?”, I think of having freedom to wear what I want and style my hair however I want. I am also for grateful to be an American because I can go to school I can ride a bus and not have to walk miles to get to school every day I have clean water and food, I can be open about my religion and not be punished for it i can express my feelings and not be hurt. As seen from the essay, there are so many reasons that define what it means to be an American but those are some of the main ones I think about. I am very proud of my country and I’m happy to be a U.S citizen. So what does being an American mean to you?

Works Cited

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5. Jefferson, T. (1776). The Declaration of Independence.
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