Twisted Curlz

Letters to my mom: A new year

2014-01-02T21:37:00.001-08:00

A little over a year ago on Nov. 21, 2012, my closest friend on the planet left me. My mom died shortly after heart surgery. My son was 18 months old, and my daughter was still barely a wish.

So much has happened, and I miss her voice ringing in my ear and her smile shining on my face.

Over the past year, I've become her voice in my own head. I hear her words resonate from my mouth. Still, I want to be able to share with her those things I know would have resonated with her -- and be able to have them recorded for my children when they ask what Nana was like.

It's January 2nd of 2014, and I'm going to aim to blog letters to my mom at least once a week.

Dear Mom,

As 2014 opens, it comes with your two beautiful grandchildren growing so nicely. You'd be so proud of the complete little person CJ has become. He uses words that would trigger that most amazing laugh of yours -- part "Sesame Street" Count, part Jeffrey Holder. He is savvy beyond his own developmental level. If it won't so infuriating at the time, it would be ridiculously impressive. He's a bit of a renaissance man, playing multiple instruments and sports as well as becoming a fine little student. He told me he wanted to be a Toastmaster -- "They talk loud" -- and he gets up on stage and performs songs he's composed.

On top of all that, your most beloved grandson is the most wonderful big brother. You would beam to see him with "his baby." Gigi will grow up to be very loved and cared for by her CJ.

There is a vintage wisdom behind her eyes. I know she understands more than she can tell me. I've been teaching her a few basic signs to see if she can use them. Most people would say I'm nuts -- what's new -- but I swear she was trying to master them from the very first weeks of life, before she had control of her hands. It was most intriguing to watch. So far, we have "eat," "milk" and "more." I'm also teaching her to sign her name.

Her beautiful babble sounds more like full thoughts. For instance, when I've tried to give her a bottle, she very clearly gives me a piece of her mind. She spent the better part of 30 minutes "arguing" with me. It gave me some insight into what she might be like as a teenager. (Oy vey!) I suspect she has much of you in her. (Oy vey!) And for that I am so grateful.

It's a beautiful thing to know what you must have felt when they brought me to you 41 years ago.

So a new year begins. I have so much unresolved, so many questions unanswered. I miss your counsel. I miss having you as a sounding board, being released as you to had the reaction I couldn't because I had to keep it together, having your fierce love. I wish I knew all that I was supposed to do.

I'm being still until the answers come, with God's help.

That's all for tonight.

All my love,
Your daughter

A dogged interest: You might just have a service dog on your lap

2010-12-28T20:53:00.000-08:00

Today at Nickel Diner in downtown Los Angeles, I had nearly had lunch with a chihuahua in the restaurant. The pooch was perched atop the lap of its human, its head occasionally resting on the table.

Now I've seen dogs at eateries with outdoor patio dining. No big deal. But never have I seen a dog sitting at a restaurant table, as if it were an invited guest. Actually, the dog had all fours on the table at certain points during our mutual stay.

When I asked the manager about the restaurant's policy on pets at the table, she informed me that the humans offered certification that this mini-muffin of a canine was a service dog.

A service dog? What possible service could this timid and tentative creature possible offer? And offer from the arms of its owner.

To be clear, there is a legal distinction between service dogs, therapeutic dogs and pets. Service dogs, the American Disabilities Act states, are not pets. Service dogs are the only ones permitted anywhere its human goes.

I suspect that, since the male human with the long-haired chihuahua kissed its mouth, it wasn't on the job at the time. The dog's carrier also sat next to them on the booth. But, honestly, for all I know, the animal might have been a working animal. Although, again, I'm not sure what service a dog being kissed and carried can perform.

This experience, complete with the female human making sure to linger while holding the dog with its backside to my face as she passed to leave, got me to wondering what the standards and rules are related to service dogs.

As it turns out, your lap dog might just be a service dog -- if you say it is.

While several states offer certifications, there are no overarching standards for service dogs -- nothing legal and binding -- as far as I can tell. The ADA site states that:

a proprietor cannot ask a patron about their disability, to prove or detail it;
a proprietor cannot ask to see certification that the dog in question is actually a service animal;
a proprietor cannot deny access to said pooch, unless it poses imminent danger or health hazard to other patrons -- allergies don't count.

Granted these loose parameters are in place to protect disabled persons from being persecuted, so they can go about their lives in the most normal, unfettered way possible. A noble and necessary approach.

However, the lack of certification requirements leave open wide chinks for unscrupulous pet owners to exploit something intended to protect the afflicted.

But there are consequences for falsely posing as a disabled person and claiming your precious pet is a service animal when it's not. The California Penal Code (Title 9, Chapter 12) states in section 365.7 is a misdemeanor:

(a) Any person who knowingly and fraudulently represents himself or herself, through verbal or written notice, to be the owner or trainer of any canine licensed as, to be qualified as, or identified as, a guide, signal, or service dog, as defined in subdivisions (d), (e), and (f) of Section 365.5 and paragraph (6) of subdivision (b) of Section 54.1 of the Civil Code, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment.

