One of my early fond memories of my dad, when he was actually home and not traveling all over the world or hidden behind a newspaper-- was when he took me on a trip up to see his mother in Vermont. I didn't know this grandmother very well, we didn't visit very often, however, the times we did, it was usually me and my dad.
And there was a period of time when she wasn't well and my dad and I drove up from our little town in MA to get to her tiny town in VT. In any event, there's a town in NH that was a midway point where we would stop at McDonald's and eat lunch.
My memory was of us standing in line and my dad standing behind me. I ordered and just as the woman was going to tell me the price to pay, my dad put his hand on my shoulder and ordered too. I remember this because I remember the look of surprise on the cashier's face and I remember that I wanted to cry because I realized even way back then, my dad was letting them know, he was my dad.
Now, normally that wouldn't seem like such a big deal, but me and my Asian butt and my dad's lily white self--aren't exactly the two you would put together as family. My dad's not the most aware--or at least outwardly aware guy in the world and I was really touched that he, like, ya know, claimed me.
Since moving back to VT, I have experienced a number of disturbing scenes that--I vaguely remember my ex-husband complaining about but at the time, I was like, no, they're not like that here. This is an open-minded town.
However, I have experienced more racism in the past 8 months, than I can remember really experiencing since we lived in an all white town growing up. This is precisely the stuff I think I escaped to the big city for when I was a teen because I was so tired of having to deal with this the either overt or subtle remarks or actions of ignorant, ridiculous, uneducated fools.
Like I mentioned in another post, it has gotten to the point where my brother made the joke that he thinks I should get a Caucasian person mask. How pathetic is that? I mean, it was funny, but what a sad, sad state of affairs if it has come to even having to make a joke about something like that.
I have been treated poorly a number of times at the grocery store. Also at the convenience store, where the cashier admitted that I just didn't look right to her--that was after I spoke to my dad and sister about it. And the one time that they were finally outraged and took up my side. Yea, not a lot of support in my family concerning stuff like this---and I'm too tired to educate and they're too old to teach. But they were actually mad when they heard the lady actually admit that she was a bigot.
I've been stopped twice by the police for made up reasons. (Thus my brother's joke)
And it's gotten to the point where I am extra careful about what I do---to the point where I'm actually nervous in public sometimes. A place where I've never been before and it really, really sucks to experience this.
And it seems like such a helpless kind of situation. Even my own Caucasian family has nothing much to say about it -- much less do about it. Even I have nothing to say about it, although, clearly I am now. I have thought about writing a letter to the editor---and making a plea to people to WAKE UP to the real world, but the thing is, these small towns are the real world.
This is where they are, and they are McDonald land folks, who even if they travel, will still look for the chicken mcnuggets.
And that's fine, right? I mean, accept people for who they are and do the best you can to get along?
Isn't that the answer? Or do you fight to create change?
I think my best conclusion is I've always attempted to make change with the youth. It's they who are not yet hardened and who have some investment in making the future a better place to live in the future. Having said that, though, I am glad to be moving in the fall to a larger city where there is diversity and multiculturalism because at the end of the day, that's the world I want to live in and where-- you can live and let live and don't need to fight to so hard to .... be.
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