I had to write this before the end of the month! I hope you all had a happy holidays (or at least, part 1).
I was feeling some emotional turmoil over celebrating a holiday, on false grounds, that is supposed to be about people welcoming other people into their communities and on their land. To be thankful for the things we have and help others, blah, blah , blah. Millions of people are walking across countries and piling into boats in search of a home and our country is turning them away. I wrote a post about immigrants in detention right now and added something to our grace for the meal. I just wanted to recognize them and wish them the best. So, I did. Ratings on the dinner:
Ratings on family time: Immeasurable, silly! I did have a fantastic time spending time with my loved ones. Even got to hang out with my cousin who I adore even though he beats me tenfold no matter what game we play. We ate and played board games and ate and played music badly and ate… It was also my dad’s birthday the day after! I guess all I can say is that I hope he had a good time! Happy birthday, dad.
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Yes, it is complicated, but some facts are simple: America is (ironically) afraid of immigrants and will do anything to stop them. Even if it means doing horrible things. As you may have heard from the news, once in office, Trump rushed to create a policy that would, not only detain undocumented passage from Mexico, but tear up families for reasons that don’t matter. The reasons really don’t; people will say it is a deterrent to future travelers or “what has to be done,” but there isn’t a thing you could tell me that could convince me this is necessary or humane. I.C.E. (Immigrants and Customs Enforcement) used to, as far as I know, mostly deal with undocumented immigrants breaking US laws and being generally harmful to their communities, no matter their origin country. Ideally, they are taking (actually) dangerous people off the streets, and ICE was the organization that specialized in dealing with people without verifiable documentation that would allow them to be on US soil. Police with bigger handcuffs. They have the ability to deport any non-US citizens. Since March 7th, 2017, and still continuing today(!) Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy has been in effect. This separates children, starting with infants (those babies are really freaking tiny) until 17-years-old, from their parents. The parents may have court or adult detention centers while their children are left alone. These children are then held in detention centers with not enough shelter or food and a lot of fences. The treatment they receive, without having committed a single crime, is horrendous. Young children are emotionally and psychologically manipulated to think that their parents left them on purpose. Some guards taunt the kids with slurs, beat them, and now even cases of sexual abuse are coming to surface. Photos of these “camps” (said to be like boarding schools) that were taken from an aerial view have been visually compared to Auschwitz (Holocaust concentration camp, Nazi’s, 1933-1947). I often seen WWII as sort of the worst thing ever, like it’s the bottom line. If someone is comparing a horrible thing, that is what they use (and they probably shouldn’t) if it is so mind-blowing there is nothing else to say; alternatively, “Well, it’s not like it’s the Holocaust.” Unfortunately, I think they have a point worth mentioned. I also think the Japanese internment camps have sickening similarities (WWII 1942-1945). After the attack on Pearl Harbor (12.7.41) it was “[...] established [by] President Franklin Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066 [...] the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent would be interred in isolated camps” (History.com). More than 177,000 people were affected and hundreds died, largely due to access to medical treatment. Comparing it to the Holocaust, no matter how true, can shut a person down due to fear. It just couldn’t come close, right? But, this next thing happened because of panic and hate all stemming from the same strains of super-racism. Most of those people were US citizens and plenty had never lived in Japan to begin with. Japanese descent, remember? Two MSNBC interviews with George Takei concerning this issue
LEFT: 11.18.16 with a quote written out below (left) and RIGHT:6.31.18 In the 1980s, Congress organized a commission to look into the reasons why the Japanese internment happened. I did testify at those hearings. They found three things brought it about: One was racial hysteria, one was war hysteria, and the third was failure of political leadership. And Donald Trump is a perfect example of that failure. It was because political leadership could not educate the hysteria that was sweeping across this country. ‘Get rid of the Japs’ was the most popular political issue at the time. And they didn’t recognize the fact that two-thirds of us were American citizens. They thought that we had an organic, genetic loyalty to the emperor, so we were all imprisoned with no charges. It was the most unconstitutional act and President Reagan apologized for that and pledged a $20,000 redress. What Donald Trump is talking about is going to make his logo, ‘America disgraced again.’ It’s all over again. We don’t know our history. So, why am I saying this? We have the responsibility to take it upon ourselves and learn history, learn from our mistakes, and do better. With what's happenening, I've heard people say that we are "living through history." We have been this entire time! No war starts in a day. No tradegy flies past.
These deaths matter. These people matter. I don't care about what's legal and why you want immigrants gone or not. No more excuses! This is wrong and you don't need to be a saint to know that, some of us are just trying a lot harder to hide it. Maybe you can't make much of a difference, as just one person (not true, but it can sure feel that way). But, start conversations because some people don't even know this is still going on. Join political groups in your area.. Go to that protest. Write letters to your local, state, and federal government. Donate (if/when you can) and get angry. Don't ignore it because "it's too depressing to think about." I hate that excuse. I know depression, and yeah this sucks. That's the entire reason we CAN'T afford to ignore it anymore. We gotta help these kids and these families and these innocent people. Anniversaries can bring up muck from the very bottom of the river. We like to pair them with happy events, such as, weddings and birthdays for the most part. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.
So, what do you do if this anniversary -for lack of a better word- is painful? It can be a tug of war between pretending it doesn’t matter and not knowing what to do if it is important. It depends on what the “occasion” -that doesn’t feel right- is, but it is normal to want to do something. Maybe take a long shower and give yourself a nice night. I had a rough day last month and I had to force myself to do the opposite, I surrounded myself with friends and packed a thousand things to do in my day. These days aren’t just reminders of what happened a month, a year, or three years ago, they are reminders of how far you’ve come since then. Remind yourself of all the steps you’ve made since the last time this day was so important, yes, even the baby steps. Pick flowers and write a love letter to yourself on a park bench. You deserve it because one day can never mean everything, and it cannot take away your progress. It is always going to be just a day. Stay strong. There is a narrative, one that I’ve heard all my life, that everyone culture is absolutely-completely-so different. And that is true. However, I feel like I have let people completely separate my home in the U.S. to my one in Panama.
Yes, every place on Earth is distinctive from another. But, only focusing on those extremes can lead to a forgetfulness of what we all have in common. I will speak only for myself, but to me, all sorts of places in my life are individual worlds. My aunt’s kitchen in Panama and my own with my dad in it with me feels like the 3rd and the 5th of a chord- each is not the same without the other. But, for years, going a few miles down the road to school felt like flying to Mars (and getting motion sick along the way). I have a theory that everyone sorts people in places in their head because that’s how we organize our lives. I can’t lie, I love my self a good pattern and specific places I always put things. It’s natural, I’m not sure we always remember to keep it in check. Plenty of things don’t fit into boxes or have clear labels, and that’s okay. Things I’ve seen people do in both countries:
No one wants to be the same as everyone else, but always feeling completely different is exhausting. I try to remember that we are all people. We all think our families are a bit crazy and we most of us care about what others think of us, no matter what we say otherwise. We all eat, breathe, and love. That’s why we are here, to support each other even when we don’t understand the world we live in.
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Who Am I?Hi there! I'm Whit, my pronouns are they/them, and I write a lot.
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Painting by Whit Acrylics on masonite April 20th, 2019 Words are a Quaker saying. George Fox? |