During my university years, I once heard someone say that the United States is the land of the melting pot. I always pondered the strange terms referenced and wanted to know the contents that were melting.

When I first arrived in the US, the phrase revealed and unfolded itself like an origami that is both expected and surprising simultaneously. The journey from the airport to the place I stayed in, I saw people from various countries: race, culture, ethnicity, and color. The sudden awareness of the true meaning made me feel special as I was now a part of the pot too.

Every February, on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, Americans rehearse a familiar liturgy. Lincoln is praised as the Great Emancipator, the savior of the Union, the embodiment of moral clarity and constitutional restraint. He stands as the reassuring proof that democracy can survive its gravest crises without stepping outside its own principles.