Laurence Tribe: My Father's Flag and the Idea of America

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/my-fathers-flag-and-the-idea-of-america

“I DON’T BELIEVE YOU,” my friend said.

He had just asked me about my values as an American. He suggested that, like many people, I had inherited my American values from my parents. But because of my family’s particular history as refugees, I said, “No, not from my parents: The values that guide me came from everything I experienced and encountered throughout my life.’”

He said something like, “I’ve known you fifty years. I’ve seen you in every circumstance. There’s something about you that’s strongly driven by your values. What I’d call ‘values faith’ has to come from an incident or a story. Think about it.”

I did.

Here’s the story I remembered. It’s about an American flag. And, as my friend suspected it would be, it is a story about my parents.

*snip*