As all of this came into focus in my teenage mind, I struggled with the cognitive dissonance. How could this nation that took me and my family in, that has always loudly trumpeted its bona fides as, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “the last, best hope on Earth,” be part of such a vile deal? And in a democracy, how could “we the people” consent to this? Furthermore, if the people in power were lying about this, what else were they lying about?