Vietnam War “mistake”

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Tonight, we went to see a play called “Vietgone,” which portrays the Vietnam War, the American’s involvement in it, and Vietnamese refugees being brought to the U.S. refugee camp in Arkansas to establish new lives.

The play actually touches upon a frequently heard sentiment, that the Vietnam War was a “mistake,” that the U.S. had no place to be a part of the war between North and South Vietnam and only got into it for selfish reasons. While all of that may be true, what is also true is that a lot of great things came out of it; many Vietnamese people were successfully resettled in the U.S. as a result of the American involvement via the refugee camps, and I know many of these people today. They are doing well, in their stereotypical doctor/lawyer positions. If they aren’t doctors and lawyers, their children are certainly entering these prosperous fields and other lucrative, well looked upon professions. My mom married my dad, and my dad brought her over to the U.S. for a “better life,” which yielded Ed and me, for better or for worse. My mom gets upset about the war and doesn’t like to talk about it because of the tragedies she had to witness, but she looks at the American involvement as positive because she sees it as the Vietnamese dad sees it in this play: the Americans were trying to give her a better life. She’s in America today because of this war. And from my dad’s perspective, being a part of the U.S. Army, he looks at it from a positive, idealistic stand point in that he was sent there to make a difference. He doesn’t see it as a “mistake” or a waste.

It’s easy to call a war or a political decision a mistake when it had no direct impact on your life. It’s not as easy when it did have an impact on your life. That’s why most people’s opinions are full of crap when it comes to day to day things.

Cubs trigger

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For the first time in 108 years, the Chicago Cubs have won the World Series as of last night. For those of you who know me, you know that a) I don’t give a sh*t about sports, and b) I especially hate baseball. I think it’s one of the most boring sports on earth. The only reason I am writing about baseball tonight is that the World Series enthusiasm reminds me of the few baseball games I have been to where I actually enjoyed myself (whether I paid attention the whole time is another story), all games where I never paid for my tickets. And then I remember how mad my brother got at me the one time I went to a San Francisco Giants game at the expense of a company I was interning at during college, and he couldn’t believe I would go to a game with my company and not with him.

“It’s different!” I insisted to him. “The company’s paying for it, so I don’t have to spend anything on it! If we went, we’d actually have to pay.” (I’m still a cheap Asian at heart. Our parents taught me well.. or maybe not).

“That’s not the point!” Ed yelled back. “You’re willing to go with your colleagues but not with me! Who cares about the money — I could pay for it!”

I explained to him that it had nothing to do with my colleagues vs. him; it had to do with paying for tickets and not paying for tickets, but Ed would not have it. His feelings were hurt, and I felt bad and had to say I was sorry. He didn’t talk to me for a few days and said I was being selfish.

I look back and really regret always declining every time he asked if I wanted to go to a baseball game with him. Ed never had real friends, so he would go to a game only if our cousins went with him or if I went, or if the occasional church semi-friend went. And I always declined, completely forgetting his “circle” of people was so small, and that if I declined, it meant he may not be able to go and enjoy these experiences at all. All Ed wanted was someone to spend time with to have these experiences, and I denied that to him. Sometimes, I really hate remembering all the little things I could have done to have made his life better. There’s nothing left to do now. And remembering and then regretting doesn’t make me feel better.

Voter rights

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A lot of pretty awful things have been in the news in the last year. The extra and uncalled for scrutiny that Hillary Clinton is getting for being the Democratic nominee for president of the U.S., Trump insulting pretty much every racial group that is not white, insulting a Gold Star family, making obscene impressions of a disabled person, and then bragging with Billy Bush about grabbing women’s pussies because he can just do whatever he wants as a rich celebrity. Trump won’t release his tax returns. Republicans in major positions across Congress and the country are endorsing Trump despite not releasing his tax returns, not having a single coherent policy plan for anything (we just know it’ll be “terrific” as he repeatedly says), his sexual assault accusations, and having zero respect for anyone who is not white. Right-wing extremists have threatened to kill Hillary if Trump doesn’t win the election. Bernie-or-Bust idiots still whine. All of these issues have angered me over the course of the year, but somehow, what has infuriated me the most appeared in my news skim this morning – an article about Trump’s voter-intimidation efforts. I was on the train on my way to the gym, and I read the entire article. By the time I was done, I could feel my face was hot, my pulse was up, my eyes were filled with tears. I just couldn’t believe it. Or could I, given all the hate that this man has spewed, all the while his party has followed without having any guts of their own?

