Immigrant to America equals sacrificing generations.
Tom Lau,
Chicago, IL.
This is a Polaroid of the back of my mom and dad that I took few years ago.
The real fear of a black parent
Belinda Gilmore,
Maceo, KY
It was early 2016, and I was on the phone talking to a friend I had not seen in a while. We were discussing life since she had to leave work due to a health issue. We both have a son the same age that would graduate high school in August. She was telling me about her son and how he was working because he had just gotten his first car. She went on to tell me that he has some new friends that live in the next town over, but she was afraid for him to go there (she lives in Breckinridge Country, Kentucky). I was confused, so I asked her why. She told me about some Klan activity that had taken place in the area before. I proceeded to question her fear. I acknowledged that there were still equality issues, but in the last decade the country had come so far. I went on to point out that we have a black president which I never thought would happen earlier in life. She stood firm and told me I just don’t understand. I didn’t.
The 2016 election campaign began. As a society, we are all attached in some way through social media. I only used Facebook to stay connected with family. I began to see so much hate being shared. I stopped opening it completely. I would only access Twitter because you are not required to follow certain individuals. Violence was coming to light more than I ever remember previously mainly toward black people but not limited to them. Then the election happened, and people quit being politically correct which brought me to the realization of how many people were before. I naively thought society was truly changing. I thought of my friend and all the things she will fear that I will never have to. I called my friend one day late in the year. Before we got too far into the conversation, I got a bit emotional and said, “I need to apologize to you,”
You don’t live with your parents?
Courissa,
Bath, NY
I get a lot of questions when people hear I live with my aunt and uncle, because I call them “mom” and “dad”. I have lived with them for over 6 years and they both stepped up to be my parents when they didn’t have to, but they chose to do so.
Corning Community College
Your father is not good enough.
Arlene Arias,
Waterbury, CT.
As an adult, I am an educator and social worker who fights for equality and promotes the value of diversity.
My Japanese half, GI dad unknown.
Katherine Suszczewicz
USA
When you don’t know, your imagination will choose to make something up. Over and over again.
A Cajun Girl in her Kilt
Michelle Blanchard Ardillo,
Rockville, MD.
A Cajun girl in her kilt, that’s me. My dad was born and raised in southeast Louisiana, as was I, but my mother was born to Scottish immigrants who came to the US for economic and religious freedom. Upon marrying my father, however, she abandoned her Scottish heritage and adopted my father’s culture, cuisine and customs. For example, although she grew up with oatmeal every morning, she never had it again after she married my father, switching to grits, the hot cereal of Louisiana. It wasn’t until one of my mother’s first cousins starting visiting us from Glasgow, Scotland, (after her retirement and the passing of her own mother) did I come to understand my Scottish heritage. My image of myself shifted. Was I just my father’s daughter? Was my mother’s past inside of me as well?
When I first visited Scotland in 2000, I felt like I had “come home”. The highlands and the lowlands; the heather, the thistles, and bluebells; the shortbread and the never-ending cuppa tea; the heavy accents; they all tugged and tugged at my heart. Now, I consider myself a series of contradictions: Community Coffee in the morning and black tea in the evening, gumbo for lunch and scones in the afternoon, Zydeco to energize me and Mozart to relax me. With my very French maiden name and my fair, freckled skin, I remain a Cajun girl in her kilt.
My Dad said “Jap”. Everyone blushed.
Malcolm Gin,
Berkeley, CA.
My Dad is Chinese and 86 years old. He was stationed in the Pacific Theater during World War II, fighting on the United States’ side. Nearly got his butt shot off several times for looking and being Asian, by our own side. Lately he was talking about his experiences in the war with a Japanese acquaintance and, in the moment, called the soldiers on the Japanese side, “Japs”. And all the white people participating in the conversation got really on-edge, though I don’t think my Dad, our Japanese guest or I (half Chinese, half white) were nearly so bothered. My only thought at the time, “There’s worse words than that!”
Mom’s people owned slaves. Dad’s were.
Andrew Dunn,
Meridian, ID.
My 4x great grandfather was born a slave in Virginia. My 3x great grandfather owned slaves in Missouri.