Of course, they have to prove, somehow, that you aren't disabled -- and that's something about which they can't even ask.

So, Paris Hilton -- and all you others with lap dogs you take everywhere -- Tinkerbell could be a service dog, if you say she is.

Falling Down: A walk with a mission

2010-10-02T07:04:00.001-07:00

About 6 months ago when I started training for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, my partner in mischief said he always wanted to do the walk Michael Douglas did in the movie Falling Down. Today, since I had an 18-miler to do, we walk from downtown to Santa Monica. Wish us luck. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Treadmill torture

2010-05-06T08:05:00.001-07:00

Nothing deep here. Just wanted to leave word -- in case this workout is the end of me. Think Blair Witch Treadmill. Sweat, tears, snot...the works.

Oy. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:N Brand Blvd,Glendale,United States

I'm back

2010-05-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

I've decided to return to blogging as I embark on an adventure of making a new me for 2010. Stay tuned. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Colorado St,Glendale,United States

Psychological profile

2009-07-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

I don't recall the first time my mother mentioned it to me, but I do remember the repeated message: When you get stopped by a police officer, do not talk back, do not react, do keep your hands visible, do not make sudden moves and, most importantly, do not let your pride get the best of you.

And then she would say, in words almost as fleeting as an exhale, that she was grateful I wasn't a boy.

You see, being brown and male presents a whole other set of variables that were too terrifying for her, a black mother, to ponder. It was scary enough for her to think, past the indignities she experienced in a 1950s American south, of her feisty daughter who "grew up white," for the most part, forgetting her place when faced with authority who might not have as much respect for her life as she was taught to have for authority.

I remember the first time I was pulled over at night, with a girl friend (who was also black) in my car. It was in Rancho Mirage near Eisenhower Medical Center. Desert nights are lighted primarily by distant stars. Date groves that line the street enhanced the depth of darkness -- and vulnerable aloneness -- when we were pulled over. The emptiness of the streets seemed almost to echo audibly. No witnesses.

Just seconds before I made that left turn, we had been two carefree teenage girls singing at the top of our lungs to the latest Bobby Brown hit. Then the red and blue lights bounced off all of the unlighted surfaces. The light air in my Ford Escort grew heavy. In the first flash reflected off my rear-view mirror, our faces tightened and our bodies stiffened.

Instinctively, we became what generations of blacks before us had taught us to become: cautious and compliant -- and black. Without even a glance at each other, she put her hands on the dashboard and I quickly slipped my license out of my purse and put my hands on the steering wheel after I pulled over. It wasn't motivated by fear, but more by rote, instinct.

It is a lesson that so many brown people know almost before they learn to tie their shoes. They know there is no value in being proud when the person who has the power is a cop with a gun. Bullets and gun butts trump pride every time. It's not a question most of us think worth asking. We already know the answer.

The question that wended its way through my mind, the same way I might wonder about what's for dinner, was will we leave this alive. It was the only question. Our parents, cousins, grandparents, aunts had told us that. We knew story after true story of proof that it wasn't outside the realm of reality that we might not, no matter why we were pulled over.

In this situation, was there ever a real danger? I'm guessing not. Does that change the way I feel about the situation or would have reacted? Again, I'm guessing not.

The recent case of Dr. Gates has many black and brown folks talking about what they have learned to suck their teeth and roll their eyes at as routine, even if an exception these days. In the LA Times, there's a story headlined "Black males' fear of racial profiling very real, regardless of class" that attempts to explore the topic.

Like Henry Louis Gates Jr., they are professionals, men of status and achievement who have excelled in a nation that once shunned black men.
And for many of them, their only shock -- upon learning of the celebrated scholar's recent run-in with police -- was the moment of recognition.
They know too well the pivotal moment Gates faced at his Massachusetts home. It was that moment of suspicion when confronted by police, the moment one wonders, in a flash of panic, anger, or confusion -- Maybe I am being treated this way because I'm black.
Next comes the pivotal question -- Do I protest or just take it?

The point it misses is that it's not really a question. It's never a question. Being ponderous and considering motivations and which course of action to take is a luxury most in these situations cannot entertain.

Not that the "it's because I'm black" assessment is always the assumption as much as a subconscious readiness. I think more processing the questions in the story, it's like a checklist that one begins to put into action the second an officer is in one's orbit.

To this day, that is always the case when it comes to my infrequent encounters with police with that particular power relationship. It's not a question of whether they approached me because they see black.

Ultimately, that doesn't matter. It's usually, for me, more about the uncertainty of how they will treat me because they see black. I know, like most of us know, that reacting -- letting pride escape from the chains we bind it in the bowels of our beings in such instances -- will elicit nothing good in the presence of power.

Now that's not to say that every situation takes a turn for the worst. The reality is I have been treated simply as "a citizen" in most of my encounters. That fact, however, does not ever change the checklist.

