racism

Scene from an L.A. Thanksgiving

March 22, 2026March 22, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

THANKSGIVING 1991

The sweet, cloying scent of death was veiled by the sharpness of cleanser in the antiseptic lobby of the Home. Chrome handrails lined the light pink walls. A hunched elderly man clutched onto the railing as he shuffled along in slow motion. Each step looked pained. Pasty white skin, his eyelids drooped over his small black eyes which seemed vacant, as if not only his body but his mind had abandoned him.

I took in the scene and it momentarily robbed me of breath. Old scared me, sometimes worse than not getting there.

Grandma sat perched on the edge of the maroon love seat, her floral print polyester dress hung to her calves and gathered tightly around her short, crossed legs. She clutched the strap of her white vinyl purse between her bony hands resting in her lap.

“Well, it’s about time,” She sniped, as if I were late. It was 4:00 p.m., exactly when I was told to be there.

“You look lovely, Grandma.” I leaned down and kissed my grandmother’s soft white cheek. The old woman gave me a vain smile. At 84, she had flawless skin, virtually wrinkle-free, and her steel gray eyes were still rather piercing.

“And you look like you got your clothes at the Salvation Army. Why don’t you dress properly?” She spoke in a clipped English accent though she’d lived in the States for over seventy years.

I wore my hole-free black jeans, and oversized beige cotton shirt, which I actually tucked in. I even put on a bra for the occasion. The woman was delusional expecting more than that. “You ready to go, Gram?”

She stood and straightened her dress, then squared her petite shoulders and rose her chin up. “I’ve been ready to get out of here since the day your mother stuck me in this place.”

We walked to my Civic parked in the lot behind the building. I was annoyed by her bitterness, my mother’s effort to her care more than sufficient in my view. It had been the right decision to have her committed. Gram almost killed herself overdosing on medication she’d mistakenly taken twice within minutes on more than a few occasions. She was losing her memory, and her once sharp mind could no longer manage life on her own.

It was getting dark, but bits of electric blue sky peeked through the thickening clouds. The air was crystal clean, sharp with moisture. A storm was coming. It was easy to feel in L.A., maybe because they’re so rare. I settled Gram in the passenger seat then took a deep breath, sucked in the sweet wetness and released it slowly to shake off my growing anxiety.

“Try that lane, it’s moving. Don’t just sit here. Go around them. You should get off the freeway, the side streets are faster…” Grandma had a lot of suggestions though she’d never driven a day in her life. Between driving tips she talked incessantly about the ‘crazy people’ she now lived with. She swore her roommate stole her ruby necklace, one she claimed she got on Safari in Africa, though she’d never owned one and had never been anywhere but England until her teens, then the States the rest of her life. She was sure her neighbor across the hall was coming into her room at night to watch her sleep, though had no explanation why. Then she was sure she’d forgotten something back at the Home but couldn’t remember what, then couldn’t remember where we were going. She remembered after prompting, but then didn’t want to go to her evil daughter’s who had stolen everything she owned and had her ‘put away.’

I pulled into my parents’ driveway, alongside the row of rosebushes my mom and I had planted years back, a long narrow island of long-stem yellow and red roses that separated our driveway from the neighbor’s. I stopped behind my sister’s minivan, turned off the car, and looked at grandma who stared straight ahead, seemingly unaware we had arrived.

“You ready to go inside?”

“I told you, I’m not going in there. Why are we here?”

“For Thanksgiving, Gram, remember?”

“Well, I have nothing to be thankful for. Take me home.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” It was cliché and a lie and I felt stupid for saying it, parroting my mother’s Pollyanna tripe. I considered telling grandma I know what hopeless feels like, and I too lived with a pervasive sadness and fear of the future, afraid of what’s to be, or not to be. But there was no point really. Gram didn’t acknowledge feelings, and she never showed fear. “Are you coming into the house with me or not?”

Grandma refused to get out of the car and I wasn’t about to make her. She’d always been contentious, but she’d had a quick wit and delivered it with sharp humor, both of which left her years ago, as did the radiant beauty she once possessed. She was on the fringe of life now, on her way out and almost invisible. Surely she felt it too. Maybe so many old people lose their minds because the reality of their marginal existence is just too degrading. And terror consumed me right then, bearing witness to my future.

I got out of my car and took a deep breath of crisp, wet air, then released it slowly as I went to the back of my Civic and lifted the hatchback, gathered the pie, and the green bean casserole I’d made this morning, then slammed the hatch shut and walked to my parents’ Valley-Ranch, single-story home.

Roasting turkey and smoky firewood wafted from inside as I stepped up onto the landing and then came through the iron screen door into the house I was raised, yet never really felt at home in. I passed the bookshelves neatly packed with encyclopedias and novels into the spacious, modern living room. A large open space wrapped around the centralized fireplace to the open dining area.

Dad tended the fire and poked an iron rod at the burning logs. Sparks flared and sucked up into the chimney. My brother-in-law, Larry, seemed short and narrow standing next to my 6’3″, 220-pound father, though the men looked remarkably alike, even with twenty-five years between them. Each had speckled gray hair and short-cropped beards and wire-rim glasses. Dad wore navy Dockers and a long sleeve flannel shirt. As always, Larry looked like he’d just walked off the set of The Big Chill — Levi’s, maroon Izod sweater, and those over-complicated sneakers.

“Hey,” I announced. “Happy Thanksgiving.” I set the food I’d brought on the slate bench that wrapped two sides of the fireplace, then kissed and hugged my father. He gathered me up in his big arms and drew me in against his barrel chest.

“Hello, Baby.” It was his only term of endearment for me. “Happy Thanksgiving.” He released me and I felt abandoned amidst the pack again.

“Hey Lar. How ya doing?” I inquired when he didn’t.

“Good.” That was it. Larry didn’t turn my question around.

“Grandma’s in the car and won’t come out. Can you please go talk to her, dad?”

My father sighed heavily and shook his head before handing the iron poker to Larry and going outside. Larry rested the end of the poker on the slate bench, held it like a staff and stared at the fire, clearly uninterested in engaging with me. He was a devout Jew, a conservative, directed, precise, with no interest in abstractions like feelings. And Larry dismissed most anyone who wasn’t of like mind or income.

I collected my food and went into the kitchen. “Happy Thanksgiving everyone!” And that moment I felt glad to be there, to have family to be with. They were all I had, all I’d ever really had, as my mother so often reminded me. Everyone else came and went in L.A.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” everyone said in unison, except Scott. My eight-year-old nephew sat at the kitchen table and consumed a finger full of the custard from the pumpkin roll he’d taken a scoop out of when he thought no one was looking.

