People oftentimes wonder why politics divide families. I think it’s quite simple as to why: politics cannot simply be separated from the rest of life unless you identify with an extremely privileged and wealthy class. You may consider your politics personal, but are they? Your political stances reveal what matter to you as a person and how you see yourself in the midst of a society of people. That is telling of your psychology, your sociology, and ultimately how you treat other people in your life and other people you work with and pass by, and in the world. And in many ways, your political stances reveal your life view and your morals.

So when I think about my paternal grandma’s three living children, as in my dad and his younger sister and brother, while they are all very different personalities, they do have these elements in common:

1. They always assume they know everything and are the smartest person in the room and want to assume you know far less. They can be pretty condescending and make it seem like you have the intelligence of a rock.
2. They are all wealthy and are extremely cheap, yet all in their own ways.
3. They are racist and really look down on Black and Brown people in general. My uncle is likely the most racist since he’s extremely anti-immigrants and has spent part of his career oppressing immigrants coming into this country, something he has truly relished and happily shared awful count-by-count anecdotes of during awkward family dinners.
4. They are all right-leaning/far-right on the political spectrum.
5. They all had a far less than ideal relationship with their mother.

My aunt and uncle voted for Trump in 2024. My aunt explicitly told my cousin she voted for him for her financial portfolio. I think she is planning to be buried in her coffin with her millions. I am uncertain whether my dad voted since he’s sat out the last couple elections, but if he did vote, it also would have been for Trump since he used to audibly complain about Kamala Harris as San Francisco district attorney.

When you do enough therapy, read about therapy, and interact with enough people who have done therapy, you find out that the majority of people’s ills can be traced back to one thing: their childhood and upbringing. My aunt and uncle hated their mother so much that they decided that they would hate immigrants and people of *other* color than Asian as much as possible. They grew up poor, barely had enough food to eat, and had to take care of themselves because my grandma and grandpa were always working during the day. They are deathly afraid of losing all their money, so that’s why they barely spend any of it and are all sitting on massive cash piles. So, once you combine the woes of a traumatic childhood with a poor education and even worser media literacy, it’s a disastrous equation when it comes to future politics. They will always want less for others than they have for themselves. They see the world as a zero sum game: if others thrive, that must mean I will starve? If others gain, I will have to lose.

My aunt told me many times, over email and in person, “One day, when you have accrued enough wealth and earn enough income, you will also come to your senses and vote Republican.” She admonished me on this topic many times, and I insisted to her that was unlikely to happen. While it may be easy for me or anyone else to simply vote in my own self interest, I recognize that as a citizen of this country and world that the world and this country do not fucking revolve around me or my family. We cannot simply vote for our own self interests, as we all coexist in one world. We all have to contribute to the world to make it a better, kinder, healthier, cleaner place. We have to care about our neighbors, those around us who are different and have less than we do. Because if we do not, then what kind of world are we bringing our children into – a place where everyone simply fends for themselves and we can no longer trust anyone? Who the hell wants to live in a world like that?

I keep seeing people saying that it’s hard to care about the world when you are living paycheck to paycheck and barely able to afford your rent and mortgage. Do these people think that Trump will make them wealthier? Really?!

I hadn’t called my mom in several weeks. The truth is that I really dislike calling her because we never have anything that is truly substantive to say to each other. We check in on things like health, my work, Kaia, and then… that’s it. The conversation rarely lasts more than five minutes. But it’s five minutes of inanity that I always feel either bored or annoyed by.

When I think back to all the conversations I’ve had and enjoyed with friends’ parents who I respect, with former teachers who I keep in touch with, with people who are a generation or so ahead of me, the conversations were always so fun and thought provoking because there was some semblance of an intellectual exchange, a discussion of ideas. On their part, they always treated me like my opinions mattered, like the things I was learning about and sharing with them were fascinating to them. They made it seem like they also had something they could learn — from me. I never felt like I was being spoken down to, as though my thoughts, opinions, or knowledge were lesser than simply because I was younger. But that’s generally how my parents, and especially my mom, make me feel on the majority of conversation topics. And the most ridiculous thing is: my mom is not educated, worldly, well traveled, or well read. If you gave her a copy of a world map and asked her to identify where the continent of Europe was or even where her home country of Vietnam was, she wouldn’t be able to answer the question. Yet somehow, she always insists she knows more about pretty much *everything* than me simply because she is older and “has wisdom.”

My mom is a Vietnamese American woman, born into a family as the youngest of ten children who was never wanted because she was the youngest and a girl. Because she was a girl, she was seen as worthless. Her mom (her dad died when she was 6) refused to pay for an education for her. She experienced the terrors and pains of the American (Vietnam War), married into a Chinese American family where the matriarch oppressed her and made her feel ashamed for being Vietnamese, and then experienced endless racism, sexism, and classism at her office job, which gave no opportunity for growth, for 26 years. So, while I do not agree with my mom’s internalized sexism and racism, I see where it all stems from. She has experienced so much hatred and oppression from White people who are “above” her on this so-called race ladder that she eagerly delights in putting down anyone “below her” on said ladder who is Black or Brown.

After talking about a bunch of nothing on Tuesday when I called her, she asked me, point blank, if I voted for Trump. “Why would I vote for an incompetent, racist convicted felon?” I responded.

“Why would you vote for that idiot Black lady and not Trump?” she retorted back. My mom doesn’t vote and has never cast a single vote in her entire time being American. And frankly, given how little she knows, it may actually be better she does not vote.

“You know, she’s not an idiot. And why do you have to be so racist and call her an ‘idiot Black lady’?” I said back, as calmly as I could.

“Why can’t I call the Black lady an ‘idiot Black lady?” my mom cackled back. “She’s an idiot Black. She’s stupid. She does no good! She has no face now. NO FACE! What is she going to do now? Nothing! Trump won because he’s better than her! Who wants a Black running this country?”

I have oftentimes thought about the things I would say to my parents if I truly, truly wanted to cut off all contact with them and go nuclear. And in this context, what I would have loved to have said, but refrained from and simply told her that this conversation was done and hung up, was this:

“At least ‘that Black lady’ never drove any of her (step)children to suicide like you did. You are really the one with no face.”

I may not have said it, but I mean every word of that statement.