Malan Hadizadeh,
San Francisco, CA
I was driving my then three year old son to preschool the Friday before Mother’s Day and asked him, “Who’s the best mom?” thinking that he would say me. His response was “You’re all the same but different.” I was hurt and proud, all at the same time. To this day, I still remember that and it resonated with me because one of my favorite songs when I was in high school was “People are People” by the Depeche Mode. The song might have been one of my favorites because we were one of the few Asian families living in a predominately Caucasian town and all the minorities really stood out and were treated differently. During different points in my life, I felt like I stood out: growing up Asian in a white town in Oregon, being in a bi-racial relationship in San Francisco when it wasn’t so common, being Asian in a bi-racial relationship while living in the South (in North Carolina) where both weren’t so common, being called out for not being Asian enough, and now being Asian during COVID and having people yell at me during the onset. I’d like everyone to understand the wisdom of my son’s words that “We are all the same but different.”
