Why Buy American?

Why Buy American?

I love this country.  I really do.  In my small frame, I embody so much about America that is so great.  My heritage, for example:  my mother was born in Korea.  My father has been a lifetime soldier for the Army Corps of Engineers.  They met in Japan at an American air force base in Tokyo where my mother worked as a telephone operator (she, like so many Koreans, spoke Japanese due to the Japanese invasion of Korea when she was young).  She didn't know it, but she was one of the first feminists in Korea.  Having come from a wealthy, highly educated family, she was intended to marry and carry on the traditional role of a Korean woman.  She knew she would move from 'favorite granddaughter' status to 'new step-daughter' status and well, she was no dummy. Not her.  America's involvement in the Korean war gave her the first inklings of hope.  Hope for freedom and the possibility that she, a Korean woman, might one day make her own destiny.  Even taking the telephone operator job enraged her family- rich women should not work- especially for Americans and especially not in Tokyo.  She was an embarrassment.  Upon her marriage, she was promptly 'disowned', which she responded to by not contacting her family for twenty years.  She had made an outrageous decision that would change her life, her family's lives, and the lives of so many more people- she made a calculated decision to marry a 'poor', 'uneducated' American soldier.  Now, I know many of you shiver to hear this- 'calculated'?  What, no 'love' here?

Look at it this way:  she knew she couldn't marry for love anyway.  No one did.  Marriages were arranged with 'high' families with education and money.    To her, it was all the same.  Only this way, she had some control over her life and the possibility of so much more.  A dream, the dream of America intoxicated her like it had for millions before her.  She didn't want the money or the security.  It was the audacious wisp of that magical word, 'freedom' that intoxicated her enough to throw everything to the wind.  Hardly knowing this young man, she wowed him with her beauty and soon, the deal was done.  She was an American!

Sadly, she didn't get all that she had dreamed of.  America was not yet a friendly place to Asian faces and for many years, she could not find Korean companionship.  She struggled to understand this foreign land and children & a husband who did not understand her.  I think it would be fair to say that she died frustrated with America- but I also think it is fair to say that she would not have changed her decision if given the chance to do so.  She was woman enough to know that at least she could throw her own dice in this country.  She knew she at least had the opportunity to succeed or to fail- as a free woman.  And though most of her felt that she had failed,  I hope that she can look back now and think better about her time her in America.  Because she smoked and drank whiskey like a man- I will never forget her size 00 jeans stuck in her cowboy boots while her tiny frame danced to a jukebox.  She just loved to rub the Korean community the wrong way.  Whether she knew it or not, she also had the time of her life here.

I wish she could have lived longer so that I could thank her for her powerful will, for her crazy decision, for her passion for freedom.  Because I'm not sure she even knew what a gift she gave to her children.  She was too embroiled in her fighting with my father, the Korean community, sexism & racism to ever slow down and enjoy any of it.  Makes me sad to think about. 

But here I am- a woman who is truly free.  Free to succeed.  Free to fail.  Like her, my choices are my own.  I have lived and worked around the world and I can tell you this:  I have never felt a day of racism or sexism in my life.  Not in this country.  I know many will stand up and disagree- but this is the fact of my life.  I have soared in my career and then I decided to stay home with my babies.  An then I decided to be a jeweler- just like that, folks.  I went to the library and figured out how to do it.  Where else is that possible?  No one holds it against me.  No one seems particularly surprised that I went from a biochemistry major at West Point to managing software development to becoming an international management consultant to becoming a wife and full time mother to becoming a jeweler!

This, my friends, is the greatest country in the world.  Period.

And that is why it is so important to support it.  All the way.  I am not a huge believer in legislation to solve our economic problems.  Personally, I wish they would just get out of the way- they distract from the most important fact of all:  Americans are the most creative and talented people on earth.  We are the hardest workers and have the most generous hearts and pocketbooks.   We are the sons and daughters of immigrants- but not just any immigrants.  We are the genetic offspring of singularly unusual immigrants- people who volunteered to be immigrants!  They were blinded to all risk because they did, indeed, have a dream- it was brilliant and it made the heart leap to think of.  They threw security, familiarity, comfort, culture, language and even health to pursue one thing and one thing only:  Opportunity and freedom.  Freedom to succeed and freedom to fail.  To be judged by their sheer talent and sweat.  These are our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.  Although our genes originate from all over the world, it was the same type of person who wanted to be an American.  Remember, not everyone wanted to come.  Just our ancestors.  Our common bond is this shared passion, this shared dream, this shared collective love of work and sweat.  Our genetically ingrained love of risk, our disdain for failure, our endless optimism and our determination to win.  We may not look alike, but we feel and think alike.  That is what it is to be an American.

Now, that being said, Americans don't want charity.   We want to earn it.  So, I would never force anyone to buy American- just to buy American.   That would be disgraceful, by God.  No, we need to do it the best.  We need to produce the finest designs, the highest quality products and the fact that our prices are higher should be the trademark of 'Made in America'- because you get your money's worth.  We all know we can buy either an Italian suit or a Chinese suit- which one is cheaper- which one has more worth?

We need to stop worrying about Chinese labor being cheap and simply call it like it is:  Chinese labor is cheap- and it is cheap.  When people make major investments, they want their money's worth.  Chinese jewelry is pumped out by the millions of units.  This does not bother me one bit- for one reason:  I yawn when I see it.    Never have I seen such a lack of imagination.  Never have I seen so many rings and pendants, etc that look alike.  Little ol' me can out design any Chinese jeweler any day.  Furthermore, gem fraud is absolutely rampant.  There are no regulations what-so-ever to prevent the widespread scams perpetrated by Chinese jewelry companies every day.  Considering the rampant outright fraud, the blatant intellectual theft of American designs and the unethical manipulation of the Chinese currency by their own government, who will you trust to sell you a ruby?

When your prong falls off that ring from Ebay, are you going to buy a flight to China?

The bottom line is this:  look around you before you buy jewelry.  Ask where it comes from.  Look again.  There are many independent, American jewelers, like Lim Studio, who not only will give you a great design, but the exact design you had in mind.  The gold will be the exact karat you specified and we will show you all the documents you could desire.  The diamonds, the rubies, the sapphires will be the real thing- unless you tell us otherwise!  But you will have the integrity, and the law to back you up if there are any problems.  American jewelers will fix your jewelry if it breaks.  And guess what else?  You will get your piece at the same cost (or perhaps even lower, considering our small overheads) as the junk you would otherwise have purchased.

So buy American when you buy jewelry.  Because it is worth it.