My sister Carrie sat in front of baby Adam strapped in the portable car seat on the kitchen table. She was feeding him spoonful’s of mushed-up yams that dribbled out the side of his mouth. The gross factor didn’t seem to faze her. Her mass of flaming red hair was pulled back into a tight braid and hung down her back practically to her waist. She wore a Spanish-style gauze dress with a colorful, rather loud floral pattern of red roses, and mid-calf tan cowboy boots with sharply pointed tips.

I set the food down on the stovetop above the oven where my six-year-old niece, Jessie, stood basting the turkey. Mom stood behind her, hand over her granddaughter’s and together they squeezed the soft plastic ball, sucking up gravy into the tube then squirting it back on the bird.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Auntie Ray.” Jessie looked adorably cute in her black velvet dress, her long, strawberry blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail.

“Happy Thanksgiving, baby.” I whispered as I bent to kiss my niece’s head, and before fully straightening I received my mother’s quick kiss on the cheek. Mom was barely five feet, and shrinking with age.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Dolly.” My mother had three terms of endearment for me. Dolly, Face, and ‘my baby,’ as I was her last born. “Is Grandma giving you grief?”

“She still in the car. Dad went to get her.”

“Well, she wouldn’t come in if I went out there.” Mom’s aged, sun-baked skin glowed with beads of sweat that ran along the side of her gaunt face onto the brown plastic frame of her large glasses. “She only listens to your father.” She took the baster from Jessie, pushed the turkey back in the oven and shut the door, then wiped her forehead on her shirtsleeve. “Go wash your hands, Jessie Rose,” she instructed her granddaughter. “Then see if you can help your mother with the coleslaw.”

“I’m feeding Adam now, Mom.” Carrie was in a huff. “I’ll get to it in a minute. I told you I should have brought Maria to help.”

Mom didn’t respond. She busied herself and tuned out, a technique she’d honed to avoid conflict. She got a carton of whipping cream from the fridge, poured the cream into a plastic bowl then set up the electric mixer.

I retrieved the coleslaw my sister brought from the fridge and took it back to the kitchen table. A bottle filled with dressing was on top of the cabbage mixture and I poured it over the shredded leaves until the bottle was drained. Jessie sat down at the table next to her older brother and started coloring, but within moments they were fighting, Scott hording the markers regardless of his sister’s shrill protests. Carrie ignored them. Like our mother, Carrie had the ability to shut out what disturbed her. But the kids bickering annoyed the hell out of me.

“Knock it off, you guys.” I spoke loudly to be heard over the mixer. “Scott, give your sister half the pens. And Jess, don’t grab. Ask.” I got Jessie’s attention, but Scott grabbed the only pen Jessie had out of her small hand. She tried to grab it back nearly knocking a stack of dishes off the table. “Stop! Now! Both of you.” The last bit sounded like I was screaming because mom had switched off the mixer. I grabbed half of Scott’s markers and set them in front of Jess. Carrie looked up from feeding Adam and narrowed her eyes at me, but at least the kids stopped fighting.

“This is ridiculous, Mother.” Carrie stood, wiped her son clean with the cloth she kept on her shoulder. “There is nothing for the kids to do here anymore. You don’t even have cable. They don’t want to be here. And I don’t blame them. They can entertain themselves all day at home. We should just have Thanksgiving at my house from now on.”

“No way,” I protested. I’d never felt welcome in Carrie’s home, always the unwanted guest she felt she had to invite. I looked at my mom standing at the counter near the sink, poised with the mixer over the bowl of whipped cream. I recognized my mother’s pinched expression and felt her rush of distress. “We’ve had it at home since we were born. Thanksgiving should be here.”

“You have no idea what a total hassle it is dragging three kids everywhere.” Carrie picked her son up out of the car seat and held him to her. “You only have yourself to worry about, Rachel. It’s harder for everyone having it here. If you won’t think of me, then at least think of Mom.”

I stared at my mother. “I am.” Mom looked down, busied herself with the cream. Thanksgiving was the only holiday our mother still hosted. She’d mentioned many times how much she enjoyed preparing for it, looked forward to “having the whole family safe in the nest,” even if just for a night. Carrie had co-opted all birthdays, Hallmark occasions and every Jewish holiday from Hanukkah to Passover at her 5,600 square foot McMansion in Agoura Hills. Maids and caterers graced these parties which made it easier for all in some ways. But what Carrie didn’t get is that everyone needs to feel needed, and slowly but surely, she was robbing our mother of purpose, and pleasure.

“So, I hear you’re dating that new guy you’ve been playing racquetball with.” The words seemed to fall out of mom’s mouth as if to fill the exaggerated hush.

I glared at my sister. “Well, we’re not exactly dating…”

“What do you call it then?” Carrie held her son and stroked his back in slow circles. “You’ve been playing racquetball for almost a month like every other day with him. And he’s taking you to Love Letters Saturday night, in Beverly Hills. If that’s not meant to impress, I don’t know what is.” Adam laid his little chin on her shoulder, looked at me, and burped. “I’m going to go put him down, Mom.”

“Night, beautiful.” I whispered softly as he passed, his saucer blue eyes half-mast. And I was sucked into the black hole of Want as I stood at the table tossing the coleslaw.

“Well, are you seeing him or not?” Mom handed each of the kids a whipped cream coated circle of blades. She used to give them to Carrie and me. My mouth literally watered as I watched Scott and Jessie lick off the cream.

“We’re just friends, Mom. We go out to dinner after racquetball sometimes, and we’ve hung out the last couple of weekends, but I really don’t think it’ll go anywhere.”

“Why not? And how do you know this after a month?” Mom’s thin, painted red lips stayed in a tight, flat line. “What’s he do?”

“He runs his own company shipping freight. He’s a consultant, sort of like me, but a lot more successful.”

“And what’s his name?”

I had my mother’s attention, and smiled. “Lee.”

“Does he have a last name?”

I knew why she was asking, of course. “Messer. Lee Messer.”

“Messer…” She contemplated aloud as she scooped the whipped cream into a crystal serving goblet. Then her countenance filled with lightness and she smiled. “Isn’t that Jewish?”

I shook my head, annoyed. I refrained from revealing him agnostic, afraid of dimming her brightness I was momentarily basking in. “What difference does it make, Mother? A last name doesn’t brand him a believer, and if he was, I couldn’t be with him. I’m still an atheist, mom.”