I think just as an officer may, based on his or her extended experience in dealing with the lesser elements of society, be inclined to view a situation through squinting skepticism, a brown person may see through the scrim of a shadowy history. It is a matter of persistent perception versus a reflection of reality.

Having never been a cop, I can only imagine the adrenaline and fear officers experience so many times in a single day. My brief ride-along when I was in grad school in New York gave me a fleeting glimpse of what it must be like. Every call that night was a wash of tension, anxiousness, energy, alertness, excitement and split-second judgment as pivotal moments seem to play out in slow motion between blinks.

And, as Malcolm Gladwell writes in his book "Blink," it is what goes on between those blinks that can determine how each of us handles and processes our encounters.

Reunited and it feels so good

2009-05-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

I'm off to my 15-year reunion at Scripps College. So many things have changed since 1994 at this amazing women's college. One interesting change is that instead of embracing La Semeuse or the athletic mascot of the goddess Athena, current students have embraced...

...the squirrel.

Most of us alums are rather perplexed about why an infection carrying rodent in search of nuts is a good idea for a student-selected mascot, but I'm trying to embrace it. "Scripps Squirrel Girl" is chronicling her adventures during reunion weekend.

Scripps Squirrel Girl hardly reconizes Elm Tree Lawn. At graduation 1994, the lawn was shaded by aging elms that created a gazebo of history and import as Scripps women for decades passed under and through them. Maybe they'll grow back.

There was a workshop on decoupage. SSG was moved by the beautiful black and brown faces she found in the clippings and pasted them on a box as the beginning of a project.

So moved by nostalgia, SSG nearly forgot herself around the winetasting at Margaret Fowler Garden. No, Scripps Squirrel Girl, no need to, um, flash back to senior champagne brunch!! Shirts stay on!

Um, what are you?

2009-05-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

In April, NPR tackled the topic of what not to say to mixed-race colleagues. But you know, I personally take license to ask. My approach sometimes catches them off-guard, primarily because it's not what they're used to hearing.

My question: What's your beautiful blend?

Fellow blenders, how do you ask -- or do you ask at all?

Here's a link to that NPR program

NPR: What Not To Say To A Mixed-Race Colleague

A toast that was more of an unwelcome roast

2009-05-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was the subject of a mini roast that gave me a little insight into how people I have called friend might have seen me, and frankly it gives me pause about them.

I'm a member of a group I have really enjoyed participating in over the past three years. It follows the same agenda every week, including introductions. Frankly, we've all done them and we've all heard them, so sometimes folks use a bit of creative license with them. Sometimes we have a little fun with each other. But at the heart of the group is a sense of decorum and process.

This is why I was so taken aback when one member assigned to do introductions this past week took things past playful into insulting.

A bit of background: I recently chopped off, oh, all of my hair. It wasn't as concerted an effort as a "makeover" as some who have seen it seem to think. But I'm guessing by the reaction it has had that radical result. I'm ever so flattered that folks have nice things to say about the new look. But since compliments generally cause me to squirm a bit, some of the attention causes me to blush and wilt a little internally.

Back to the toast-roast. When this club member got to me, he started out with the gushing about my "new look." I braced to keep from spontaneously combusting from my own discomfort with attention I can't control or guide.

And then, although I am quite self-deprecating at times and have a healthy sense of humor, he went somewhere I was completely unprepared for. He said, in essence, that it was a marked and necessary improvement on my apparent prehistoric cavewoman look. You know, wild hair, wild attire. Essentially, saying I was notably unkempt. What was also hurtful was that this wonderful group of people laughed in affirmation, it seemed. Or maybe they were just being polite to the speaker. It hardly felt polite to me -- as a brown woman who proudly wore her ethnic hair in a natural, unprocessed state and her ethnic clothes.

I get to do introductions next week. That should be interesting....

'Biracial people are problematic' still -- statistically speaking

2009-05-02T07:30:00.001-07:00

I remember when I first heard that statement made nearly 15 years ago. It was during my graduate year as we students were being instructed on doing exit polling for the 1994 election.

I also remember the shock of the explanation I got from my grad school's resident computer-assisted reporting expert (a white professor) that detailed how annoying those of us who identify as black and white, in particular, are statistically by pulling out the "one-drop" rule.

As I relayed my disbelief that this conversation actually took place at a respected institution of higher learning, I was told by a (black/brown) professor: "You're black; get over it."

Fast forward to 2009. Well, apparently, there's still a statistical problem. This time, the onus of the complication is being thrust onto the researchers. Peter Schmidt reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education that a group of researchers analyzed data on more than 22,000 undergrads that 49 colleges gathered as part of a national study on "living-learning" programs in 2007 and found that the three approaches employed didn't quite suffice.

How researchers classify a biracial population, says the paper summarizing the authors' findings, “can have profound implications” for both the descriptions of students that arise from those researchers' work and the conclusions that result from their analyses. “Unfortunately,” it says, “there is no single solution to this empirical dilemma. Indeed, each approach has its strengths and its limitations.”