I shared it out on Facebook. No one other than my husband and mother-in-law cared. No one cares about voter rights and voter intimidation as being a huge part of our country’s terrible history… Maybe they just don’t remember the history of the Civil Rights Movement? Maybe they never even learned it given the pathetic education system here. 

Why did this anger me so much? It’s likely because I just came back from Little Rock and Memphis, where we visited Little Rock Central High School and the National Civil Rights Museum, where we re-learned the atrocities that have been committed to non-white Americans as recently as the 1960s and 70s. The tactics they are accused of using — demanding ID information, threatening to call 911 and report them for felonies, and record their license plate numbers — are terrifyingly reminiscent of what happened in the 50s and 60s when blacks in this country tried to register to vote and carry out their civic duty. They couldn’t vote in peace then and risked their lives to vote and have their voices heard, and the same scare tactics and threats are being done TODAY. Trump’s “movement” is taking away the ability to vote, free of intimidation and coercion.

As this story states: “At many points in American history, poll monitoring has been used to dissuade voters—especially black voters—from exercising their right of enfranchisement. The Supreme Court argued in 2013 that “our country has changed,” striking down the part of the Voting Rights Act that determines which parts of the country are overseen by strict federal supervision. But the recent allegations suggest voter intimidation is still happening all over the country.

“State Democratic parties in Arizona, Ohio, Nevada, and Pennsylvania sued Trump for encouraging unlawful voter intimidation. They argue that Trump’s calls for his supporters to “watch” polling for suspected “cheating” and “fraud” violate two laws: the Klu Klux Klan Act of 1871, which was passed during Reconstruction to protect newly emancipated freedmen from harassment at polls, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits “intimidation,” “threats,” and “coercion” of voters.”

I feel like my heart is breaking reading these stories. How can people be so cruel to regress back to a time that is full of shame and embarrassment for most decent Americans of today? The 1950s and 60s were not that long ago, and while a lot more progress is needed, these scare tactics only echo the hate from what was almost 60 years ago.

I was looking at all the photos at the Little Rock Central High School Historic Site and at the National Civil Rights Museum of all the white mobs who beat and lynched innocent black people, doing such seemingly innocuous, everyday tasks such as going to school or leaving their homes to go out. A lot of them happily posed for these media photos. We look back on photos of people like congressman John Lewis and MLK with admiration and pride; if we are children or grandchildren of theirs, we’d think the same. But as I looked at the photos of the whites in these images, I thought, what would I think if I were one of their descendants? Would I be on the side of progress and be overwhelmed with disgust at their hatred and lack of humanity? I thought for a moment. I’m positive there are people who are their descendants and wished this progress was never made and that white people could just oppress blacks until this day. Many of them are likely Trump supporters, people blinded by non-facts and driven by hate.

I still have hope for change in the future. Even though it seems dismal after reading articles like this, I still do.

7 more days

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Seven more days until D-Day. I have a strange and sad feeling that if Donald Trump loses the election that he will still constantly be in the news for all of his sexual assault and racist bullshit.

Hillary, if she wins, will constantly be criticized for not smiling enough, being warm and friendly enough, and not having the correct “presidential look.” I’d even say she’ll be evaluated even more harshly than Obama was. She will also be consistently criticized for how ambitious she is. I mean, isn’t that what the media keeps saying, that she is conniving, will stop at nothing to get what she wants? Because men who are like that are just great, ambitious, and admirable, right? The road to true gender equality is so damn hard.

Dress up

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I’ve never really been that excited about Halloween. I still remember the days when we were expected to dress up for the Halloween parade at school, and how much I never enjoyed it. I always felt like the poorest kid, even though I obviously wasn’t (at least, now I know this). I still remember in first grade, my mom took me shopping at a Halloween store, and she said to me, “Okay, you can pick one costume, any costume. But just remember that you have to wear it every year until the end of elementary school.” She explained that she and my dad couldn’t afford a new costume for me every year (Ed wore the same Garfield mask trick-or-treating until high school. I had no idea how he felt about that because I never asked). I was only six at the time, but somehow, I was still rational even then. So I responded, “But I’ll be bigger then.” My mom nodded. “You will be, so that’s why we’ll have to buy an extra LARGE costume!”