“Then you’re an idiot.” She said it deadpan, like the words just fell out of her mouth without filtering through her brain. She didn’t intend to be mean. It was almost an expression of endearment. She meant ‘idiot’ sort of like ‘my beautiful baby…’ “You condemn yourself to the fringes and then complain you’re lonely. And I know you are. What woman wouldn’t be still single and childless at 33?” My mother had a way of proceeding from instinct rather than intellect and was clueless how cutting her words were. “Why can’t you just accept who you are and embrace your community like your sister. I guarantee if you did, you’d find the life you’re still looking for.” She shook her head and turned away to put the filled goblet of cream in the fridge then went to the stove and stirred the pot of chicken noodle soup.

“Living among the faithful whose belief in money supersedes the moral gospel they espouse isn’t the community I’m looking for, mother.” I sighed and shrugged my shoulders to shed my mounting tension. “And over scheduling every minute of the day with extraneous activities so I don’t have time to think, or create anything, isn’t the life I want either. I don’t want to be Carrie, Mom.”

“I don’t want you to be your sister, Rachel. I want you to be happy, and taken care of.” She stared at me like she was stating the obvious, then her expression softened to empathy, and she frowned. “My beautiful Face, why do you always insist on the hardest path.”

I’d blown it again, pushed my mom away. Non-conformity was disruptive to the woman’s psyche. And Lonely crept in, abandoning me to the outside again from the chasm now between us. I set the coleslaw aside, near Jessie. My niece was coloring a house with stickish smiling people inside. Scott’s picture showed planes dropping bombs and people on the ground getting blown up. He looked up at me.

“I don’t believe in God either, Grandma.” He stared at me as he spoke to her.

“Oh, of course you do.” Mom glared at me over the stove top but spoke to her grandson. “You don’t know what you believe at eight.”

“I did. I knew from the beginning of Saturday school what the rabbis were preaching was a bunch of crap.” I was being combative, to be sure, but my mother was so dismissive that I felt the need to validate my nephew’s pejorative statement. “And if religion is so damn important to family togetherness, why did it break up ours?” She’d chased away her first child, my half-brother, when Keith converted to Born Again Christianity to marry.

“You shut up now, Rachel. Don’t encourage him.” It was hard to see my mom’s brown eyes glaring at me behind the large glasses, but I felt her irritation.

Mom busied herself, and I felt bad I’d come back at her so aggressively. Her reaction to Keith’s conversion had fundamentally scared me. Though she didn’t disown him exactly, she made it impossible for him to attend family occasions. The last time Keith brought his family to Thanksgiving, mom cornered his 4-year-old son — her first grandchild — in the kitchen and told him he was really a Jew, instead of the Evangelos Christian my nephew was being raised. I feared the battle to come when, if I had kids, since I had no intention of raising them with any religion.

“You two at it again?” Dad scowled at me as he came into the kitchen. I felt the familiar twinge of fear, not just from his size, but growing up I’d felt the wrath of his temper. “You still fighting windmills, baby? Don’t confuse your mother with facts, Rachel.”

Mom stuck her tongue out at him in a coquettish kind of way, just the tip, childlike. Dad laughed.

“Grandma and Larry are cowering in the living room so they don’t have to listen to you two go at each other. And I don’t blame them.” Dad went to the liquor cabinet above the utility closet in the pantry and got the big bottle of gin, brought it back in the kitchen and proceeded to make martinis.

“We almost ready to sit down?” Carrie came into the kitchen and dad handed her his first completed drink. “Thank you, Dad.”

“Dinner will be ready in ten minutes.” Mom opened the oven and pulled out the turkey. My seemingly fragile little mother was impressive to watch, straddling the open oven door and hauling that heavy bird onto the stove top. The turkey could have made the cover shot for the November issue of Good Housekeeping. It was golden brown, dripping with juice, and it smelled of garlic, oregano and paprika.

“For you, my dear.” Dad handed mom a martini.

Mom wiped her hands, then the sweat from her face on the dishtowel and then took the wide rimmed glass with a gracious, “Thank you, honey.” She leaned back against the counter and contentedly sipped her martini. “Why don’t you girls start serving the salad.”

Carrie put her drink on the linoleum countertop and got the salad from the fridge. “Jessie Rose. Please go into the dining room and get everyone to sit down for dinner. Scott, go help your sister, please.” Her tone was as stern as her expression and her son only hesitated a second then followed his sister from the kitchen.

Jessie took her drawing to show off, but she and her brother left their mess of markers and pad pages scattered on the kitchen table. I began collecting them to make room for serving the salad. Carrie set the salad bowl on the table and glared at me.

“My children are Jewish. I’m raising them to have an identity and a community, both of which you seem to sorely lack. So keep your fucking mouth shut about what you believe, whatever the hell it is, or isn’t, around my kids.” She didn’t give me time to respond. She grabbed her half-empty martini and walked out of the room.

I watched my sister disappear into the dining area. The satiny fabric of the heavy white drapes that covered the back glass wall of the living room glowed warm and shimmered with firelight. I heard Larry ask his wife if she was OK, and Carrie say “dandy,” but she was “just so tired of her” (my) “crap.”

Then grandma piped in with, “You’re all full of crap.”

I looked at my mom. She glared at me, then emptied her martini and put the glass in the sink behind her. Her displeasure wrapped her like a shroud, and she transferred it as she spoke. “Please serve the salad now, Rachel Lynn.”

I did. I turned my back on my mother and put salad onto plate after plate until the kitchen table had no space for more, then carried them two at a time and served everyone before sitting to eat. Larry was touting his lucrative new strip-mall development in Malibu. Carrie beamed proudly at her husband. Dad nodded with respect. I shook my head but held my tongue. It was foolish to question the need of another 7–11 obstructing the views and scarring the fragile ecosystem along the coast to people who viewed personal wealth as social progress. I knew my opinion was unwelcome among them. Like grandma, I too was almost invisible, or at least wanted to be. And I no longer felt glad to be there. We hadn’t even gotten through the salad this time before I wanted out.

My craving to get high grew exponentially as I crawled along in traffic on the 101 in the rain after dropping grandma off. Brighter than twilight from the streetlights, with five lanes of unfettered highway, and it was beyond irritating how inane L.A. drivers became when it rained. My ire rose with every ten-minute mile, and I felt a desperate need to shed the evening.

I called Lee a hundred times in my head, imagined him coming over, us hanging out and playing Tavli all night. Talking. Laughing. Sharing… Safe with someone who actually liked me. But as I pulled onto my driveway doubt crept in. Inviting him over at 10:00p.m. might imply I was asking him to stay the night, and I had no intention of sleeping with Lee. Intercourse with him would not fulfill me, or enhance the connection we already shared. It would only complicate the friendship I was hoping to maintain.

This excerpt is from the ‘novel memoir’ DISCONNECTED, a coming of age novel for women about a romance that never should have been.

Ever fall for someone you KNEW you shouldn’t, just to be with SOMEONE?