The Mixed Heritage Center has the entire story posted (although I wonder whether it's in violation of copyright since the Chronicle of Higher Ed itself doesn't post the whole piece for all to read).

Ultimately, what does it say? Folks still don't quite know how to deal with us.

On being biracial

2009-04-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

I just was trolling YouTube and found a few voices across the internet on being biracial This is more of an academic exploration of multiracial identity:

The truth in Romeo's revelations

2009-04-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

I always love the soul-stirring desk-side chats I have with my good pal Romeo. (It's a pseudonym, of course, but one that is amusingly apt.) We often sit lost in each other's words and stories, giggling louder than our mostly emotionally antiseptic workplace typically encourages or endures. The fun part is the comfort of the candor with which we can speak -- and the absence of even the remotest physical attraction. It's like finding an emotional sanctuary or spa to drop in on.

Something he said in our exchange yesterday has burrowed its way into my mind and lingered.

Here's a rough memory of his words:

Women are exquisite and exceptional creatures that are so much more advanced than men. They are better equipped to navigate and nurture human interactions. And ultimately, when it comes to love, women are like a heat-seeking missile trained on its primary target. The man has just to finally realize he will comply.

Initially, a surprised snicker escaped my lips in hearing the truth for him -- a man who has many times fallen victim to such a creature -- in this declaration. But I began to consider this in terms of my own amorous adventures.

In relationship after relationship, save one, all were conquests of my initial design. I laid eyes on them and knew they would be mine. It was neither in any truly determined or plotting way nor was the knowledge infused with conceit or hubris. It was more as a statement of casual fact, a reality that just had to be played out.

I had thought it always just the willful nature of an only child and determined Capricorn. But it's not just me. A number of my girlfriends seemed, like the Mounties, to always get their men. I do think there's something more to it. It

Rather than this being an empowering revelation, it was a bit disturbing to me.

Playing off Pat Benatar's equation of love to a battlefield, the men I have set my sites on have not always been high-value targets for my perceived ultimate mission -- marriage and family. The music afficianado whose libido was a tad too fortissimo, the emotionally broken history buff, the happy-on-the-outside mathematician, the sharp yet slightly snarky attorney, the gentle-souled yet tortured techie.

Don't get me wrong. They are now some of my best friends in the world -- and among my most valued advisors -- but probably never should have been locked in a loving glance or had his fingers entwined with mine.

As a result I've been pondering what kind of heat my missiles must have been seeking and how I can redirect their course.

Is it that we're super-sensitive creatures that can sense what can get or have, or super-willful, stubborn, undetered and single-minded in our inherently animal approach to dating and mating?

Or maybe it's just a myth. Something Romeo offered up as an explanation for his being a willing target.

A reflection at the dawn of Obama's inauguration

2009-01-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

I wrote this for the LA Times' Top of the Ticket blog on the morning of Barack Obama's inauguration:

WASHINGTON -- People have come here from all across the country to be part of history and today's inauguration.

Among the hordes are several of my cousins, who flew from Northern California; my godmother came from Kansas City with her other goddaughter from Hawaii. I, too, felt compelled to be here, but not merely to witness “history.”

I came to our nation’s capital this week to witness progress, to create a live, indelible snapshot for my mental scrapbook and to share the experience here with my 9-year-old godson who, like President-elect Barack Obama and me, is bicultural.

Being here transcends the political. To me, it’s about this country’s culture, fabric and fiber. Seeing this inauguration is an opportunity to begin to heal what has been a great painful and persistent shared psychic bruise that has remained deep beneath the surface of our society.

Throughout the presidential campaign, even as support began to swell across the country for Obama, I was as certain as I was about my own name that America was not culturally mature enough in its nationhood to get beyond its own past. I think somehow this knowledge -– more certain and unwavering than belief -– has subconsciously been one of the bedrocks of my, and maybe even a shared, understanding of life in America.

I have known that, as the biracial child of a black Jamaican and a white American, I have been an American with an asterisk.

So when this country elected to the highest office in the United States of America Barack Hussein Obama, who is to be the first black to serve as president, I had to come to bear witness -– show with my existence that this is, indeed, true.

The ability to see yourself reflected in your leaders, particularly when it seemed a certain impossibility, is important. I have this plastic ruler in my desk drawer at the office that displays the pictures and tenures of the U.S. presidents up to William Jefferson Clinton. Every once in a while, I pull the thing out, look at it and shake my head. Although these men represented us all, I knew no one on it truly represented me.

In some ways, it feels a bit like the end of the movie “The Matrix,” when Neo confronts the system that everyone unknowingly was plugged into, offering them “a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible.”

As Obama utters the oath of office this morning, his family beside him, I believe I will sit quietly in a combination of stunned disbelief and pride.

Disbelief that what I feared to even imagine has actually come to pass and pride in my country for being more than I had believed it was able to be. I may finally begin to reconcile and reconfigure my American life, asterisk erased.