Indian dad, European mom, identified Latina.
Nisha Balaram,
Oakland, CA.
My dad would joke around, saying that my mom couldn’t help but fall in love with him when she first saw him. My mom was usually busy in the kitchen at the time, and would smile and roll her eyes in response to his comment; when the pungent scent of lentils and turmeric finally filled the house, jokes were put aside. Growing up, my mom occasionally laughed and said that if she had any more freckles on her arms, she’d be considered brown too. But I prefer the differences between my parents; they are not perfect, but they are a perfect combination. Growing up, our small family of four was geographically isolated from extended family members, with our relatives dispersed across the U.S. and India. During high school, I found a home in various Latino cultures, and was drawn to the many traditions and large family gatherings. Now reflecting back, I cherish the connection I had with being an “honorary Latina,” because it is within that culture that I found a sense of belonging. However, this same sense of belonging reminds me of my complex roots and the opportunity I have within my own family to connect myself with an intricate and beautiful network. After all, we are all human, and have so much to learn from each other.
Your sons’ dad must be black.
D Maduli-Williams
Submitted via Twitter: @dmaduliwilliams
He’s my dad, not the gardener.
Kelly Stuart,
Brooklyn, NY.
I was five when my mother married my stepfather, Alfred Brown, Jr. in 1980. My stepfather, or, as I think of him, my father, was 21 years older than my mom and had already raised a daughter by the time he met me, but that didn’t stop him from getting a second job at the Ford plant in Mahwah, New Jersey so he could give me what I’d asked him for when he married my mom: my own room, and a back yard with a swing. He got me the room and the backyard and the swing, but what came with moving from the city where we were to a small rural town where a different set of understandings, like when I went from a place where I knew other mixed-race families to a place where kids used to throw Oreos at me on the bus to school to symbolize my black-and-white family. Even after the Oreos stopped flying in middle school, I dealt with people’s fear of and prejudice against my father every day.
Now that I am grown and my father has passed away, and people see the blonde, blue-eyed, upper-middle-class, NPR-listening, Brooks Brothers-employed me, people think they know who I am and who I must have come from. This was brought home to me recently when someone looking over my shoulder as I tried to find a picture on my computer pointed at my computer and asked me whose house was in the picture that was currently on my screen. I said that it was a picture of the house in which I grew up. My dad was also in the picture, pulling weeds, and the person looking over my shoulder said, “And was that your gardener?” I said no, that he was my father, and in that moment, I was so angry at the implication of the assumption, and yet, I was so, so very grateful that I got to claim him again, publicly, as the man who made me who I am.
*PHOTO CREDIT National Geographic
Family love comes from open hearts.
June Wells,
Harrisonburg, VA
My new family saved my life. I was finally safe and just one of “the kids” with my foster parents, Sam and Lucille Ewell. This was in Virginia when integration was still a fairly new thing. My dad, a teacher, lost his job because of Prince Edward County, VA. Still, he opened his heart to me. What can I say?
You might hurt the man’s feelings
Paul J. Mercer,
Lakewood, NJ
These words were from my father in the very early 50s. My Dad and I were watching the world go by waiting for Mom while parked outside the store she was in. We did not yet have a TV, I had not gone to school yet and I had no idea that anyone looked different than those people I saw at home or family get-togethers. Suddenly, my little hand rose to point at a man walking down the sidewalk by our ’49 Buick. A large hand gently pushed mine down as Pop offered these words. Using the accepted term at the time he said, “don’t point, you might hurt the man’s feelings.” He went on to say that the man was a negro and a brief history of where Negros came from. He left the lesson on slavery for a day when his 4-year-old was a tad older. A great lesson that provided many rewarding relationships with people of all ethnicities as I grew older.
Not all cops are bad cops
Abby,
Sparta, NC
Everybody thinks that just because there are a couple of crooked cops out there, that all cops are bad. My dad happens to be a cop and everybody loves him. He does his job very clean and keeps everybody safe. He’s not biased and treats everybody fair. Along with the rest of his crew, all of them are very good cops and they get the job done and done right.