Rachel sought what most women did—to be successful, married and in love, have healthy kids. It was hard enough attracting a man when she wasn’t heroin thin or chic like most Hollywood women, or sparkly, but not too bright, as her mom insisted females should be. But in the 1990s, finding a man wanting an equal partner, a woman beside him instead of behind him, seemed the impossible dream.

Then along came Lee…

“Smart, Honest, Vivid, Poignant,” Contemporary Historical Romance with a very sharp edge…

Is WOKE Brain-Dead

February 16, 2024 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Got feedback for my novella, A Marriage Fable, from a reader.

Pam L (She/Her) 3:55 PM

Thanks Jeri! I actually read it and enjoyed it. I just hesitate to review because the husband calls the therapist a muslim I think it was, in a nonflattering way, and never takes it back later in the book. It just didn’t sit right with me.

A Marriage Fable is a fantasy romance of a typical husband nearing his 20th anniversary, and the powerful genie that inspires him to be a better man. The “muslim” Pam is referring to is the genie. The husband is a sexist, narcissistic asshole in the beginning of this fable, and does indeed refer to the genie, who he thinks is a therapist, as a Muslim because he’s mad with his wife for asking him to participate in her session with Dr. Boggs.

This fable is a modern twist on the classic Dicken’s novella, A Christmas Carol. I used Arabic words for the opening of each stave, and honored the legends of Marid Djinns throughout the writing. I, Jeri Cafesin, did not slam Muslims. Andrew Wyman did, the MC in A Marriage Fable. To show, (not tell in exposition) that Andrew was a self-absorbed dick, he indeed used ugly language, as he, like most men these days, was not violent. Words were his weapon, and his complete lack of interest in anything but his career.

Pam deciding not to leave my novella a review is beyond WOKE, it’s brain-dead. She’s so into being politically correct, following the masses, a ‘believer’ she’s being ‘good, respectful, polite,’ she’s stopped actually thinking for herself. She enjoyed my novella, but can’t leave a review because the Woke community, to which she is a card-carrying member, says using the word Muslim derogatorily in all cases is wrong. And she’s bought that crap. She’s so unsure of her own mind, so afraid of her own racism that she has to call out a fable showing an arc of a character to protect her self-image. She must follow the crowd she’s picked — falling off the boat left-wing. Her behavior is equal only to the far right of the Trump coalition, which she likely despises.

I used to be a Democrat. I am not anymore because of people like Pam who can’t think beyond their rabbis, priests, and the will of the crowd they’ve picked so they can look in the mirror and feel good about themselves. Fuck that. TRUTH changes things, not all this PC bullshit.

So, let’s get down to some TRUTH, and face some facts about humanity. WE ARE ALL RACISTS. We are all BORN RACISTS! And until we all wrap our heads around that FACT, we are doomed to stay racists!

At my writing group the other night a guy read 1500 words out of his historical novel about WW2. In his book, he quoted Hitler, and other Nazis using racial slurs. Several group members had “a problem” with this. They found the language offensive and suggested he take out the terms. Instead, he was advised to use the PC version of describing the terms without using the actual slurs. Again, brain dead! Are these people so scared of the TRUTH that they cannot face the FACTS of what the Nazis did/do. Wokes must sugar-coat it to swallow it down? There is nothing sweet about Nazism! It was/is ugly in the extreme, and this writer in my group was showing this. It wasn’t his job to be politically correct as to offend NO ONE EVER. It was meant to offend! Ignoring history, we are doomed to repeat it, and we ARE with Trump and the current Republican party, and the other side, the Woke party.

Fiction writing is a fine art. Should someone have told Edvard Munch he shouldn’t paint The SCREAM because it may give some kids nightmares? It did me! Should books like Ulysses, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple not have been written because they may offend? Of course not. Art is supposed to be controversial, get people feeling first, then thinking about what they feel and why.

My father used to call me Marco after the MC in And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street because I’ve been a storyteller since I was a little kid. I’ve read it to my kids to spark their imagination because that is what the story is about, not a ‘Chinaman (original wording) who walks with sticks’ (and by the way, the TRUTH is, Chinese in China still use chopsticks), or a ‘Rajah with Rubies.’ The Woke community has robbed children forward of a method to reach and spark their own imaginations.

New York Times had an article about transgender conversion a couple weeks ago. For once, the left-wing rag, wasn’t. They actually had the balls, in our politically correct version of the world now, to call out therapists who are pushing children, as young as 10 years old, to change their sex. In their extensive research, the article points out that the Woke community is selling kids on medically ‘reconfiguring’ (the PC term) their bodies, a decision that will affect the rest of their lives, and in many cases negatively. Personally, I don’t care if an adult decides to become the opposite sex. It is an adult decision. Blind support of a child wanting to change their sex after seeing some YouTuber trans who is saying how great their life is now, is ugly in the extreme. It doesn’t make you a good therapist to always be ‘supportive.’ It makes you a bad one.

Oddly, well, maybe not, the same Woke crowd is calling out Trader Joe’s for using Trader José on their Mexican label beer as racial appropriation. I don’t understand why changing sex later in life isn’t sexual appropriation. A man changed to a woman at 18 or later didn’t have to grow up with the slings and arrows I faced as a girl or a woman in the workforce. They have no idea what it means to be constantly hit on from the moment you get tits, groped, assaulted, get pregnant, paid less, and a girl better be pretty, and thin, or she’s lonely. And I was. The damage sexism did to me will be with me for the rest of my life, regardless of the sex I later become.

And THEY is more than ONE. Unless a human is two people in one, like Siamese twins, what does someone calling themselves THEY even mean? Using ‘THEY’ as your ‘personal pronoun’ WON’T STOP SEXISM! This will — the TRUTH is a good place to start.

Politically correct doesn’t help humanity become kinder or more equitable. Activist groups like LGBTQ have powerful lobbyists who help change discriminatory laws. The Gay Liberation Movement (GLM) in the 1980s got Congress to invest in AIDS research. Black Lives Matter (BLM) forces us to investigate systemic racism in our police forces across the US. These organized groups send representatives to DC who actually fight for legal change. If you really want to be politically correct, actually do something to help make us a more just society, join one of these organizations, and help end discrimination.

It’s hip, slick, and trending Woke these days to say “I’m Pro-Palestine.” In fact, my own daughter said this to me the other day.

Hmm, I thought I taught you better than jumping on the Woke train, I told her. Do you even know what it means to be pro-Palestine? All her friends are. All her friends are Chinese and Indian students at UCSD. Literally. She is White and has no White friends. Many of these friends are on visas and have no voting rights in this country. And they too have no clue what they are talking about when they claim to be pro-Palestine. My daughter’s friends are feeling disenfranchised. They’ve been the target of racism here and are justifiably angry. But instead of dealing with that TRUTH, they’ve lobbed onto a crowd — the PC community — that lets them express their internalized anger by getting behind causes they have no clue about.