Thirty-six: A new chapter

2008-12-26T13:58:00.000-08:00

In about 10 days, I'll be turning 36. Not all that remarkable, as people have done this and will continue to do this with little effort. All I will have to do, technically, is wake up. And God willing, I will.

My hope for the next year is that it be a year of help. I declared 2008 a year of hope -- and hoping and being hopeful can be hard work. Cynicism is a protective shell we often build around ourselves to guard against the occasional pain and disappointments that hoping can you vulnerable to.

So, having managed to chip away at the collective and my personal cynical coating, I'd like to call for 2009 to be the year of help. Help in a global and local sense.

It just seems like a natural human progression. I'd like to be help and be helped. To do that, I will volunteer more, change my attitude and approach. Essentially, do good and be better. (Being good might be too much to aim for in just one year.) What does that translate into? Three significant commitments per month, resulting in 36 new accomplishments by the end of the year. This will equal the years I will have walked the Earth.

Ambitious? Ridiculously so.

The first three (starting locally and small):

Start and finish a book
Get out and active at least three times a week
Eat better (5-6 times a day of a good mix of food types)

My ultimate goal for 2009 is to be more of a help than a harm to my world and the people I encounter. Call this a resolution, but I need to build up the resolve to make change in my life and in others'.

Anyway, happy new year. Much hope and help to you in 2009.

Blended families

2008-12-14T00:51:00.000-08:00

Have you seen the current remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still"? With Keanu Reeves, it stars Jennifer Connelly and Jaden Smith (Will and Jada's precocious and talented little son). I loved that they cast a brown child in that role and didn't make a huge statement about his brownness. It was a modern, millennial family dealing with the death of a mutual loved one killed in Iraq -- and the impending death of a planet. Bigger issues than race. It was a non-issue. Baby steps.

Voices on Election 2008

2008-11-03T23:18:00.000-08:00

I invited friends on Facebook and through email to offer their musings about this election season. This will be a growing collection of voices over the next couple of days. Here are the unedited offerings (feel free to add your comments):

In a word! Amazing!! I don't think I going to get to sleep tonight. I live in a Republican territory and I went running around the neighborhood wearing my Obama t-shirt chanting O-Bam-A, O-Bam-A. I called my mother and father and screamed on the phone to them. They were on Pennsylvania Avenue outside of the White House with noise maker. They are 76 years young. I called my brother, Willie and told him he was wrong, "This is what it means to be Black in America." I called my college friends, my high school friends, my European friends overseas. Hell I even called my friend Eric, who is President George W. Bush's personal photographer and told him he was out of a job!
-- KM, Ventura County
On TV, my hometown of Bloomington is one blue pixel in the red screen of Indiana. My mom is excited that Indiana is "in play," but I don't expect it to vote blue (i.e., for a Democrat). The mass electric energy of the voters, especially first time voters, reminds me war protests and rock concerts. Democracy is so much bigger than any individual. Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States!
-- Cedar Boschan, Southern California
Timeline: Hope. Fear. Maybe. Perhaps. Wishing. Anger. Weariness. Exasperation. Anguish. Democrats piss me off. Black people piss me off. The Clintons piss me off. The media pisses me off. Hope again. Black people reinspired me. Intellectualism has reinspired me. The concept is bigger than one man. Yet one man stands as its symbol. Now its a celebration. But I'm still a little scared. What will *we* do. Each of us.
-- Anonymous, Atlanta, GA
I woke up early this morning, and made my way down to the polling location just a block over from where I live. There was a short line that fed itself into the apartment complex in West Hollywood that the polls were at. The line grew rapidly with a thickness and a quickness. As I ambled in lazily, while glancing at my watch to make sure I could still get to work, I saw countless hopeful faces. I even bumped into my friend, Pollyanna, from high school, who had somehow gotten there earlier than myself. It was ramshackle and somewhat primitive technologically, but I feel good. I hope that my vote is counted, and I hope it all works out. I believe in Hope... and hopefully it will prevail! And yes, it's a beautiful day in LA... get out there people!
-- RA, West Hollywood
The sun is up, the clouds are parting and for the first time in any election I can remember, lines at polling places are already forming. Even this (glorious) unseasonable rain adds to the feeling that something extraordinary is happening today.
-- VT, Malibu
This election season showed women their day in the White House is coming। It also inspired minorities, people from broken families, and difficult economic circumstances that with talent and tenacity America is still a place where you can live your dreams। It showed a grassroots movement spurred along by five and ten dollar donations and the internet can topple the establishment। No matter who wins tomorrow night, hope has already triumphed in so many ways। Let's hope this historic moment is a turning point that leaves Americans better off in four years!
--NG, Los Angeles

