by Cristina Fernandez-Pereda

I wasn’t the only foreigner at the Mall on Tuesday becoming one more witness to history, but I was one of the few people I saw living that moment alone. The lack of company allowed me to observe, think and wonder by myself not just about the historical moment but the meaning it has when looked at it from the outside.

I’ve been asked many times what’s the moment, story or fact that shocked me most about the election, about Obama or about yesterday. But it’s not a story, a moment or a bunch of statistics that struck me about this country. It’s not Barack Obama or the millions who defied the cold and the wind chills to see him become president.

And it’s not that he became the first African American president of the United States.

It’s the United States.

The truth in Obama’s words and the title for Sunday’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial, “We Are One.” The truth about everyone in the United States feeling connected to the rest of citizens by their ideals. Ideals that are above religion, ethnicity or even the language you speak. Ideals that each and every American can make their own and still share with someone else.

And that is unique of this country. I’ve never felt it so clear as I do now. And I think that it’s something that it’s the true fact that makes the United States different from any other place. It’s not the so-called land of opportunities; it’s not about freedom or equality for all.

It’s something else, your American ideals that stick everything and everyone together.