Where we come from

As children, many of us would get annoyed when we hear our folks say to "never forget where you come from," particularly when we were trying to fit in at school or eat chips and Mac 'n Cheese just like the white kids or read Harry Potter books over the stereo system blasting Vietnamese War music with ladies in silk garb walking on dirt road villages.

How annoying was that as a ten-year-old?

Only now as an adult, do we realize how absolutely vital those grounding principles were. When we see others who look like us, sound like us, and come from the same humble backgrounds as we did, begin to believe that they are more.

Those endless days on rice fields did happen for our parents and grandparents.
So too did endless hours and three jobs at minimum wage.
So too did missed parent-teacher conferences and tiny apartments with rice and egg meals and "juice drinks" with ramen noodles.
So too are the continuous factory jobs and nail salon chemicals.

All of these things are the fabric and plunder that built is. All of these things are still our community. And all these things could have been us today. Easily.

I think we forget sometimes. The Asian American group that votes Republican most often are Vietnamese. We as physicians, lawyers, consultants, doctors, CEOs, and educators who think we have made it.

I want a white-picket fence for my offspring too.
I want them to have nice clothes and to go to great schools and to believe they are amazing because they undoubtedly will be but time and again I hear that people like me don't want to work in "bad" neighborhoods with working class folks or in "ghettos" and I scratch my head with amazement.

Folks who think a hoodie is a crime.
Folks who look down on broken English.
Folks who believe in respectability politics.
Folks who don't think elderly folks deserve food stamps, and health care, and social security.

Folks who think they got to where they are simply by themselves through the strength of their own intelligence and no more. That they exist in a vacuum. No parental McDonalds jobs, no luck, no community.

And they see so much beauty in the folks they want to be like. White. Middle Class. Suburbs. Two Cars. Dog. Fence. Clothes, not too fancy. Language, standard. . Those who do it right. They date those who do it right. Women with hair blond, bodies slim, attitudes, appeasing. Men who laugh without rhythm and work at a suit job. They work to imitate those who it right. Empathize with those whose ancestors stepped on their ancestors, and the bosses who look down on their parents to get to their successes today. I wonder often why it is easy for some to empathize with those who took their country's resources to create their country's wealth while leaving behind nothing but Civil War. I wonder why it is easy to empathize with those who took their people's everything including family, surname, and life, but it is so difficult to empathize with their own community, to show support, and solidarity.

I don't think nerds are sellouts.
I don't think those who wear crocs and ride bikes are sellouts.
I don't think those who listen to country music are sellouts.
I don't think those who want a great education are sellouts either.
I would undoubtedly date white men who understand my culture/s and my worldview. It isn't about that.

But to those who look down upon others from their own community, and oppress their own community, I want to shout from the mountain-tops that you have forgotten where you came from!
Look in the mirror, think, how much blood has been shed to get me where I am? How many people have died due to racism, war, street violence, poverty, to get me where I am? How many people with equal potential and more intelligence than I have didn't get to where I am because of their lack of social wealth? And why do I have so much internalized racism against my own?

I want to point out that better clothes and a better imitation of the colonizer's language does not make anyone smarter or classier, only luckier as they were able to benefit from the plunder of others.

It is not as much a race thing as it is a family thing, a bloodline thing, a richness of community that can never be replicated once it is destroyed thing.

At the end of the day, regardless of what you aim to be, you still come from your mother's blood and nothing you work toward in your middle class lifestyle can give you the life that she did.

People of color should aim to be great and should aim to make that money and should aim to be fly as hell. That should aim to be on top of that capitalist game. They/We deserve it. But people of color should also understand that they are ONLY great because those who gave them life were great.

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On a lighter note, this month's playlist with a good dose of Sia, Adele, Beyonce, Jhene Aiko, Selena Gomz, and a throwback to Cherish circa 2007. All girls. All day.

Birds Set Free
Alive
Hello
Love on Top
July
Killa
Do It, To It
Same Old Love

"I don't care if I sing off key, I find myself in my melodies, I sing for love, I sing for me, I shout it out like a bird set free." -Sia

"Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait for spring time. And I will turn into a butterfly. I will spread my wings and fly. I'm too fly for this shit." -Jhene Aiko

"I'm so sick of that same old love, that shit, it tears me up." -Selena Gomez