It's almost here!!! I can barely stand to go to work tomorrow or Wednesday। I want to scream and shout। Or maybe it will be stolen away. I was even paranoid about which mailbox to put my ballot in for fear that the mailman might know who I'm voting for and throw my ballot away! I made a copy of my ballot and framed it. Maybe I will frame the Nov 5th paper too. And I've been praying like crazy for Barack. For his safety and that of his family. It is bittersweet. Mom (and Dad) would have been so excited. But I'm here and I'm going to celebrate hard enough for all three of us!
--DAWA, Union City

I felt tonight, while driving around my neighborhood, like I did on Christmas Eve as a kid. I feel like Santa is coming tomorrow.
-- LK, Pasadena

Many of us live our lives with an understanding of what's possible -- where the limits are on the horizons and skies into which we venture। We know how high we can aim, even if we can't articulate or acknowledge it। I know I've learned over the years to manage my expectations even as I pushed ahead into any arena I wanted to enter। This dream management was so pervasive that I couldn't even dare to imagine what I knew to be impossible. I couldn't dare because to be disappointed by a dream deferred, denied, would sting more than never having dreamed at all. Whether it is woman, brown or blended, the wings we have been allowed to soar on were borrowed and would be rescinded if we dared soar too high. Only if your existence has been shaped by invisible and arbitrary boundaries can you know the inexplicably overwhelming feeling it is to be proved wrong, to find that those boundaries that have shaped your understanding of your world, to which you and the world you occupy have on occasion inadvertently clung, cease to exist. It changes your eyes, your head, your heart, your life.
--CM, Glendale

This election is historic. I marvel at what we are witnessing, and feel bowled over by the probability that Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. I never thought a Black person, much less a Black man could be President of this country, at least not in my lifetime. So, his candidacy (in my mind) has challenged us all to face the obstacles we've come across as a community with a view to transcend them. It doesn't make everything perfect and certainly doesn't end racism, but Barack's candidacy represents a huge leap in our consciousness, affirming loudly "yes we can," no matter how many times we've been told the opposite. We are a people that have long survived against the odds, and our legacy of triumph over tragedy is not new, still I don't think we saw this coming. I suspect many of us are in awe of Barack and his family, just think we may finally get the chance to paint the white house Black (smile). Seriously, though we can't take this historic moment lightly, a Black man will likely be President - amazing! This is definitely part of what Martin, Malcolm and countless others lived and died for. Yet, with all that said I am not voting for him because he is Black, if that were the case I would have voted for Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, but I am voting for him because he is the best person for the job. Barack Obama is educated, eloquent, analytical, compassionate and human. I am confident he will represent my views better than any other candidate and will work to improve healthcare, education, foreign policy, and immigration, not to mention end the war in Iraq, and the fact that he's Black is just the icing on the cake. I am excited and energized, and look forward to voting for the first time for Barack Obama. In closing, I can't help but thinking of the women and men who lived Jim Crow, marched with Dr. King, and followed the teachings of Malcolm X, they must be overcome with pride and elated at the prospect of an Obama presidency. I won't forget them tomorrow as I cast my vote.
--DR, Stanford

As the mother of two children of color, Senator Obama's candidacy (and real shot at winning) means I no longer feel like a liar when I tell my kids they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. As the mother of two beautiful children of color, I simply cannot convey how POWERFUL the images of the Obama girls playing on the White House lawn will be (just got chills, people). The facts: our first 16 presidents could have owned Barack Obama as property; our first 30 "First Ladies" could not vote for their own husbands. How can we not be filled with wonder at this historic moment we find ourselves living in? I've been with Barack since day one (and got called out by some feminist sisters during the primary season, for sure); tonight, I'm exhausted, excited, filled with pride, HOPE, and some trepidation, too. I'm superstitious by nature, but I won't lie, the champagne is already on ice! Let's revel in this historic day and remember to toast our ancestors and elders who brought us "to the mountaintop" with their blood, tears, and often with their very lives.
-- DD, Northern California

Hope against hope

2008-10-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

I wrote earlier of this being my year of hope.

Well, hope is harder to come by when the clouds gather with such aggression and persistence that there's no sign there ever was a sun.

While my career is undeniably on the upswing, it's in a place that's wrestling with every fiber of its existence with external and economic forces. Living through this again feels in some psychologically parallel universe like living in an abusive relationship. The cycle of emotional violence for all involved from executer to executed should be criminalized.

And speaking of economic forces, I'm watching from between squinted eyes my retirement savings slip out of the till. As my bank goes through some identity shifts, I keep fighting the urge to retro and go all Great Depression, shoving money in the mattress.

There appear signs in this society that make it seem less a haven for diverse peoples and ideals than a stagnant cesspool of acrid exchanges and acrimony bubbling up from its depths.

But here's the deal. When things seem hopeless, that's when hope is essential.

Call it seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, or call it being an optimist or having faith.

Fear is a very powerful force. It can mobilize you, or it can freeze you in your tracks. It can make rational people give in to irrational activity. Fear can blind even those typically gifted with foresight of clarity.

When wading through a sunless swamp mired in fear and muck, hope is harder to come by. But it's in that darkness that even a flicker of hope can help you see there's a way out.

