A conversation on what the U.S. is doing right and what must be fixed
Part 1 of a two-part series looks at local considerations as the United States hits 250-year benchmark.
The poet Walt Whitman described American democracy as an evolving, messy process. “We’ve got a hell of a lot to learn yet before we’re a real democracy,” he said in 1889. “We’ll get there in the end; God knows we’re not there yet.”
The United States was 113 years old then — born of a revolution, torn in two over human enslavement, reunited after four years of horrific civil war and expanded by subjugation of the Indigenous Peoples of the land. The next two centuries have been no less tumultuous: two world wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War and the War on Terror; political assassinations; ongoing struggles for civil rights and equal rights; a Great Depression and a Great Recession.
America, Whitman might say, is still “not there yet.” This article looks at America at 250 through the eyes of four people who have different backgrounds and different experiences yet similar hopes for our country.
Tony Cladusbid: ‘What’s disturbing for me is how backward we’re going’
Cladusbid is a Swinomish elder, cultural educator and descendant of Kel-Kahl-Tsoot, a signer of the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855 — which, like other treaties, is considered by Article VI of the U.S. Constitution to be the supreme law of the land.
The treaty his ancestor and 81 other Indigenous leaders signed made a large swath of Western Washington available for non-Native settlement. But the U.S. broke that treaty — as it did other treaties with tribal nations ratified by Congress between 1778 and 1871, according to the National Museum of the American Indian — to accommodate its expansion or resource access goals.
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community lost 1,500 acres in 1873 when President Ulysses Grant adjusted the reservation boundaries to exclude March’s Point. Swinomish says Grant’s action was illegal; only Congress has the authority to amend treaties.
In addition, the Indigenous signers of the Point Elliott Treaty reserved the right to fish, harvest resources and protect their cultural sites throughout their historical territories. But tribal nations are still fighting to protect cultural sites from desecration; and natural resources and fish from environmental degradation.
“When is a treaty supposed to have never been broken? It’s got to be fulfilled before it’s broken. And the U.S. has failed,” Cladusbid said.
“It hasn’t changed in 250 years. Up and down the spectrum of so-called freedom in life — health, education, economy, everything — we have seen the same problems happen 47 times,” he said, referring to the number of U.S. presidencies. “Every president thinks they’ve been a success. Every one of them is a literal failure in living up to the standards that this country was founded on.”
Cladusbid said America has taken some big steps backward on civil rights, among them President Donald Trump’s revocation of a landmark civil rights measure signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 that ended federal hiring discrimination; and the Supreme Court ruling removing a portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that had protected the voting strength of minority communities by preventing them from being diluted through redistricting.
“When you look at all the work that people did for civil rights, all of that has been wiped out in a short 10 years,” he said, “Almost 70 years of progress have been wiped out by this administration. I am disturbed every day when I see a post from the White House or the Department of Homeland Security espousing ‘one nation under God,’ which is not what we are, or espousing white supremacy.”
Meanwhile, public schools have been slow to correct how Indigenous histories and cultures are taught, Cladusbid said, and that’s allowed falsehoods and stereotypes to be perpetuated.
The state Legislature mandated in 2015 that the history, culture and governance of the tribal nations that share geography with Washington state be taught in public schools. Such topics were formerly encouraged to be taught, but were made mandatory when most school districts failed to adopt the curriculum.
“The one that I think is hilarious is that Europeans and Americans came and civilized all this land,” Cladusbid said. “You can’t tell me about history and what happened 3,000 years ago about my people. Every time they’ve studied it, no matter where we’re from or where they’re from, it’s ‘They’ve definitely been here 4,000, 5,000 years.’ We’ve been here over 20,000 years.”
The archeological record continually puts the first peoples of this land here at an earlier time. Bone fragments embedded in a rib of a mastodon found in 1977 in Sequim showed that humans were hunting here 13,800 years ago, according to the National Institutes of Health. Bison bones found in 2003 in a pond on Orcas Island were determined by carbon dating to be 14,500 years old. The bones showed evidence that the animal had been hunted and butchered. The find also proves human occupation on Orcas Island “roughly 1,000 years before previously thought,” according to the Orcas Island Historical Museum, which houses the bison remains.
Cladusbid and his wife, Michelle, founded sʷədəbš Cultural Center and Creative Hub at Pacific Rim Institute in Coupeville to foster dialogue, dispel negative stereotypes and build relationships between Native and non-Native communities. He’s not confident of wholesale change as long as the dominant culture sees diversity, equity and inclusion as meaning they’ll have to give something up.
“There’s a generational mindset of privilege,” he said. “Why do you think they’re fighting so hard right now to maintain the status quo? If this slips away in any shape or form, how hard will it be for them to regrasp their place as the dominant society?”
Rev. Terry Kyllo: ‘We need to work together to solve our problems’
Kyllo is a Christian pastor and executive director of Paths to Understanding, a nonprofit that helps communities build trust across deep divides. He lives in Anacortes.
