Securing for All the Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Date Posted: July 11, 2019
Posted In: Discussion,
From New America: Tomorrow (July 4) marks our country’s 243rd birthday. We’ve come a long way, yet there is still so much work to do to realize our founders’ vision. Because today, nearly 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, we still do not have equality—even for “all men”—and we have not secured for all the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These inalienable rights are still out of reach for many, especially for historically and persistently marginalized populations, low-income families, and immigrants looking to the United States for a better, safer life as did our own families.
For me, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means—at the very least—having enough money to meet my family’s basic needs, having the freedom to travel from place to place without fear of being questioned as to why I’m there, and being able to raise my children with the expectation that their lives will be better than mine. By this measure, we the people are far from ensuring these rights for our nation’s children and families.
Life. Nearly 21 percent of children in the United States live in poverty, and about 43 percent live in low-income families. Poverty is destabilizing for families and detrimental to child well-being. Children who experience periods of persistent poverty can have poorer lifelong educational, health, and economic outcomes. Children from families living in poverty are more likely to experience multiple adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Exposure to multiple ACEs physically alters children’s brains and leaves a lasting imprint on their lives. The detained young migrant children, many of whom are fleeing danger in their home countries, are now separated from their loved ones in an unfamiliar, unwelcoming place and are terrified they will never see their family members again. Here, in our country, they continue to experience multiple ACEs.