So, I looked through all the costumes. I really wanted to be a fairy or a princess. But I wasn’t sure I’d want to be that five years in a row. So I settled on what seemed “neutral” at the time – a pumpkin/jack-o-lantern outfit. And that’s when I decided I would probably never like Halloween as a dress-up event for myself.

Today, I still don’t get excited about dressing up (and I haven’t dressed up since 2012), but I do admire the care that other people take in doing very elaborate makeup (my favorite I saw on Instagram was a dying woman who painted her neck so that it looked like her throat was split completely open), and I love seeing little babies dressed up in the most ridiculous outfits (this year’s favorite for me was a 2-month old baby in an ostentatious peacock outfit that was three times her size). Maybe I will get excited about it one day when I have a child to dress up, but for now, it’s not really for me.

Hanging out in the South

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Last night, Chris and I had dinner, broke through an Escape Room, and had drinks with my friend and her friends in Little Rock. For the first time probably since college, I was surrounded by people who were not from one coast or the the other and who were all in the sciences. Her friends are all specializing in different areas in the same medical residency program, and one of the friend’s boyfriends is a microbiologist working for the FDA. Their places of origin included Kuwait/Baton Rouge, San Antonio, Orlando, and Austin.

We were sitting at a table over drinks until past midnight, talking about everything from what truly defines Tex-Mex cuisine (the guys from San Antonio claim that Austin “Tex-Mex” is “whitified” and not real, and that San Antonio is the only city in the entire South where you can get “real” Tex-Mex) to immigrating to the U.S. as a brown Bangladeshi person from Kuwait, to what “diversity” means in different environments. One conversation I had that surprised me was that one of the women said to me that she found Little Rock far more diverse than Baton Rouge, where her family currently lives and where she did her undergrad and medical school studies. “In Baton Rouge, all I was meeting were people who either didn’t want to do anything meaningful with their lives and stay in their home town forever, or people who were obsessed with work, superficial, and frankly very uninteresting as people,” she said. She expressed annoyances that it was hard to meet someone who was a working professional, dedicated and passionate about what they were doing, who is also interesting and good to have conversation with. “It’s been easier for me to find that here in this residency program,” she said. “People are actually interesting, they’re from everywhere, and it feels diverse!”

We all live in our bubbles. I spend time mostly with people in tech, consulting, and the agency world. They are surrounded by doctors and biologists and others in the medical and science professions every day. I thought to myself that night that it would be great if we could meet people not just from different racial and geographic backgrounds, but also different professions. Some of the conversations I had that night were some of the most thought-provoking and stimulating I’ve had in a while. It was certainly a pleasant break from what I usually hear at my work.

 

Race

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Today, Mai, Chris, and I visited the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site where one day in September 1957, the “Little Rock Nine,” who were 9 black students, tried to attend what was an all-white school in an attempt to end racial segregation in schools. They were prevented from entering the school by a mob of hundreds of whites and the Arkansas National Guard ordered by then racist Governor Faubus. The Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling meant nothing to Faubus and the majority of white people of Little Rock, who insisted integration would ruin their “traditional values” and ways of living. The Little Rock Nine were pushed, screamed at, kicked, hit, and spat on to the point that one of 9 wearing a dress said it was soaked to the point that she had to wring it out when she got home. Almost 60 years after this event occurred, segregation still exists in our neighborhoods and schools, as well as unfair treatment of non-whites in society whether it’s conscious or subconscious. It made me sick to relearn all the things I had learned in history classes growing up — that the police and National Guard did nothing to help these kids simply because of their skin color. They just stood by and watched; in other cases, as with the Bloody Sunday in Selma, they actually beat them, tear-gassed them, and clubbed them. 