“America has two visions,” he said. “One is that all people are created equal and the other is that all people are not. The Declaration of Independence refers to Indigenous people as ‘merciless savages.’ The Constitution refers to Black people as three-fifths of a person.
“I think part of what we all love about America is that first vision, but I think it’s the second one that haunts us. It’s caused a tremendous amount of trauma. I think what a lot of Americans are grappling with today is how we can move from a double vision to a single one. That’s the greatest challenge for us.”
America celebrates its 250th birthday amid economic inequality and constitutional rights that are fragile, yet Kyllo has hope for a country where everyone can thrive and belong.
“In order to do this, we’re going to have to realize that the era of vote-and-forget is over,” he said. “We need to be engaged in knowing our neighbors. We need to be engaged in standing up for one another’s rights and liberties, and we need to get out of our houses and work together to solve our problems, building democracy up from every neighborhood in town.
“When I look across the country, and I have quite a vantage point because I’m in touch with many civic renewal organizations across the country, I see a lot of Americans stepping toward each other for that first vision. Unfortunately, we have some people in the country that want to lean into that second vision when, in fact, it is a kind of cancer. We will only survive when we cooperate with each other and have agreement between us that we’re going to help each other thrive.”
Peter Whiting: ‘I think the country will rebound’
Whiting is a veteran yacht broker and managing partner of Seattle Yachts in Anacortes. He is a former Trump supporter.
“I have concerns about what’s going on with the current administration,” he said. “They are kind of trampling on some of the core tenets of the Constitution. We have to embrace the rule of law. I don’t necessarily approve of having people crossing our borders en masse, but if you’re getting ready to deport somebody, give them their day in court. I’ve always believed that if you are accused of something, you’re going to get your day in court and the right thing is going to happen. And that’s not what’s going on anymore.”
Whiting said Congress has given Trump too much latitude and expects voters will choose a new direction in the midterm elections. “I’m hopeful we’ll have a realignment of Congress and the president won’t be able to get some of his crazy ideas approved or can’t, just by signature, make major changes to the nation’s policy,” Whiting said.
Whiting has high hopes for America at 250. He was in high school in Los Angeles in the 1960s when riots erupted over the Vietnam War and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Students turned the principal’s car over and set it on fire. Police officers patrolled his high school campus with German shepherds.
“We looked at events that we felt we couldn’t survive, and we did survive,” he said. “The Vietnam War and racial injustice are stains on our country, but we keep trying to move forward, and I think that’s because the Founding Fathers got a lot of things right in the Constitution. I think the country will rebound again. I think it’s strong enough that we’re not going to stray that far from our way of life.”
Anthony Young: ‘Diversity and inclusion means all people at the table’
Young is an Anacortes City Council member. He grew up in a segregated South Carolina during the Civil Rights movement, earned an MBA at Wake Forest University, worked for the North Carolina Attorney General’s Citizens Rights Division and in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, and consulted on diversity, equity and inclusion for Skagit Regional Health.
Young is alarmed by what’s taking place in America at 250: The rise of Christian nationalism — a political and social ideology asserting that the United States was founded divinely as a Christian nation for its white Christian inhabitants — is driving anti-immigrant sentiment and rollbacks in civil rights and DEI.
Ethical norms have been upended. The president has reportedly made millions on stock trading; no-bid contracts were awarded for construction of the new East Wing ballroom and the Reflecting Pool renovation; and business ventures led by the president’s sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, have received government contracts.
Young said Christian nationalism has nothing to do with being Christian — “I am a Christian,” he said — but everything to do with race and who has control of money and resources.
“They promote a picture of America as Mayberry,” he said, referring to the fictional town in the 1960s TV program “The Andy Griffith Show.” “The Mayberry we supposedly had that now is changing because of all ‘these people,’ the jobs that used to be in your town and are no longer there because of all ‘these people,’ but the truth of the matter is that Mayberry really wasn’t a Mayberry for all of us.”
People of color at that time had no rights, Young said. They lived in redlined neighborhoods, couldn’t get loans, and if they could borrow money were charged higher interest rates. The Mayberry of white Christian nationalism represents systemic racism, he said.
Young believes the Supreme Court must be expanded in order to restore balance to the justice system. He wants to see evidence-based independence restored at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. And he’s hopeful that law enforcement and the Department of Justice will stop being used to target the president’s opponents.
“This coming election is critical, because I worry that we won’t have elections after this, hence the reason for the voter database that the current administration wants,” he said.
“My hope is in the people you see out marching and protesting. My hope is in the three liberal justices of the Supreme Court that are pulling the line trying to hold up precedent. My hope is in watching people that are no longer timid to stand.
“We are exposing a new generation to what happens if we remain passive. The challenge for America is to resist and to push for the greater good, even if it only moves the needle a tiny bit.”
—By Richard Arlin Walker