Invisible Fireworks
A Cancelled Holiday
By David Haldane
July 14, 2025
I’d never seen anything like it. The July 4th fireworks display that didn’t happen. And yet, a perfect metaphor for what is happening in America.
Let me explain.
Spending the summer at our second home in Joshua Tree, California, we naturally wanted to experience the usual Fourth of July Independence Day festivities. So we retreated to the nearby desert town of Yucca Valley where, in the football field of a local high school, hundreds of would-be revelers gathered on blankets and folding chairs. Their intention: to enjoy picnics, live music, and—after the sun sank beneath the distant mountain peaks—the traditional sights and sounds of glistening fireworks honoring their nation’s founding.
And that’s when the trouble started. “Uh, sorry folks,” the announcer broke in, “but we’re experiencing a slight delay.”
The pyrotechnician in charge was having technical difficulties, possibly due to unusually high winds, “but no worries,” the MC assured us, “we will shortly get underway.”
An hour later, the show was still “just about to begin,” which remained the case 30 minutes after that. To pass the time, bored children began circling the field in long lines holding hands, while organizers entertained their parents with dramatic Tee-shirt giveaways.
Two hours into the delay, my own children started getting restless. “Well Dad,” my 14-year-old son wanted to know, “whadaya think? Are we ever going to see any fireworks?”
Honestly, I had my doubts. And so, sorely disappointed, we made our way home only to learn later that, indeed, a few feeble sparkles had finally pierced the night sky, though not very many nor for too long.
And that’s when I recognized the metaphor.
Just a month before, I’d written a column recalling how a crazed terrorist had passed through our small town carrying the live bomb that later badly damaged a Palm Springs fertility clinic, blowing him to bits in the process. And a week after that, some 700 US Marines passed the same way en-route to quelling violent riots in Los Angeles protesting federal efforts to round up undocumented immigrants.
“It’s a very sad situation,” one protestor told the Riverside Press-Enterprise, as others waved Mexican flags.
The demonstrations continued on Independence Day, even as my children and I pined for the firework display that never came. “We have no independence right now,” another protester declared, “and that’s why we’re out here.”
A rally organizer explained it all to a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. “There’s too many things to protest right now,” he said, adding that the strict immigration enforcement had made immigrants “afraid to go to work, afraid to go to school.”
Indeed, many planned Fourth of July parties, parades, and firework displays, I later learned, had been canceled altogether due to fears of the heightened enforcement.
Don’t get me wrong, I support such enforcement. I also, however, feel some sympathy for undocumented immigrants and would like to see a pathway to citizenship for those whose only violation was their illegal entry. And I admit to being taken aback by the widespread and violent reactions.
Part of the problem, to be sure, stems from unfortunate excesses by some immigration officers in their efforts to enforce the law. I believe the most significant contributor to the chaos, however, is the utter magnitude of a problem that’s been simmering for many years.
In Los Angeles County alone, for instance, undocumented immigrants comprise 8-10% of the population, or as many as 951,000 individuals. Which means that one in five residents is either undocumented or lives with someone who is. The statistics are comparable for the so-called sanctuary City of Los Angeles, where over 800,000 residents live in the country illegally, and another 1 million-plus live with them.
Can you imagine a similar situation occurring the Philippines or virtually anywhere else on earth? I can’t. All of which—as well as the government’s earnest-though-belated enforcement—has, I’m sure, contributed to the significant loss of American patriotism which, according to a recent survey, has dropped from 90% expressing “extreme” pride in the country in 2001, to just 58% today, mostly older conservatives.
So, it’s not too surprising that this year’s Independence Day celebration all but sputtered. Next year marks the nation’s grand 250th birthday; let’s hope the sparks fly brighter.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book, Dark Skies: Tales of Turbulence in Paradise, is available on Amazon. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