The world has changed a lot since the Civil Rights Movement, but I will never say that we’re color blind, that race doesn’t matter, or that blacks and browns and Asians and whites all have the same rights and opportunities because that is just not the case for anyone who has any perspective or keeps up with the news or spends time with anyone who is not the same color as they are. Some people, in their deluded, ignorant thinking, say that race doesn’t matter anymore simply because we’ve had our first black president. Barack Obama is the exception; we all know he’s not the norm of what we stereotypically think of in the black community. Yet, I will also not be the person who is so extreme as to say that nothing has changed since the 60s. Police brutality still exists, but not to the degree that the Freedom Riders experienced. It’s not normal to be black and get spat at and called the “N” word regularly on the streets or in school and have law enforcement or teachers not do anything about it. We also don’t have separate “whites” and “colored” water fountains, bathrooms, or bus sections. I can’t even fathom how bad it truly was 60 to 70 years ago.

I’m still waiting for the day when we can stop discriminating based on the color of our skin or hair and judge people solely based on their actual character. As congressman John Lewis said at the Salesforce Connections conference, we just need to love and support each other. It seems corny, cheesy, and/or trite out of context, but it makes sense. If we cared about each other more, maybe the Little Rock Nine wouldn’t have been so intense. If more black people had supported the Nine, it could have been a bigger success, and the black students trying to integrate could have actually gotten into the school that day and gone to class. If more white people stood up for the students in those mobs and in the classroom, they could have set a better example for their white friends and families. The power in numbers cannot be underestimated. 

Clinton Presidential Library visit

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This weekend, Chris and I are in Arkansas, where we will be visiting historical sites, eating what will likely be a lot of fried food, and visiting my good friend from college who lives down here and is doing her medical residency. This will be my second time in Arkansas, as well as my second time visiting the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. After having visited so many presidential libraries in the last four years, it was interesting for me to revisit the Clinton Library with a new perspective. It’s actually an even more interesting time to be visiting the Clinton Library given that Hillary Clinton may soon become the next president of the United States in less than two weeks. It made me look at the First Lady exhibit much more differently and the impact she had during her husband’s administration. At the time, she was the very first First Lady of the U.S. to have had a professional career, a degree higher than a B.A., and a very active role in her husband’s administration. She then became the first and only First Lady to run for office and then become a senator. Times have really changed since the 90s. The world really is moving forward, even if it does feel very slow right now.

Glass Castle

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On my birthday ten years ago, a little memoir called The Glass Castle was published and became a national bestseller, which was then translated into over 20 languages. I remember at the time I was intrigued by the book and put it on my mental to-read list, primarily because it dealt with real life family dysfunction and how the author got through it. I thought at the time that maybe something about this book could resonate with me. And this week, I started reading it, and it’s been hard to stop because of how honest Jeannette Walls’s voice is and how much I can actually relate to her sentiments around both her parents and her siblings.

The dysfunction I grew up with isn’t “dysfunctional” from a white person/outsider view because I had all the “basics” for survival that parents are supposed to provide their children: a safe home to live in, food on the table, the ability to go to school. These are the things that Walls and her siblings were deprived of; even though they were able to go to school, they never went with a packed lunch and oftentimes went by for days without a single mouthful of food going down their throats. I can’t relate to these predominantly “white” problems that the average poor Asian American family would probably not have. Walls’s family has all the stereotypical poor white dysfunctional problems: a deadbeat dad with a drinking problem who cannot provide for his family, a mom who is unfit to take care of herself, much less her four children, and is resentful of a mother’s responsibilities, the constant running away from debts for everything from rent to electricity bills. The four kids grew up going from town to town barely knowing what it was like to have running water or electricity in their homes, or a refrigerator with even a loaf of bread in it. Oftentimes, their mother would use her last few dollars on chocolate, which she’d eat by herself while hiding under the bed covers. Her children would eventually find out and take the chocolate away, splitting it into equal pieces for everyone in the house to share. The father stole grocery money and disappeared for days, if not weeks, and spent it all on alcohol, cigarettes, and prostitutes. The kids eventually had to fend for themselves, earn their own money, and find ways to get out of the house on their own. And they all did.

