I Belong Here

I woke this morning in the dark; I wish my kids understood the beauty of "falling back" for daylight savings time. My body left warmth on the sheets of my bed, my lungs breathed in some autumn chill, and I thought to myself, I belong here. It's the same autumn morning I woke to as a child, when my father, wearing a tie, would kiss me goodbye before going to work at Ford Motor Company, his silhouette appearing  and the hallway light drawing a long bright triangle into my dark room. This morning, my children ran through the hallway, creaking the 100-year-old floors, their feet bap-bap-bapping, echoing in our dear neighbor's hallway on the floor below. Our neighbor was still in bed, where she would remain for a couple more hours. She smiled sleepily at the bap-bap-bapping, in the way only an 89-year-old woman who misses her own great-grandchildren can. She heard my children's tiny feet, and I thought, I belong here.

My son and I took a walk to Lake Michigan, just 2 blocks from our home. The water sprayed against the large rocks as we made a loop along Promontory Point. It shot high into the air making a sparkling wall. "I see water!" my son said. It's the same water I swam in as a child, camping in Michigan state parks along the Great Lakes. It's the same water my college friends and I dipped our feet into, as we watched the sun set late on summer nights in Western Michigan. My son and I scrunched our noses as the lake misted our faces. I belong here.

Promontory Point, Hyde Park, Chicago

Earlier this year, in the summer, I spent a few hours on a warm day with my children on the beaches of St. Joseph, meeting a dear friend who was visiting her family in Grand Rapids. The sun kissed my skin the way it kissed the skin of those around me, it left it pink and warm and tender to touch. The fresh water splashed and wrapped around my daughter and me, and we squealed. I belonged here then. I belonged in the sun, the way the sand belongs between our toes, the way it settles in and remains in your pockets for days, in the rug of your car as seasons come and go. I belonged that way.

Late last Wednesday night, I held my breath and my heart beat faster with millions of fans in my city and around the world as the Chicago Cubs opened the 10th inning and it started to rain in Cleveland. When they won game 7, clinching the World Series, something inside me erupted with joy, just as the car horns, hooting, and singing outside our windows erupted with joy. And I felt, I belong here.

Recently, I walked down Michigan Avenue, leaving a voice lesson in the Fine Arts Building, the oldest place for musical study in the City of Chicago. I rode the rickety elevators. I belonged as I shook back and forth, watching the different floors go by quickly.

I walked down Michigan Avenue and watched as every person in front of me dodged the pamphleters and signature gatherers and petitioners and election ballot-ers and grassroots movement-ers. I watched them sway away, pretend to be on their phones, shake their heads sorry, I don't have time right now.

I slowed my walk, attempted to make eye contact with three different eager grassroots millennials ready to change the world. I smiled their way, I welcomed them with my body language.

"Do you have time for equal rights?"
"I do!" I practiced my cheery response.

But they don't talk to me. They raise their gazes above my head, to some potentially supportive ally behind me. I slow, I wait a moment. They don't talk to me. I didn't feel like I belonged then.

We went to our neighborhood farmers' market. I sat at a table eating a pizza. I wasn't looking at my phone, I'd left it in the car. My husband had brought our kids down the row to another stand for ice cream with sprinkles.

I was surrounded by tables of people, a young white college couple, a group of elderly black women, a black man and a white woman with their two children, and a lone white man in his twenties, dressed in black with painted nails, and me, an Asian-American woman, eating a pizza with an empty double stroller parked next to me.

A woman approached each table, with a flyer advertising her art show. "It's for art and social justice," she said; "there will be live jazz music," she said; "activities for kids," she said; "it's a free event," she said. She approached every table, to every person, to every single table, except mine. My best phone free-ing, pizza eating, eye contacting, didn't convince her that I was worth a flyer. The empty double stroller next to me didn't signal to her that I belonged here.

My face, like the faces of Michael Luo, Tiffany Martínez, Adam Crapser, and Tammy Duckworth, signals to some that I don't belong.

Where do I belong?

Not in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Xiamen, where I trip over words, where my sun-tanned skin signals that I must be poor or uneducated. Not on the streets of Chicago's Chinatown, where, hugging my elbows into my body, grasping the broken handles of a shopping basket, I am jostled by Chinese folks both young and old. I hold my breath in the smaller circles of personal space, and the American in me feels violated by the jabs and nudges. I can't bring myself to offer a lower price than the one advertised. I say over and over in my mediocre Mandarin, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I use the phrase in an American way, like "excuse me, pardon me." But it doesn't translate. There is nothing to say in Mandarin when you bump into people in public. I don't belong here.

Do I belong in California, where I lived for seven years, where there are "more people like me"? More Asian Americans, both children of immigrants and those whose families have been here for three, four, five generations. They would ask about growing up in the Midwest. Were there other Asians in your town? Did you feel alone? I thought back to that first day in my freshman year in Kalamazoo, MI, when I walked into a vocal jazz ensemble rehearsal. I remember when someone giggled nervously because she thought I'd sing with an accent. I remember when I was told that singing might not be for me because wasn't it true that my parents would prefer I study something more academic. I remember when a music director said to me, "hey stand up, and open your eyes!" when I was already standing and my eyes were already open. And when I didn't laugh, "Lighten up, Lynnette, it's a joke." I remember a high school boyfriend's grandmother who thought I was "just ugly." And another boyfriend's dad who joked he should have ordered egg rolls before having me over.

I remember the people who said things that hurt and made me feel like I don't belong here. There are more than I could ever count or completely recall. Sometimes they were mentors, classmates, colleagues, friends that became like family. People say things that hurt me in California too. Where do I belong?

