post 4: sea to sea

[originally published on Substack: March 31, 2024]

My partner and I have both been sitting on the couch. They've been finishing a project on their laptop and half-listening to what I'm watching: Whoopi Goldberg's 1991 comedy special, Chez Whoopi (“House of Whoopi”). At the very end of the 50-something-minute show, Whoopi presents a tribute to a local music group: the Crenshaw High School Elite Choir. The black children and the adults who conduct them are absolutely beaming onstage while Whoopi introduces them as an example of what America could be. I'm not sure how I feel, though I know I disagree. 

The choir starts singing “America the Beautiful” with an African, sanctified verve. And I still know I disagree, but somehow I'm still not sure how I feel. Why were my feelings not yet onboard with what I knew, which is that the landmass some of us live on will not always be America?

It was these lyrics: From sea to shining sea.

I cannot help but think of Palestine's From the river to the sea. What disparate phrases, which cohere only in the notion of geographic totality. America wants to dominate and Palestine wants to free. These are their conjugations.

As I look upon the incandescent choir before me, I fantasize about what meaning the Americans’ lyrics might carry many years from now. When From sea to shining sea rings out for the last time, will it bear a different weight? Will it finally rhyme, in appearance and meaning, with From the river to the sea, and then be sung never again? 

— “high-za” liza

P.S. It seems like Luna Station Quarterly may have deleted their blog archives, so I’ll start re-posting my old posts here, soon.