The vision of a nation formed from many different peoples bound together by a common love of freedom was staked out long before our lifetimes or even our parents' or grandparents' lifetimes.
The schools would fail through their silence, the Church through its forgiveness, and the home through the denial and silence of the parents. The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it.
I feel very, very lucky to have come from the family I did. We have our dysfunctions and our problems, just like any family. But my parents are extremely loving people.
I'm from a big family; I have four younger siblings. My parents are still happily married together. I grew up moving around a lot, and my family was certainly not affluent.
We're African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we're like the Jacksons. But I didn't have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.
Every successful artist comes from a family - parents or siblings or both - who, although equally gifted, chose not to pursue the treacherous and difficult path of the artist.
It never occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college and have a career - as well as a family - of my own. Both my parents, but especially my mother, encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible.
As I was growing up, you know, I'm a white Jewish American born to Holocaust parents. My father fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and my mother's family had fled the czars of Russia before that.
My mother worked in advertising and my father was a journalist. But they split up when I was three and I grew up in a single-parent family. My mum brought my brother and I up.
Parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles are made more powerful guides and rescuers by the bonds of love that are the very nature of a family.
My parents were drawn to the idea that there was space and opportunity in Australia. For the meagre sum of £10, you could sail your entire family out to Australia, so that's what my father chose to do.
I distanced myself, relatively, from my parents for a year or so in my late twenties. It was necessary for me to feel my autonomy. Other than that brief gap, we have always been a very close family.
I knew nothing about my mum's family. Her parents were dead by the time she was 14. She was brought up by two aunts, and she only ever met one uncle.
I have an action figure, and so do my parents, so it's odd that we all have these dolls of ourselves. It's a little bit surreal but kind of fun. You can play with the whole family.
You know, growing up, I lived in a neighborhood in Long Island where there was basically one black family. And I remember hearing all the parents and the kids in the neighborhood say racist things about this family.
My family was blue collar, a middle-class kind of thing. My father was born in Detroit, Italian-American. My mother is English. She acted on the stage with Diana Dors. Her parents were French.
I come from a family of working women, my mum went to work two weeks after I was born - my parents had no money, there was no choice.
When you've grown sick of reading and bug-eyed from watching TV, when your friends are all visited out, no words can adequately praise the link to the outside world provided by your parents and family.
I like a girl that takes pride in her appearance - looks are important to me, but it's also important she gets on with my friends and family. If my parents don't like a girl, then she's instantly a no-go.
When I was young, I grew up in a family of working-class people. Not just my parents, but my extended family, as well.
I have a ton of cousins on my mom's side of the family, and we would put on shows together all the time and put on costumes, and we even charged our parents money.
