By Stephanie Salter
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE
July 22, 2008 10:02 pm
—
Sell a Chinese-made American flag, go to jail.
Wow. Only in America.
Sometimes, so much can be revealed in one small slice of a people’s culture. Look at our complicated, often contradictory, relationship with our national flag.
Millions of born-and-bred citizens haven’t a clue as to how the flag of the United States should be properly cared for and displayed. They disrespect the flag out of ignorance or laziness, flying it in rainstorms, at night without illumination, or backward when it hangs vertically. Against every rule of flag etiquette, people allow their flags to get filthy, tattered or to just fade into yellow-white.
And yet, many of these same millions think it’s worth amending the Constitution to make it a federal crime to rip or burn the flag in social or political protest.
After 9/11, demand for U.S. flags in any form was so intense, domestic manufacturers could not keep up. One of the top four domestic flag manufacturers, C.F. Flag in Georgia, reported that it produced in one post-9/11 month what it normally did in a year.
Foreign suppliers had to step up. Within four weeks of the attacks on New York and Washington, the United States imported nearly $35 million worth of offshore Old Glories. According to the Flag Manufacturers Association of America, the import total from the year before had been about $748,000 and about $1.1 million in 1999.
As 2001 came to a close, nearly $52 million in foreign-made American flags were imported. Most of them carried “Made in China” labels.
Seven years later, flag demand has calmed down. Imports have steadily decreased, hovering a bit over $5 million for each of the past three years and accounting for only about 5 percent of American flag sales.
Flag nationalism, however, blazes hotter than ever, especially in state and federal legislative bodies.
A handful of states have passed laws that prohibit the sale of American flags made anywhere but here. Leading these states in punishment is Minnesota, where the crime of selling an imported stars-and-stripes can result in a fine as high as $1,000 and 90 days in jail. Similar laws apply in Tennessee, New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding “sense of Congress” resolution, which stated that all flags flown on federal property should be made in the United States. (Already, federal law requires only domestically manufactured flags to be flown over the Capitol.)
Many in the House would have preferred to mimic Minnesota and make it against the law to sell imported Old Glories for display on federal property, but that can’t be done without violating a passel of free-trade agreements we have with nations such as China.
Think about all this for a minute.
Sales of foreign-made flags spiked — along with domestic sales — in 2001, but have declined to the single-digit percentile. In other words, among U.S. residents who are buying American flags, only a small minority purchases imports.
Why do they do this?
Presumably, for one of three reasons: They prefer to save a few dollars by buying a cheaper import; they do not bother to check country-of-origin labels on any goods they buy, even their country’s flag; they don’t care.
This is the United States of America, a nation founded on individual freedom, a nation whose economy is built on consumers’ access to cheaply made foreign goods. And yet we are passing laws to prohibit the sale of foreign-made American flags.
If an Old Glory made in China, Taiwan or Korea so dishonors what the flag supposedly stands for, why don’t we pass laws that prohibit U.S. residents from buying a foreign-made Old Glory? No international free-trade agreement problems there.
Have any state and federal legislators visited their local big box chain stores recently? Whether it’s Lowe’s, K-mart, Ace Hardware, Target or Wal-Mart, they’d be hard-pressed to find a foreign-made American flag for sale.
At the Terre Haute Wal-Mart on U.S. 41 South, only the smallest U.S. flags on sticks are made in China. All the regular, hangable flags for sale come from Annin & Co. — “Flagmakers to the World since 1847” — of Roseland, N.J. Each package declares the flag was made, usually “proudly,” in the USA.
Annin flag sets, which include poles and metal or plastic eagle ornaments, do note that “some components” are made in China or Korea, but not the flags, themselves.
The most expensive American flags at Wal-Mart are $27.48. They are a 4-by-6-foot nylon flag with individually embroidered white stars or a 3-by-5-foot flag with a 6-foot pole. The pole and hardware were made in China, the flag in the United States.
(Or, as the back of the 3-by-5 flag set package says, “Bandera hecha in EE.U.U.”)
Ironically, the most Chinese-made of all U.S. flags for sale in Wal-Mart is the most elaborately American. About 18 inches tall, “The Wave” comes from a Philadelphia-based company, SRM Entertainment, and consists of a battery-operated, self-waving Old Glory on a plastic pole and pedestal. The pedestal is embossed with a screaming eagle and the words, “United States of America.”
The cloth flag was “printed in the USA,” but everything else came from and was assembled in China.
In addition to waving Old Glory hands-free, the gadget plays three patriotic songs: “My Country T’is of Thee,” “The Stars and Stripes Forever!” and our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It costs $18.88 and comes with three AA batteries.
On the back of the box that holds “The Wave” is a 20-question “Stars and Stripes Trivia Quiz.” Among the queries is, “What is a vexillologist’s expertise?” and which was the first nation in which our flag flew over a foreign fort.
The answers — flags and Libya for the above — are printed upside-down at the bottom of the box. Also on the back of the box of the self-waving American flag made mostly in China is this message:
“Today, we Americans display our national symbol with pride, and a renewed allegiance to the republic for which it stands. Long may it wave!”
You betcha.
Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.
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Photos
Tribune-Star columnist Stephanie Salter.