It’s Lent! For those who don’t know, Lent is the 40-day period between Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday where Catholics are encouraged to pray, fast, and give alms. Because we have just begun Lent, I find it fitting to create a blog post about my Catholic Faith and how it relates to the American Dream.
I appreciate the fact that the United States is a country in which anyone can practice their religion without fear of being persecuted. As a Catholic, I understand the importance of allowing EVERYONE to practice their religion, regardless of what that religion is. This has been a fundamental tenet of the American Dream. The first amendment to the Constitution is freedom of religion, after all.
One reason I believe my family’s Catholic Faith is just one anecdote proving the existence of the American Dream is because of the hardships my family had to overcome to continue practicing Catholicism. My paternal grandmother is biracial – Native American and White. Before my grandma was born, her mom and her mom’s siblings were sent to Chilocco Indian Agricultural School in Northern Oklahoma when they were just kids. As a matter of fact, my grandma’s mom was only three years old when she was put on a train headed towards Chilocco. Despite the attempt at assimilation, my ancestors never lost their Catholic faith and spent their childhood remembering where they came from and trying their best to keep their faith in the face of immense discrimination.
My grandma was eventually born in a small Oklahoma town called Pauls Valley and raised in an even smaller town called Paoli. In Paoli, she lived with her parents and grandparents, and a laundry list of other relatives. As a devout Catholic, my grandma never missed Sunday mass or other Holy Days of Obligation, despite the fact that she had to travel from Paoli to Pauls Valley for mass. She spent her childhood in Paoli until she moved to Stillwater to attend OSU, and eventually settled in Norman where she married my grandpa and raised 3 sons, one of them being my dad. Somewhat bittersweetly, my grandma maintains that she received more discrimination during her life for being Catholic than for being Native American (it’s obviously terrible that she had to receive discrimination for either, but being from Oklahoma it makes sense).
I was fortunate enough to be raised by two parents while having both sets of grandparents live in the same town as me, so growing up I was really molded by these influences. My parents and grandparents are some of the most open-minded people I know, and I attribute this to their Catholic Faith.
I really appreciate my ancestors for never losing their Catholic Faith despite the circumstances they were presented with.