What America Stands For by Senator Barbara Mikulski

Senator Barbara Mikulski - Maryland

My family was a family of bakers and grocers. My father worked at his family bakery, my mother worked at her family grocery store. Whether it was in the baker shop or all of our grocery stores, the neighborhood was our extended family. Our chief characteristic was our sense of obligation to others. It meant making sure that we delivered food when someone couldn’t get to the store. It meant extending credit when times were tough. It meant that no one would go hungry as long as we had a baker shop or a grocery store.

America stands for a commitment to service. Our nation has never been a melting pot. It is a mosaic. And each of us is part of the glue holding that mosaic together. Neighbor helping neighbor, serving their community. You don’t have to be Polish, or French, or anything else to be an American, because what holds the American mosaic together are the values we share. Patriotism, which is loving the United States. Opportunity, which serves the United States. And the extended family, which is the United States.

My parents and my grandparents loved and served their community through their stores, and today I serve an even wider community through the Senate. My great-grandmother came to the United States when women couldn’t even vote, and now her great-granddaughter serves that same country on the floor of the Senate. She wouldn’t have believed it, but that is what America stands for.

It stands for service, and it stands for the obligation and the opportunity to serve.