Reflections on a Text Received on a Spring Afternoon
Hi. Was just reading an article in The Guardian about the US gestapo and Chinese immigrants.
Have you thought about carrying with you a notarized copy of your birth certificate and passport page? If you haven’t thought of it please do. The article says they are going to sanctuary cities that used to be safe like SF.
I was sitting at my desk on a cool spring afternoon last week when I received the text. Outside, cherry plum blossoms had all but shed from recent rains but jasmine and wisteria were suddenly everywhere.
I was in the middle of working or surfing the web trying to avoid reading the news despite its pull like an undertow. Norah Jones sang from the kitchen…come away with me, in the night…
The text arrived unexpectedly like a grenade in a tiny hat with its innocuous Hi.
The person who sent it loves me.
The person who sent it is a white woman, a relative of my husband, who could not have known what a text like that can do to someone on a cool spring afternoon at one’s desk, one who is oh so carefully already carrying micro grenades in each cell of her body, especially since November.
One who has my face.
I know that she sent it with the greatest intent, a care package, caution as love language, the way mothers run into the cold waving a jacket: you’ll catch your death out there!
She was and is so worried for me.
Yet, I did not, do not, want this care package, this jacket, this tiny grenade. I did not, do not, want this reminder, this reality check—when others, like her, do not need them.
Even though we both have American birth certificates, American passports.
I know I should feel grateful for her concern, her care…and I am. But in that moment, all I felt was shock, disbelief, and anger…fear, shame, and grief—all wrapped in an icy shell of loneliness.
A voice inside: Ha! You thought your citizenship could protect you? Your American-ness?
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Have you thought about carrying with you a notarized copy of your birth certificate and passport page?
No. Never. Not in a million years.
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Fifty-five years to be exact.
My birth certificate says I was born in New York City 1970—Spanish Harlem.
My parents love telling the story about how I used to dance in the hot summer streets as a baby, in my diaper, shaking my booty to the blasting boomboxes of our Black and Latino neighbors who would point and say, look at that little Chinese baby dance!
Later my parents opened a dry cleaning store in Queens. I can still see my dad pressing slacks, feel the steam, smell the sharp scent of solvents.
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A grenade is made of three parts, a body, filler, and fuze.
1. The body is designed to burst into fragments when detonated, strewing fragments, shockwaves or fire.
2. The filler is the material inside the grenade body that produces the desired effect (e.g. explosion or smoke).
3. When you pull the pin on a grenade, a timed fuse starts burning down until it reaches the filler, exploding the grenade.
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All my thoughts exploded at once:
F@ck that! I'm not carrying no stinkin’ papers!
Should I carry papers?
I should definitely carry papers.
And then:
This is like during Covid when my mother wondered if she should buy a gun to protect herself. Like when my daughter stopped wanting to walk with me in public because she didn’t feel safe being outside without her white father. Like all the times people said to me, to my parents, “Go back to China. Go back to where you came from.”
And finally:
Maybe I can change my face. I can’t change my face. I can’t believe this is happening.
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What I texted back:
Thanks for letting me know. Mahmoud Khalil has papers, and it didn’t matter. They will do what they want. Even if you have papers.
But I’ll think about it.
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Since Election Day I have been waking up almost every morning and going to bed almost every night with low rumblings, as if all the grenades are whispering. I try to quell them with meditation or by placing my hand over my heart (It supposedly activates the vagus nerve to bring calm. It reminds me of being a kid saying the pledge. The irony is not lost on me.)
My parents are citizens but they are immigrants. Could they be detained and deported?
I was born here, but could I be detained and deported?
We are only [one week, one month, two months] in. How bad will things get? How will this end?
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I used to wonder how 120,000 Japanese Americans could have been incarcerated by our government. I don't wonder anymore.
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I remind myself every day that there are millions of people across this country who are far more vulnerable than I am right now, targeted by this regime, whose safety and lives are at real immediate risk: undocumented immigrants, non-citizens, trans people, queer people, girls and women without access to safe abortions. The list goes on.
I meditate and try to picture them all, especially the children and young people. I pray to Guanyin to ease their suffering and protect them.
I want to do more.
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My childhood best friend, who is white, asked me last week: “What do you need?”
I thought about this question, about what would help me right now. I realized that her reaching out made me feel less alone and that I could and should ask the same question to others, especially those who are part of targeted communities. Something like:
I know these are difficult times. How you’re experiencing this moment is different from how I’m experiencing it. This feels awkward, and vulnerable, and I'm worried that I'm going to get this wrong, but I want to let you know that I care about you, which is why I want to ask: how can I best support you right now?
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Recently my husband, thinking out loud, said: “Maybe we shouldn't travel this year.”
I thought about this, then said, “But traveling brings us joy, and for now, our family can still travel. If we pre-emptively decide to stop doing things that bring us joy, then they really win.”
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Two days ago I celebrated my birthday by gathering a group of friends to eat, drink, and sing (karaoke!) together. Our small Berkeley living room was filled with people across race, age, and gender, overbrimming with joy. We were a chorus of voices: brown, white, Black, yellow, queer, trans, cis, immigrant, immigrant adjacent, children of refugees, first gen, second gen, third. So much laughter I couldn’t hear the whispers anymore.
“We need to do more of this,” we said to one another. "This is how we will get through."
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Come away with me, in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song
Come away with me, on a bus
Come away where they can't tempt us
With their lies
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With each laugh, each song, each bite of food, each hug, every micro grenade was replaced that night with jasmine, wisteria, and sunshine. I wish this for everyone, if only for a moment. But I know this may not be possible. I know I’m among the lucky ones.
For now.