Do you know that Hamas, the government of Gaza, launched an unprovoked attack on Israel from Gaza, killed over 1,200 people, and kidnapped 253 in October of last year?

No.

And did you know Hamas was raping 12–48 yr old girls and women they kidnapped, then posting it online to terrorize victim’s loved ones?

I haven’t heard that. All I heard was Israel was bombing civilians in Palestine and killing mostly women and children.

Do you know that the government the Palestinians voted in are using their women and children as cover for their terrorist shit, and that is why they were getting killed in Israeli bombings?

No. But it doesn’t make it right that Israel is killing kids.

No. It doesn’t. I didn’t say Israel is right. There is no right here, baby. Both sides are wrong. I’m not pro-Israel. They know that Hamas is sacrificing their own children, yet instead of targeted strikes against Hamas, they are wielding an iron fist. Badly. Ugly. For sure. 100%. My beautiful daughter, I told her, siding with one side or the other is divisive in the extreme. It perpetuates the problems there, and creates more here, between us. Call out bad behavior, like Israel knowingly killing civilians regardless of their reasons. Or Palestine voting in a fanatical religious government with an agenda to kill all Israelis. Neither is right. Call out bad behavior. Do not get on the PC train because your friends are and you wanta fit in. Do the research before taking a stand. Blind faith means turning off your brain. And that is never OK.

I get writing this essay is going to piss off a lot of people. While I understand and support the underlying tenor of being PC is to stop discrimination in all forms, the Woke community has no clue how divisive and ugly they are when they call out everyone who isn’t on their train. They perpetuate racism, sexism, and flat-out stupidity so they can look in the mirror and lie to themselves they are righteous people.

Let’s all get off the PC train and focus on how to tackle our differences by getting honest with our own feelings — our fears of THE OTHER, of looking stupid, of not fitting in, of being alone and lonely. Let’s start sharing how often we fail, in our careers and our relationships, instead of perpetuating the happy-ending lie. I’m so sick of almost every businessperson I talk to saying they’re doing “just great!” and then their biz failing the next year.

Want to end discrimination? Then let’s start sharing how it feels to BE HUMAN since we all FEEL THE SAME THINGS.

A Day in Nahariya, Israel

October 19, 2023October 23, 2023 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My mother was a born-again Jew — her response to my brother’s conversion to Christianity, and my unwavering commitment to Atheism. In her continual effort to have me marry a Jewish man, towards the end of my vagabond years in the late 1980s, she suggested I go see Israel. She said it was the most beautiful place on earth, an oasis Jews had turned from desert wasteland into paradise. She had taken the guided Hilton Tour. My mother never really saw Israel.

The moment I got off the plane I knew it wasn’t the place my mother had claimed it to be. Bullet holes riddled the walls of Ben Yehuda airport, which had plaques commemorating this or that war or terrorist attack. I had traveled much of the developed world by then but had never seen anything like this. Military men and women, some no older than teens were armed with Uzi’s; grenades hung off breast belts lined with bullets. The public bus was packed with soldiers on the ride to Tel Aviv. The French girl sitting next to me leaned over and whispered, “Are those guns real?” Clearly, even she thought it odd.

I rented a flat in the heart of the city for a couple of months and used it as a base to travel from. Using public transport and walking, I spent hours on buses and in cafes watching, listening, and talking to locals. A lone female traveler, I was often invited to join diners, and occasionally even into people’s homes to partake in authentic meals and enlightening conversations. Most everyone spoke English, and after a while I began to glean a hazy understanding of the conflict between the Israelis, Palestinians, and the surrounding Arab nations. However, it wasn’t until my last full day exploring Israel and Egypt that a strange encounter with an Arab man brought into sharp focus the plight of the Middle East.

Two months in Israel, and the day before flying home, I took a bus north to visit the beach town of Nahariya. I felt him staring at me from where he sat a few rows back. He was likely in his 20’s with striking green eyes, swarthy, handsome. He was dressed in jeans and a Hard Rock Café t-shirt, but wore a keffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress with a double black cord headband crowning the white cloth over his head and cascading over his broad shoulders and down his back. The intensity of his gaze unnerved me. I assumed he was on his way to Lebanon, the West Bank, or maybe Jordan, but when the bus finally got to Nahariya, he got off right after I did. And I got scared.

I tried to convince myself he wasn’t following me. I window-shopped and then got some lunch in a very public café. I saw him meandering around town, often stopping to chat with small groups of men, most dressed in mid-calf robes and head garbs, but almost every time I caught sight of him he looked over at me. Eventually, he went into a shop and I ran across the street and tried to disappear into some woods.

The low pine forest was only a few hundred meters thick. The blue/green Mediterranean glimmered beyond the trees. When I finally sat down on a log at the edge of the forest I was sure I’d lost him. I dug my toes into the warm sand and looked out at the dazzling sea. The deserted beach was silent. Then I heard twigs breaking underfoot behind me.

I stood and spun back towards the forest as the Arab man came out of the woods a few yards from me. I’m screwed, I thought, pretty sure I was about to get raped on that empty, isolated beach. The thought of running seemed absurd. He could have caught me in a flat second. I tried to make myself as tall as possible. Then I looked him straight in the eye and said in my harshest tone, “What the fuck do you want?” Cussing, speaking before spoken to, and looking a man in the eyes are things I’d been told Islamic women do not do.

He stared at me, startled, but didn’t respond. He probably didn’t speak English. And I didn’t speak anything but.

“Leave! Or I will.” I pointed back through the forest. He didn’t move so I started to walk away. I was scared out of my mind.

“Please don’t go.” He spoke softly, his voice deep and throaty. “You’re an American, right? I just want to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“I’ve just come back from the States.” His accent was English, but richer, more sultry. “I was two years in Boston, at university there for my MBA. I’ve been back here three weeks now, and I am missing the hell out of good conversation.” He smiled then, his thick ruby lips curved into a gentle smile.

I don’t know if it was his tone, his easy manner, or his striking green eyes that made me stay. He kept distance between us, and slowly sat cross-legged on the sand in the spot where he’d been standing. Curiosity overrode every other feeling. I’d never spoken at length with an Arab. An opportunity to speak freely without the prying eyes of others could be educational, to say the least.

“I live here in Israel now,” he said. “I’m originally from Jordan, but in my heart, I’m a traveler, an explorer of places and people. What about you? Where are you from?”