What is they say? Hope springs eternal.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never Is, but always To be blest:

The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

-Alexander Pope,

An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733

Not one drop = black

2008-07-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

It appears that Chinese is the new "black."

As if racial classification weren't already complex enough, now South Africa has added additional shading to an already colorful issue. (Chromatic reference intentional.)

Throughout the United States of America, people of color and newly arrived immigrants over the years have done everything they can to distinguish themselves from blacks. But the Pretoria high court issued a landmark ruling on June 18 classifying Chinese South Africans as "black."

According to Chinese Assn. of South Africa, citizens of Chinese descent make up less than 10,000 of the South Africa's 47 million population.

The significance of this ruling is that these citizens will be eligible for protection under the laws designed to redress economic imbalances under apartheid, which ended 14 years ago.

Apparently under apartheid rule, Chinese citizens were considered "coloured," a term describing a person of mixed black and white descent. But following the end of apartheid, that classification no longer applied to South African Chinese.

In the democratic era, the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act and the Employment Equity Act did not indicate whether Chinese citizens qualified as disadvantaged people. The country's employment equity and empowerment laws distinguish "black people" as a generic term that means Africans, coloureds and Indians.

You can read more about this at AFP, Voice of America, WSJ, AllAfrica, Google News

Out with the laundry

2008-07-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

The serendipity of life can be amusing at times.

These days, many of us live our lives, silent and separate from those who surround us every day. We wander the streets confined to cars, or close ourselves off by creating concerts in our heads by plugging our ears with iPods.

We miss potential connections all the time. Instead of opening up, we construct false stories to fill the void.

There's a woman in my apartment complex I have considered my "laundry nemesis." Every time I even think about doing laundry, there she is, already in the laundry room using the one washer and dryer we have for the building. Even when the door is closed and I walk up thinking it had to be free at 6 a.m. on a Saturday, there she is, this wizened white woman with reddish tufts of bird-feather hair inside the room just waiting for me to open the door.

The septuagenarian parks two spots down from me, and in the three years I've been here, we've exchanged maybe 10 words total, usually only in pairs at a time. Most of the the words I've wanted to say have been in my fantasy conversations telling her off for hogging the laundry room. I have assumed she has nothing good to say to me either.

Today as I was getting ready to go on a fairly ambitious bike ride, I passed the laundry room on my way out of the complex. My Laundry Nemesis was using a cane, so I asked her about it.

"You're using a cane. Are you OK?"

From that seemingly innocuous question came an amazing moment, a totally unexpected exchange of one human being with another.

She went from telling me that she had just gone through arthroscopic meniscus repair surgery to telling me about her wonderful family. We both stood in the carport outside the laundry room exchanging family stories.

She told me about how her daughter Diane, who was in the military at the time, shared with her that she had met someone else in the military -- but "Mom, don't freak out," she said. "He's black."

Without a flinch, I just let her tell her story.

Iris -- her name, which I found out after three years of being secret rivaling neighbors -- went on to say that he cherishes her daughter as the love of his life. When her daughter Diane was giving birth to their first child, she nearly died. Her liver was practically "ground beef," she said. And after delivering the baby by Caesarian section, the doctors had to put her in a controlled coma for several weeks. Iris told me this through tears.

A few weeks ago before Iris' surgery, 18 years after the child's birth and Diane's miracle recovery, Iris was in Texas visiting her beloved biracial granddaughter, her pride and joy, for graduation. Today, this man she was skeptical about for her daughter is a beloved son to her, devoted husband and dedicated father to her two grandchildren.

Today, we laid down the dryer sheet. I stood with my laundry nemesis for about an hour in front of the site of our imaginary battles, sharing tears and tales.

You never know how you're going to connect with people when you ask them how they are and listen to what they say.

Finding my own mixed roots

2008-06-15T23:41:00.000-07:00

Question: What am I?

Answer: I am part of a growing and vibrant community of multiracial and multiethnic people.

It's refreshing to say I'm part of a community -- and actually feel part of that community.

This weekend, I was honored to participate in the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival in celebration of Loving Day.

In addition to readings and screenings, there were conversations -- organized and informal. It was amazing to see so many wonderful ethnic blends, almost like going to heaven, or at least a haven. At most, I've been around 4 or 5 people of multiracial/multiethnic background.

But on Saturday at the Democracy Lab of the Japanese American Museum in Little Tokyo, everywhere my eyes darted, head turned, body passed was another person who was touched by multi-ethnicity.

The panel I moderated was a discussion on living betwixt and between with Jordan Elgrably, Angela Nissel and Elliot Lewis. Each panelist gave a taste of their experiences.

An Angeleno and Arab Jew, Elgrably shared a portion of an essay about his longing for the fruit of the exotic loquat tree that lingered during his studies in Paris. This, he discovered some time later, was rooted in parallel longing for a connection to a distant and mildly mysterious French Moroccan father.