Throughout the book, Walls expresses her anger and frustration, but it’s obvious she holds no grudges against either parent. She makes it obvious that no matter what her parents did, no matter how much they neglected her or beat her with a belt, she still loved them and always would. In interviews, she is constantly asked how she was able to forgive her parents for what they did to her. But in mature adult fashion, she responds that it’s not about forgiveness; it’s simply about acceptance. Without the experiences she had, she wouldn’t be who she is today. That’s kind of how I feel about my own life, as I’ve been asking repeatedly by multiple people how I’m still able to visit my parents so regularly, how I was able to publicly speak so highly of them at my wedding events. One friend said, “You were so nice to say all those great things about your parents at the wedding. You really didn’t have to do that.” It’s true. I don’t have to, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that they weren’t all bad, and I have experienced a lot of life’s greatest privileges because of the sacrifices they made for my brother and me. Sadly, Ed isn’t with us anymore, and he was treated drastically different than I was. But to compare to Walls’s experiences, Ed never knew what it was like to not have electricity or running water, nor did he know what it was like to have a literally empty refrigerator. She says that her parents weren’t perfect, as no parent is, but she thinks they did the best they knew how to for her and her three siblings. And as hard as it is for me to acknowledge, even in light of Ed’s suicide, I feel the exact same way about my parents.

What actually does bother me is how a lot of people have received Walls’s memoir. I skimmed a few reviews of the book, and a number of them have accused her of fabricating information and exaggerating how bad her life really was. How much could she really remember from her childhood, from the ages of 3 to 6 to 9? The people who accuse her of this have clearly led lives within a privileged bubble and just have a complete inability to fathom parents who would feed themselves before their children, drunkenness that results in constantly losing jobs and falling deeper into debt, or delusional thinking on the parents’ parts that they’ve “never let you down, have we?” (I can relate to that. My mom insists all the time, even after Ed’s death, that she is the best mother in the world and no one else can compare. She’s not joking. She really means it). The foster care system in this country is huge because of parents who fall into these exact categories, and it’s so disturbing to think that people are not aware of this. I’ve even been asked myself if all the things I’ve shared with friends are “really true;” in the same way I’m sure Walls responds, why would I ever lie about experiences with my own family — what do I have to gain from this? Neither Walls nor I would share information simply to garner another person’s temporary sympathy; the reason we share stories is so that hopefully, other people can increase their levels of empathy and ultimately understand us and how we think better, as well as people who have had similar experiences. Because isn’t that what all human beings desire — to be truly understood?

Stir-fry analogy

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I’m just finishing up The Fortune Cookie Chronicles book by Jennifer 8. Lee and enjoying pretty much every minute of it. This will probably go down as one of my favorite nonfiction books not just because of how well researched, thorough, and informative it is in correcting a lot of falsehoods about Chinese cuisine and culture, but also because it touches upon two of my greatest loves: food and culture.

One of my favorite chapters of this book is most definitely the “American Stir-fry” chapter. In it, Lee discusses how food is the easiest way that we can learn about other cultures. Chances are that three generations down the line after immigrating to the U.S., you may not be able to speak your mother/father tongue, but chances are high that you will still have your beloved grandmother’s or mom’s recipe for your favorite dumplings or soup, or in the very least, a deep and instilled appreciation for it. It also highlights what I’ve already believed for a long time: in general, if you are receptive to trying new foods of different cultures, you are also probably more curious and accepting about others’ cultures and people. “If you can eat the food of a country, it seems less foreign.” This has to be why I can’t stand meeting and spending time with picky eaters. 🙂

It ends by discussing the American “melting pot” analogy. I’ve never liked this analogy very much. My main qualm about it is that in a “melting pot,” what makes each ingredient unique melds together with the rest of the items that get dumped in the pot, and thus what makes each ingredient special is lost. Melding, blending, whatever you want to call it is great — but I don’t want to lose what makes each culture or nationality unique or interesting. Lee then proposes another analogy to replace this: why not a stir-fry? In a stir-fry, she says, “our ingredients remain distinct, but our flavors blend together in a sauce shared by all.” This definitely makes more sense; it would be a stretch for the average American to use in everyday discussion of what America stands for, but it ultimately embraces our “togetherness” while also celebrating what makes each culture special, which is important. In a day and age when white supremacists seem be regaining their “voice” with Trump’s presidential candidacy and the “Black Lives Matter” movement is getting stronger, we really need to keep concepts like Lee’s “stir-fry” in mind to truly appreciate this country for what it is — a country of immigrants and people of different backgrounds who have come together for what is supposed to be a better life for future generations.