“Los Angeles. Hollywood,” I clarified since many outside of the States had no clue where L.A. was, but everyone knew Hollywood.

A huge white smile spread across his chiseled face. “Ah. Movie stars and Disneyland.” He pushed back his keffiyeh and locks of thick, dark wavy hair peeked out from under the white cloth. “I’m Hashim.” He brought his hand to his chest and bowed his head slightly then smiled that great smile again.

I introduced myself, shared why I’d come, and that I’d be going home in the morning.

He asked me about places I’d visited on my trip, and what I thought of them.

I told him I’d traveled most of Israel, and explored Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt. I did not give him an assessment of my impressions along the way, instead turning the tables, I asked him some questions. The conversation spun from there, unraveling like a well-worn sweater, venturing down the road of trust, slowly revealing ourselves.

He’d recently graduated from Harvard, not just for the prestigious degree, and the connections to society’s elite, but also to study Western culture. He’d returned home to take his place beside his father, a wealthy statesman of some note.

“My father insists it’s business as usual — finance the current regime and whoever replaces it. But I cannot support tyrannical militant extremists and sleep at night.” It was going to be his job to advise on how best to “work with infidels,” meaning anyone who isn’t Muslim, according to Dad, and the rhetoric of many of their religious leaders.

A strange mix of anger and fear welled inside me. “I’ve never considered myself an infidel as an American citizen. I thought that title was meant for Israelis, or Jews in general.”

He flashed a smile, but not like he thought it was funny. “My father means a non-believer. We have the word Kaffir to describe the sinister kind of infidel, like political authorities controlled by the wealthy.”

“Just like we have. We call them lobbyists. Big business runs the politics of the U.S.” I said and frowned at him.

“The mean, the masses, societies in general always seem to devolve to the power-hungry — the few who wish to control the many.” He frowned back, and shook his head. “Islam had a Golden Age once, way back in the 8th Century, for almost 500 years, where advances in science, mathematics, the arts, all flourished.”

“So, what happened?”

“Some scholars claim that a thriving society breeds complacency, but I think that’s bullshit.” He grinned at me, like he cussed with the purpose of ‘speaking my language.’

“What do you think?”

“That a power-hungry ruling class implemented strict laws that made the masses angry, which created enough instability for the Mongols to invade and take over.”

“Kind of like what’s happening with the Palestinians and Israel right now?” I wasn’t trying to be confrontational. It was in the middle of the First Intifada then, when Palestinians protested peacefully and violently to end Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza. I was to find out later, it was also when Shaikh Ahmed Yassin created Hamas.

He eyed me critically, like he was trying to read me, or teach me. “Yes. In 1947 the new United Nations gave Jews coastlines, seaports and agricultural lands around major cities where the majority of the populations were Palestinian Arabs. The Partition Plan, the UN called it, took over half of Palestine to create Israel. The Palestinians, controlled by the British at the time, rejected the Plan. It happened anyway, forcing Palestinians to the West Bank and Gaza. Until 1967, and the Six-Day War, when Israel began occupying the remainder of Palestine.”

“Sounds like what we did to the Native Americans.”

“It’s similar. Yes.” He frowned again. “Now, over 20 years of Israeli rule restricting trade and emigration has increased material and production costs, and in turn has decimated their economy. Unemployment, poverty, disparity of wealth generated political infighting. The continued growth of Jewish settlements is taking the little land and vital natural resources they have left.”

“Then you support the Palestinian protests, regardless of the loss of lives?” It was on par with asking him, ‘Have you stopped beating your wife yet?’ but I felt angry that he called out Israel alone. The party line in my family and the States had always been supportive of Israel. I’d heard countless stories of the continual barrage of terrorist attacks from Palestinian and Arab fanatics going back to the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. I knew of the Six-Day War over the Suez Canal which led to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

“No. I do not support religious zealots or terrorists becoming the face of the Muslim faith.” His crystalline-green eyes filled with certainty. “But like our forefathers during the Golden Age, restrictive laws lead to economic stagnation and disparity, which fuels unrest and anger.”

“So does terrorism, or even supporting terrorists. Israel may respond aggressively when they’re attacked, but you hurt me, or someone I care about, and I want to hurt you back. It’s human nature.”

“Yes. It is. And acts of violence breeds more violence. Unquestionably. But retribution and reprisal as a response to zealots and terrorists only exacerbates anger, and instead of learning to cooperate — invent, create together — the cycle of hate and violence continues.”

The sun set as we spoke, and murky twilight cooled the day’s heat. Profound sadness filled the space between us.

Again, he shook his head. He’d become a humanist in the States, he told me, an agnostic once he’d escaped the fundamentalist environment he was raised. “How do I stay here and marry into an alliance and faith I no longer believe in? How do I raise my kids to rise above the ignorance and religious rhetoric that surrounds them here? Reason, sanity, our humanity is abandoned when fanatics will sacrifice our children, or raise them to hate, and the killing never ends.” He sighed heavily, his despair visceral.

I sat in the sand, against the log, not three feet from him, tears streaming down my face. I had no idea what to say. I was there because of my fanatical mother. She blindly believed Jews had eminent domain to Israel, had single-handedly turned a desert into a flourishing country, and chose to see only the beauty there.

“When we are on the precipice of disaster, people can and do change,” I said to him softly. “If the only sustainable path forward for our continued existence is cooperation and integration, we will get there.” I shut up then. Platitudes at best. I sounded like my Pollyanna mother. I had no idea if change was possible with political divisions and religious talons buried so deeply into the psyche of so many.

We left the beach a short while later, as it was getting dark. We both had buses to catch to take us home. He told me to leave first, walk back without him, as it wasn’t safe to be seen together. “An Arab prince alone with a White Western woman in public isn’t proper. Yet,” he said with a wink.

I knew I’d never see him or talk to him again, and I was surprised by the stab of regret as I stood to leave the beach. Only a few hours in his company, and I felt certain I could love this man. Without embracing or even a parting cheek-to-cheek kiss we said goodbye, and I ventured into the small pine forest towards town.

Unfamiliar with infatuation, I had the painfully empty sensation of missing him on the bus ride back to Tel Aviv, and still the next day on the plane home. He’d given me a view into the plight of the Palestinians, and a deeper understanding of their struggle with Israel, and ultimately the world against fundamentalist who seek to control instead of cooperate. I thought of him often in the years that followed, the memory of our interaction always evoking a profound sense of hope, knowing he was out there, personifying the best of us, the embodiment of a step forward towards our continued evolution.

Living with Hitler

August 24, 2023 by jcafesin, posted in parenting, parents

“They’re coming back. Make no mistake about it. Doesn’t matter what you think you are, they are coming back for you. You are a Jew,” my mother often told me.