I belong here. I belong here in the Midwest, where my mother birthed me, where I grew up to be me. I belong in the Great Lakes that bathed me and that now bathe my children. I belong in the parks where my family went camping, in the rivers where we went canoeing. I belong in the cities where we helped build some houses, where we watched fireworks glowing over the water, where we helped served soup on Thanksgiving morning. I belong in the grass where we played soccer, where we burst water balloons, on the hills where we sledded, in the yards where we built snowmen and igloos, on the streets where we learned to ride our bikes. I belong here, my children belong here.

I will continue smiling as I walk down the street, as we American Midwesterners do. I will say good morning. I will thank those who tell me my English is good. If I have time, I will explain why my English is good. I was born in Dearborn. I will kindly respond in English to men who try to flirt by saying "konichiwa" or "ni hao." I will attempt to talk in mediocre Mandarin when I encounter a person who feels more comfortable speaking in Chinese. I'll continue planting my feet in this earth, stomping around, leaving parts of me where I go, because I belong here.

On Tuesday, I'm going to cast my ballot for the next President of the United States. I will vote because I belong here. My vote is one small step toward making this a place where fewer Americans have to feel like they do not belong. I belong here today, I will belong here tomorrow.

Climb Ev'ry Mountain

Musing on why my minority family loves the great outdoors...

Glacier National Park - from our trip there in 2010

Last week, I read about how The National Parks Service is trying to make themselves more appealing to non-white Americans.  And I thought to myself "Hm, for as long as I (non-white American) can remember, I have found National Parks to be quite appealing."

Then a couple days after that I read about why outdoor activities are appealing to white people and not to minorities.  And I thought to myself, "Hm, why are outdoor activities appealing to me?

And so today I find myself reflecting on the circumstances that lead my own family to become the nature-loving, yearly-camping, National Park visiting, mountain hiking, despite being non-white Americans that we are today.

My family is ethnically Chinese, but my parents immigrated here to the United States via the Philippines.  Ethnically Chinese people make up about 1.6% of the Philippine population, and about 15% if you include people of mixed Chinese/Filipino decent.  I didn't know that before, I just learned it from a wikipedia page about Chinese Filipinos.  I have more to say about being Chinese from the Philippines, but maybe I'll save some of it for another blog on another day.  For now, I'll just muse on how I think it played a part in how my family came to love the great outdoors.

I think it began with my dad, who moved Iowa to begin grad school in 1972.  He was 23 years old.  The thing about Iowa in the early 70s is... there were not a lot of Chinese guys from the Philippines.  Actually, there probably still aren't very many.  But back then, my early-20s-dad landed in Iowa and was immediately surrounded by people unlike himself. 

I note this because it seems like basic human nature to notice when you feel out of place.  If you're used to being around people who look like you, you notice when you're surrounded by people who do not.  The NYT article opens with this implication, that few minorities choose to visit National Parks because they don't perceive it as something that minorities do. 

But what happens when you aren't used to being surrounded by people who look like you in your daily life?  What if, like my dad in 1972, you're the "only one," the only person from where you're from, who speaks your native language?  At first, I think you start to find the similarities you have with the people around you, similarities beyond your background and language.  And second, I think you begin to acclimate to a new status quo.  You no longer need to be surrounded by people who look like you in order to feel comfortable.  And so, I think it was this ability of my dad's, to find comfort in uncomfortable situations, that led him, and the rest of my family into the mountains.

And it didn't stop with our nuclear family.  When my grandparents came to live with us in the mid 80s, we acquired an additional tent, and an air mattress to accommodate their elderly backs.  When our aunts and uncles and cousins visited from the Philippines, we borrowed a family friend's Dodge Ram Van, piled in, and hit the State Parks of Michigan.  And in the following years, we acquired a canoe, a kerosine lamp, a bug zapping lantern, a portable stove top, better flashlights.   We figured out how to put tarps underneath our tents so we didn't get wet during the night.

And it's this quality in my dad that kept us going back each year.  He's genuinely curious to try new things, and stubbornly patient when trying to figure something out.  There might have been times when a tent was unruly, or was missing an important piece.  There were times when it rained the entire day and he had to set up our tents and start a fire while getting completely drenched.  He never got discouraged; never hinted that something couldn't be done.  He looked at each problem and calmly found a solution.  And we kids internalized that.  We've all grown up to look for solutions, to never assume that something can't be done.  I don't think this was even intentional on his part.  He didn't create "teaching moments."  He never sat us down and said, "when there's a problem, look for a solution."  We just watched him figure out how to do stuff, and one day found ourselves doing the same thing. 

We love National Parks.  We've visited nearly 40 of the United States, as well as much of Canada, all by car.  Traveling to our country's most beautiful spots, and standing and staring in wonder and awe, is something we've been doing for as long as I can remember.  And there's no question in my mind, that it's something our family will continue to do, for generations to come.  

So I guess if I were going to share my two cents with The National Parks service, I would say... try to appeal to people's innate curiosity and sense of adventure.  This curiosity can be found in people of all colors and backgrounds, universally.  Get kids (all-the-colors-of-the-rainbow kids) into a national park to witness something mind-blowing, and those kids, whatever race they are, will want to pass on the experience to their own families and friends.  The truth is, there are also plenty of white people who are completely intimidated at first (my husband may or may not fall into this category) by traveling in the great outdoors.  How do we make National Parks more appealing to them?  I think if there's an answer to that question, it will likely increase the number of people, from majority and minority backgrounds, to climb mountains, ford streams, follow rainbows, 'til they find their dreams.  ;-)
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Climb Ev'ry Mountain - today's blogpost title song encourages a young and curious Maria (pre-Von Trapp) to follow her dreams in The Sound of Music.