Roots: A Communal Journal

This week was a week of victory for many. A week of relief. Of celebration. Of hope. For some of us, it was a week of reflection and contemplation. Many of us believed in an America that wasn't - a mirage of unrealized hope and unfilled promises. These past years taught us what America was, and yet, this week offered glimpses of hope. And amidst these glimpses of hope - the celebration of democracy, of America - we ask ourselves what America can be to us. In The Accidental Asian, Eric Liu, a second generation Chinese American, shares his story of identity, culture, and assimilation. He writes about his journey growing up in a suburban community, going to school in majority white settings, working at the highest levels of our country's government - and through it all, tries to understand how his identity has been shaped by each of those experiences. And on a week when we're constantly reminded of the promise of America, I ask myself whether I believe in that promise, and whe...

Screaming at my Grandma on the Fourth of July: Part I I don’t even remember the comment that started it. The grenade released. The earth-shattering, war-mongering sentence that was thrown into the middle of my safe haven, the place I call home. To the best of my recollection, it was something along the lines of, “We can just lock all the kids in Central America up in cages!” It was stated by an extended family member who is hard to love. One who, for lack of knowing him better, has become a familial amalgamation of Trump supporters. Someone who enjoys his incendiary statements. If given a Facebook, he would certainly be the one sharing ludicrous memes and throwing around the term “triggered” for the sake of mockery. The word-grenade was irrelevant to the conversation. It was thrown out with a grin as he was getting up from the table. It was undeniably, irrefutably, incontestably… bait.   I took it. For years, I had done a good job of rolli...