I’m not. I’m an atheist. At 5, I told her so, thus creating a chasm between us that went unresolved, even with our last goodbye, when she died of lymphoma nearly 20 years ago.

My mother displayed her fears, though always quietly, through the years I was growing up with her continual barrage of warnings. As children, she insisted my sister and I go to Hebrew school, regardless of my protests as an atheist. In my teens, she insisted we join her in watching The Holocaust mini-series. She sat riveted through each episode, hand to mouth to stifle gasping in horror.

Regardless of her indoctrination, I didn’t feel afraid the Nazis would return because in my family then, and my own family now, the Nazis never left.

I will not deny my mother’s fears were warranted. She’d lived through WWII, saw the rise of fascism allow the murders of six million of her family and faith. She was old enough to witness Hitler’s speeches ignite the German underclass to hate, and blame everyone but themselves for their strife. She saw the world forever changed by our ability to destroy it, with the advent of the atomic bomb.

I tried often to dissuade my mother’s fears. I argued, “We’ve learned, Mom. That’s the best thing about us. When we’re standing on the precipice of disaster, we DO change!”

I was so confident in our uniquely human ability to ‘rise above’ our misfortunes, I married the son of a Holocaust survivor. My father-in-law was 13 when his family was forcibly removed from their suburban home in Łódź, Poland, and imprisoned in the ghetto northeast of the city. He was there for eight months when his father, mother, and two younger sisters were murdered in front of him, and he was put on a train to Flossenburg concentration camp in Bavaria, and eventually to Auschwitz. A prisoner for five years, his teens were spent as a slave, laboring in an Audi factory, watching people murdered and committing suicide daily, until Auschwitz was ‘liberated’ by the Russians in 1945.

My father-in-law came to the States as an immigrant several years later. He settled in New Jersey, started his own business, and then married. My husband was born a year later, and his sister — my sister-in-law — 3 years after that.

Growing up, the kids knew vaguely of their father’s plight. They’d awake, frightened by the “horrific screams” of their dad’s nightmares. As my husband described it: “My dad told us he was ‘in camp,’ and I had a problem with that. I’d gone to summer camp, and I knew this wasn’t the same thing, but it wasn’t clear to me why he’d had such a bad time.”

The Holocaust was not discussed in my husband’s household. He didn’t dare ask his dad for any details, though his father’s nightmares woke him often during his formative years. His father’s screaming frightened him as a child, but even more as he grew up and studied the Holocaust in school, and learned, even in the abstract, what may have happened to his dad. His parents had made it clear by their silence — in almost all things of intimate relevance — they were not open to discussing virtually anything beyond the day-to-day logistics of living.

My husband was in his last year of college when his sister gathered the family and recorded their father’s experience before, during, and after WWII for a history assignment. The ‘kids’ were young adults when they discovered the details of their father’s past during this singular interview. No one in the family ever spoke of it again.

My father-in-law learned young that the only way to survive was to avoid conflict at all costs. His wife, my mother-in-law, having experienced her own traumatic youth, had adopted the same position on the emotional safety of stoic silence, likely long before they met and married. My husband’s parents were married 50 years before my father-in-law passed. They did not discuss their life experiences with their children, or even with each other beyond the surface of these painful events. Neither went to counseling, ever. They ran a small business and raised their kids in their loving, yet separate way, never really letting anyone in, too afraid to get intimate.

Understandable, with where they came from. But, oh, so very costly.

Feelings don’t just GO AWAY when we don’t talk about them. More often than not, when buried , feelings of hurt, frustration, sadness, fear will resurface, and manifest as unwarranted aggression, especially towards the people we love, since it’s likely they’ll still love us, regardless of the slights.

These powerful feelings of anger and fear, buried deep in my husband’s parents, prevented them from validating their children’s feelings, forcing their kids to bury their own feelings under the suffocating weight of shame associated with having any. The 27 years I’ve known my sister-in-law, she won’t watch a sad movie, read a sad book, and has never admitted to feeling sad, even through her son’s ADHD hardships, or during her very contentious divorce. She never talks about feelings, hers or anyone’s, and refuses to even acknowledge emotional questions I ask her by ignoring that I’ve spoken to her at all. My husband’s sister has played the role of ‘good girl’ to avoid conflict, well known in the ‘survivor’ community, suppressing all negative feelings, never getting honest, and therefore intimate with anyone, even herself.

My husband has Asperger’s syndrome, commonly understood to be a mild form of Autism. Though never formally diagnosed, we’ve seen enough therapists together and most have identified specific autistic behaviors that fall within the Aspergers spectrum. Higher rates of Aspergers is well documented among Holocaust survivors’ offspring. He ‘floods’ with intense emotion, his or anyone’s directed at him. He shuts down completely, becomes calmly and coolly irrational, contentious and attacking when pushed to engage in dialog in this flooded state. He’s the victim in most of his narratives and refuses to be held accountable for the conflicts he creates when he’s flooding. And with any conflict, flooding can last anywhere from a few hours to months.

When my husband is with me, is present and open and unafraid, he is the love of my life — kind, smart, respectful, responsible, fun. He is my best friend in every measure when he’s all there and we’re connecting, but married 27 years, and I know not to trust this behavior will last. Conflict is a part of life. And whether I say something he doesn’t like, or a boss has, my husband begins the flooding process and cannot hear and does not remember what is said in the exchange. Since I’ve known him, he’s been fired or forced to quit 15+ full-time positions after pissing off his supervisors enough that my brilliant software developer husband held most jobs for less than 2 yrs.

The effects of the Holocaust are still powerful, present, and residing in our house. The hate Hitler ignited still reverberates almost a century — three generations later — embodied in my husband every time he shuts down to avoid conflict, dismisses or ignores his feelings, or mine, or our kids, or his bosses, as his parents taught him to do. The fear the Nazis instilled in so many has been passed through the generations like a genetic disease.

My mother carried this fear with her to her grave. As a matter of course, she made me afraid, of all people — our ability to abandon our humanity and turn our backs on neighbors we once held dear, in response to fear. I got lucky, though. My mom felt passionate about so much, and shamelessly displayed feelings of joy, anger, fear, and sadness at times, gifting me the opportunity to acknowledge and express my own.

My husband understands that he floods, and how destructive this is to establishing and maintaining trust in him, his parenting, and our partnership. During peaceful times free of conflict, he works to connect with me, and our kids, and open up his awareness to the effect he has on the world outside his own head. In moments, when he wins the war with himself, and he can see his own behavior clearly, share his vulnerability and acknowledge his culpability, we touch intimacy. And in those moments, we stop Hitler’s legacy at our doorstep.

