Junot Diaz Quotes
In fact, looking at the darkest sides of the United States has only made me appreciate the things that we do right, the things that we do beautifully. We are, for all of our mistakes and all of our crimes, a remarkable place.
Díaz, Junot. Interview by Bill Moyers. Moyers & Company, Public Affairs Television, 28 Sept. 2012.
See {594200} for the first verse—the one most commonly sung. This second verse, suggests that America is not perfect—a problem for some people in a patriotic song which is usually only general glorification and uncritical praise. This song was considered seriously as our national anthem, and was actually used at the first international Olympics when an American won the event. Our National Anthem had not been officially selected then. One of the reasons for its selection over America, The Beautiful was the line in this verse asking God to mend the American flaws.
Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and fiction editor at Boston Review. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freedom University, a volunteer organization in Georgia that provides post-secondary instruction to undocumented immigrants. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience, particularly the Latino immigrant experience.
