This story is part of America @ 250: The Questions Before Us, a series from IPM News and the Illinois Student Newsroom.
URBANA — A birthday is a time for celebration and reflection: Where have we been? Where are we right now? And where are we going?
IPM is celebrating America’s 250th birthday by inviting people from across east-central Illinois to share what they think are the most important questions facing Americans at this historic moment.
Da’Sani Lewis is a 2026 graduate of Danville High School and will be attending Southern Illinois University Edwardsville this fall. Lewis wonders what kind of place America should be 50 years from now.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
As a young adult, I’m unsure how to celebrate 250 years as a country. It’s a bit scary going out into a world I love the freedoms of this country, but I also am aware of the shackles that are placed throughout society for people that look like me.
My background is complicated because my mom side is African American, but my dad is mixed with African American and white. So I have, curly hair, but, like, lighter skin. So it can be hard to try to fit in.
I’m from Danville, which is a smaller city. I really love our city. When it’s like the evening and I’m seeing the sunset in my backyard, I’m like, there’s no other place I’d rather be. Like hearing the birds, just enjoying the environment that I’m in and knowing that when I go places, there’s people that are looking out for my well-being because almost everybody knows everybody or everybody knows that when you go somewhere, you’re going somewhere that’s safe. Going to Danville High School, there were teachers there that I knew wanted the best for me and wanted to see me grow and do better. So I think having that encouragement was really important for me.
I will be attending Southern Illinois University Edwardsville this coming fall. I received the Meridian Scholarship, the highest scholarship they have. So that will cover tuition, board housing, my meal plan. So everything, which is really a blessing.
My mom cried when she found out. My mom works as a CAN and she’s always had to worry about like providing for us. I didn’t want my success to be something she also had to worry about paying for. I don’t want her to have to worry about debt.
Our country is built off of the hard work of so many people, people like my mom who work in nursing homes, the downtrodden, the forgotten about, the ones who are often ignored or set aside. Those are the We the People that is who this nation was built for. They fight they work They just want to live and raise a family. Those are the We the People that we should be focusing on.
In America we’re currently in like a relapse. Earlier today, I was thinking about how there was the civil rights movement, and we progressed so much. And now it seems like we’re needing a second civil rights movement. It’s like people became uncomfortable with how much we were progressing, so now we’re falling backwards into our old ways. I just think right now we’re in one of those slumps and it going to take people seeing the atrocities that are happening for them to again push for better and strive for more, progressing again and creating a country where all people can be appreciated.
I truly believe that after this relapse, as I call it, we’re heading in a better direction. So I think there is hope, but it’s going to take work to get there. And it’s also going to take a lot of people standing up for what they believe is right. Once we get back to that place, then America will again be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The message that America is sending to the world now about ourselves is that we don’t know what we’re doing. We’ve become lost, and I think we’re at odds with each other.
There’s a lot of debate about the “everyday American” and who that should be qualified as. But I think everyone that comes to this country is just trying to live a better life. And I think it’s very important that if you want a thriving country, you should be welcome to immigrants. That’s what America was built upon, and that’s what it should be.
I think the most important question for Americans is what kind of place we want America to be in the next 50 years. Do we want to be a place where people want to come to establish families and establish generations of people that enjoy this country and want to be a part of this country? Or do we want to be a country that focuses on economics and financial advances and trying to advance places overseas instead of enriching people that work very hard every day and get nowhere.
I want to like, have a family and allow them to grow from the fruits of my labor. But when I’m looking at the world as it is today, I’m unsure how that will look.