Reverse Racism IS Racism

March 25, 2022March 25, 2022 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My daughter came home crying from her job as a barista for a local Boba Tea cafe.

“They don’t like me mom! I’m doing the exact same level of work that all the new kids are, and they keep calling ME out cuz I’m not Asian.”

Several other barista type jobs at various local businesses to which she applied told her flat out they only hire Asians (which, at least in my neighborhood, includes Indians, from India). Since most of the fast food and convenience stores here are owned by Asians, this has severely limited her choices for simple, flexible, part-time work.

A month ago, on the first day of this first job my daughter’s ever had, she came home and said, “My manager called me their ‘diversity hire,’ since I’m the only White person who works there. It hurt my feelings. He made me feel like I didn’t get the job cuz I deserved it.” Every day since, she’s come home with other racist comments most of her managers continue to make.

Our daughter has a 4.3 gpa, is a hard worker academically, and socially. She is the only White person in her small group of all Asian friends. She’s worked very hard, and continues to do so, to be a part of this bunch of kids, to fit into the Asian culture that is now well over 75% of her high school in our East Bay suburb of the San Francisco Bay area.

My son wasn’t so lucky. Boys going through puberty are all about bravado, one-upping each other. Girls are about connecting, communicating, building their community. Our son was excluded and bullied for not being “A”sian, throughout middle and high school. He had no friends at all, though he tried again and again to ‘fit in’ with them, from Karate to Robotics to Chess club and more. It broke his heart daily, and mine as well, watching my beautiful, open, kind kid ostracized for being White. He will likely struggle with a damaged self-image the rest of his life because of those formative experiences.

Yet, neither of my children are racists, like so many of their Asian friends and associates. My daughter gets bullied often, even from her ‘friends’ with thoughtless comments: “I only date Asians. I don’t find White girls attractive,” from the 4 out of 5 boys in her group. My daughter would love to get asked to proms, on dates. She watches her Asian girlfriends get asked out. She does not.*

These are REALITIES for all of us, Asians and Whites, here in the global melting pot of the San Francisco Bay Area, and yet my children are still not racists. Why, when so many are?

My daughter’s half White, half Chinese best friend had a sleepover the weekend before Thanksgiving. Her BF told me their family didn’t celebrate the holiday. Her mother was a tech-visa transplant from China in her early 20s, and had no association with U.S. traditions. She did not adopt them for her kids, regardless that they are native born here. My daughter’s BF confessed she’d always dreamed of celebrating Thanksgiving. Well, of course I invited her, and her mom and brother, right then. She was so excited she texted her mom the invite, and the girls were jumping up and down, cheering, moments later with her mother’s response.

The seven of us ate turkey, and stuffing, and shared stories of thanks around the table that night. We played Pictionary after dinner, and laughed and laughed. When the kids exited the scene to play video games, Yi, my husband and I spoke of relationships, politics, religion, ignoring social lines of polite conversation. And though we have radically different perspectives, and I felt no personal connection with few common interests, a profound one existed between us. She was raising two kids, a boy my son’s age, and a girl, my daughter’s best friend, Yi loves her children the exact same way, with the same intensity as I do mine.

Globalization is a REALITY. It’s happening, right now. Most first world nations are being inundated with immigrants looking for that illusive ‘better life.’ Like it, or not, global integration is here, and, as my husband, and our kids know, it is mandatory, simply must happen, for humanity, and our very small planet to survive.

My husband is a software architect. He’s been creating and deploying SaaS offerings for over 25 years here in Silicon Valley. Every job he’s ever had in the software industry, and trust me, he’s had a lot of jobs, he’s worked almost exclusively with Asians. While offshore H1B labor has been brought here by the tech industry since 1990, this massive Asian influx into the U.S. was not anticipated. In the last five yrs, the companies he’s worked for in software development, or any other department now, whether the staff is 30 or 3000—60% or more are of Asian descent. And yet, my husband is not racist, though he’s been passed up for many positions by Asians on work visas and H1Bs.**

“One wish,” my mom asked my sister and me on our drive home from elementary school back in the old days. “Anything you want, what would it be.”

“World peace,” I’d said. It was the mid-1970s, and a common catch phrase, but I meant it. Without war, or economic disparity, I believed in our creative potential to problem solve, and our unique ability to work together to realize our fantastical visions. I didn’t know about the hunger of greed then, insatiable, and colorblind.

It has been particularly hard on my kids, this globalization process. It deeply saddens me that they must suffer the slights of blind prejudice, just as the Asians in past generations had to suffer the racism of the ignorant Whites here. It terrifies me—the global competition for fewer jobs my kids will be competing for after college. Yet, I still advocate for globalization. This very small planet must integrate, or we will perish, and likely take much of the life here with us.

My daughter worries she’ll never meet anyone to date, yet alone marry, but I assure her she likely will. And it’s even likely that man will be Asian, since 60% of the global population are Asian*** and more than half of them are men. “It doesn’t matter where someone came from, what their heritage, or place of origin on the planet,” I’ve preached to my kids. “Choose to be with someone kind.”

A border wall surrounding the U.S. entirely will not stop Asians from flying in from China and India, Korea, Viet Nam, Indonesia and other emerging Asian nations. Nor will it stop the Middle East, South Americans, Cubans from coming here. Seeking to keep us separate is a fool’s play. Communication is key to build bridges over our differences, allowing us to meet in the middle and mutually benefit from our strengths. Ignorance and mistrust breed with distance. Nationalism is just thinly disguised racism.

Asians, Latinos, Syrian’s, and Palestinians, are all different cultures, not separate races from Caucasian. We are one race, the human race. Globalization—the blending of cultures—is hard for everyone, scary, new, threatening to our social structure, but a must if humanity is to survive, even thrive. The beauty of interracial marriage is the same thing that bonds Yi and I, as parents. We both passionately love our kids. She can’t possibly hate Whites, since her children are Asian/White. Combine two cultures, at least on a localize level, defeats racism, as most every parent loves their kids with the intensity Yi and I do. It’s one of our best bits about being human—the magnificent, spectacular, all-encompassing love we get to feel, and share as parents.

—

*Dating app data (in the U.S. and abroad) shows White men prefer Asian women, though it is unusual to see an Asian man partner with a White woman.

**Hiring offshore workers for less money, now being exploited by every social network from Facebook to Instagram to YouTube, to Mr. Trump’s summer staff at his Mar-a-Lago estate, lowers the pay rate for all of us. It’s no wonder U.S. income levels have been stagnant for years. There has been 308,613 H1B registrations for 2022, a 12.5% rise over 2021.

***Asia Population 2022 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs) (worldpopulationreview.com)