As America prepares to celebrate another birthday, and as we celebrate the freedoms that come with being American citizens, I want to remind everyone to remember just how we got here. We need to remember the history of this nation and remember all moments, high and low.

While my native community continues to battle for our independence in many shapes and forms of sovereignty, I have become familiar with many other native communities who are in their own various states of independence. Among the many similarities in our cultures, both traditional and contemporary, we also face being told to give it up and move on with our lives. “Forget it already, it’s in the past,” is a phrase I’ve heard throughout my life, even as recently as last week.

Native communities have become stereotypically viewed as using their ethnic backgrounds to gain acceptance or benefits. While I won’t deny there are individuals who do so, this a huge generalization, as only a few people act in such a manner.

However, history has much importance to us. Knowing the past is something that was prevalent in endless generations of our culture. Our ancestors and traditions hold strong to us; and in some cultures your ancestors are as equally important as living family members. Our past is who we are. Without our history, we wouldn’t be where we are today. And like the old adage says, lest we forget the past, we are condemned to repeat it.

It seems unfairly hypocritical for American citizens to scoff at native communities who remember atrocities in their history. Beside national pride, American patriotism is also based on holding on to the past and commemorating past events. I can’t walk a block in Washington, D.C. without seeing a bronze statue in honor of someone, or walking past a building or park or bench or light pole named in someone’s honor or in the memory of some event.

It becomes an unfair double standard for American patriots to admonish native communities for remembering broken treaties, stolen land, kidnapping and biological warfare — not an American generation has gone by without America thriving on something of its own past. For my grandparents generation, the saying was, “Remember Pearl Harbor.” For mine, we are reminded to never forget September 11. Country singer Darryl Worley even has a chart-topping song that reminds Americans to remember terrorist acts and to have national pride. We should remember, but we can’t have selective hearing and only accept what we like to hear. Along with national pride comes a humility to remember that we are sometimes wrong.

The fate of indigenous communities may be of little concern to the average American, but American citizens once found themselves in a similar predicament, wanting freedom from the King of England. America won their freedom, and the Constitution we hold dear to this day is built on remembering things the king did that Americans didn’t like, such as the Quartering Act.

The cruel double standard of memorializing wrong done to American citizens, yet repressing the cruelty done to indigenous Americans is silly and quite ironic. We haven’t forgotten Pearl Harbor, and September 11 will never be the same to an American citizen again.

We must never forget where we’re from. We need to turn around every now and then to see the path we took to get where we are. It’s not a clear path, there are twists and turns, and some parts of it are a little cloudy — but we need to remember it all.

We all need to be proud of who we are while not trying to repress shameful history. It’s okay to remember your history, no matter how happy or tragic it may be. Don’t forget who you are but also don’t get caught up in the past — live in the present. Eliminate double standards, everyone’s allowed access to their histories.

To those trying to gain their independence, good luck; to those of you who have it already, enjoy it. Happy Birthday, America!