Nissel, a Philly native who grew up with her black mother and absent her white father, read from her book "Mixed: My life in black and white." Her mother was a Black Panther, her father white.

Journalist Lewis gave a top 10 signs you're living a multiracial existence. He also shared from his book "Fade" a passage chronicling when he became "black." When his mother, who was biracial, signed him up for school when he moved to live with her in the South, she checked the "Negro" box. This was not an identity he had ever worn until that moment, and to him it didn't quite fit.

The conversation was like a guilty pleasure -- to get to sit and talk with other folks living on the dash between this and that who also have wrestled with and ultimately embraced their identity ambiguity. There was also affirmation just from hearing that they too have had several transitions of identity.

It was akin to external self-chat. And it was a conversation I hope to continue with them and the many other interesting people I met Saturday.

Filling in the color of fading photographs

2008-06-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

Some children love to bury things in the backyard. Part of the fun was digging them back up -- once you remember where you buried them in the first place.

As adults, we bury things as well. But we spend less time digging things back up, I guess it gets more difficult to go as deep as we must to find them again.

So was the case with me recently.

A few years ago, a friend asked me when I was showing pictures of my father and mother why I didn't have any of us together. There are certainly many photos with my mom, and there's a good share of me as a child with my dad. Even some of Mom and Dad before my birth that resurfaced after Dad's death.

But I hadn't ever thought of that. I couldn't think of any pictures of all of us together.

I remembered us being together -- at the beach, at the house, at the holidays. To a large degree, though, the people in my life now, including the cousins I grew up with, never knew my family as a family.

And since our close friends and family serve as a mirror in our lives, there was no reflection of my family as whole. Period.

The image of "family" didn't linger in my own mind either. As a child of divorce, family was often a 2-person unit.

I managed over the years to bury, very deeply, emotions about not having been a family. In fact, I reveled in being a bit of a loner, dependent on myself. Hey, it works for an only child anyway.

My response to family became a bit more distant: These are people I'm tied to by blood, not always by choice. With the inevitable death of my mother, I'd be an orphan, all alone without family -- just relatives.

"Relatives" to me is such an unemotional term. It's very clinical, maybe even moribund.

But I did have family. My dad and brother, David, were actually part of my childhood.

I guess because, like the snapshots themselves, the colors of my memory had faded significantly, and I shaded them in with what I could to keep some aspect of the whole intact, even if my shadings didn't match the reality.

When my mom handed me a number of fading photographs taken when I was 2 years old, so many things came flooding back.

The years of holding back the fears that I was denied the love a child deserved from a mostly absent father, the sting of his occasional alcohol-soaked reactions, the longing for and hope of an emotional embrace to envelope me and let me know I'm OK no matter how different I am from every one of my closest relatives.

The rush was overwhelming.

The flood streamed down my face as I sat in the recliner staring at the fading photographs that couldn't have been more clear even if they had been shot seconds before.

I wept. I wailed. My body shuddered.

I was Daddy's little girl.

I was an adored little sister.

I did have the other side of my family holding my outstretched hand even as I thought I was grasping in a futile attempt at connection.

These snapshots of the past helped fill in so much of my present.

Sheer Sheen

2008-06-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

In AARP magazine, there's an interesting interview with actor Martin Sheen, who is half Hispanic. It's written by Nancy Perry Graham in the July and August issue. Here's an interesting snippet about identity from the chat:

A: “My dad never spoke in public because he was not made to feel proud of his accent. He had the most beautiful Belizean accent imaginable. I loved it. He was the greatest storyteller. I could listen to his voice—it was like listening to a musical instrument. But he was never made to feel proud speaking outside. There were a lot of Italians and other Latins but no Hispanics.”
Q: “So did you grow up identifying more as being white than Hispanic? You did change your name so as not to be typecast.”
A: “I never changed it officially. I never will. It’s on my driver’s license and passport and everything: Ramon Gerard Estevez. I started using Sheen, I thought I’d give it a try, and before I knew it, I started making a living with it and then it was too late.” (Laughs.) “In fact, one of my great regrets is that I didn’t keep my name as it was given to me. I knew it bothered my dad.”

2008-06-06T18:23:00.001-07:00

Mixed Roots fest

2008-06-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

I'm going. Are you? The Mixed Chicks are hosting this inaugural Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival 2008 at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. Here's the description of its target audience: anyone who identifies as "mixed," has a trans-racial or trans-cultural adoptive family, or who supports interracial and intercultural relationships is welcome. It's from June 12-14....And it's FREE!!!!

30+, flirty and fabulous

2008-06-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

In the matter of days, I've been outted as brown, down and "serially single" in the LA Times.

I allowed one of my fav human flirtinis into the inner sanctum of a Girls' Night Out to see "Sex and the City" with an eclectic group of gals.

Here's what he had to say about the experience:

Guys, you can survive 'Sex and the City'
Man should not live by bread alone. Every once in a while, he should turn off The Game, ditch the remote, put on some clean clothes and embrace his feminine side....