Social Awareness: How much? How Soon? Too Much?

I've been reading through old posts of mine on the topics of social justice and taking action. I grew up going to protests and being politically active. My parents talked to me about the world, or at least that's what I remember. When I was in first grade, my friend and I woke up early one Saturday and hand made as many flyers as we could with a six-year-old's attention span. Then we put 8.5 x 11 "Ronald Reagan Sucks" leaflets in all the mailboxes on our block. As an adult, I would refer to this as "canvassing for Mondale."

When I reached 5th grade, I really was canvassing. I spent two years working on the GE boycott with I.N.F.A.C.T. I spent two years setting up an ironing board, selling buttons, collecting signatures. I even flew out to a GE shareholders meeting in Milwaukee for a direct action. I spoke to the city council about making Oakland a nuclear free zone. I joined an environmental group that held a lot of meetings and a couple retreats and ended up hosting an arts event for kids in San Francisco, but I'm not sure we did anything for the environment.

By the time I got to high school, I was burnt out on political movements. I became a typical Gen X cynic. I marched against the first Iraq war and Prop 187, but if I'm being honest, I was just happy to be ditching class. Rodney King, OJ, I stayed home. I voted. I kept myself abreast of what was going on in the world, but I didn't get involved outside of going to a couple protests against police brutality in 2002 where I got hit by a rubber bullet and faced down police that charged the crowd on horseback. I'll admit, that felt pretty badass.

When we had kids we half made a decision to not shield them from the world or our lives. The other half is that I think we just can't help ourselves. T and I are not the quiet, reserved, stoic type of people. We talk a lot. Like, a lot. People used to remark that our kids were "so verbal." Well yeah, mom and dad never shut up so they hear a lot of words, and a great many of those words are about politics.
I've always struggled with finding the line between making sure my kids know about the world and about our lives so they won't be surprised by things that happen, and telling them more than their developing minds are ready to process. I don't know what the bigger trauma could be, the shock of having things happen without warning, or the anxiety of knowing too many possibilities.

Lou, 2015

We took the kids to Obama's second inauguration in 2013. We thought it was an important moment. Buddy was four, Lou was two. Neither of them remember it. The next year, we went to Ferguson. Buddy was five, Lou was three. They don't remember that either. In 2015, it was the Million Moms March in D.C. Each of these included conversations about why we were going, the precipitating events and the desired outcomes. We talked about race. We talked about policing. I taught them the things I had been taught about how to survive encounters with law enforcement, even after I realized that their inherited genetic whiteness would make these lessons moot.

Then came the 2016 election and the beginning of years of having to explain new uncomfortable things to the kids about racism and sexism and homophobia and hate crimes. There were marches for women and pride and detention centers. During this, maybe bolstered by it and our discussions of marriage equality, Lou came out as transgender. If this is the one benefit of over sharing with the kids, it'll all be worth it.

Now it's 2020 and we're in the middle of a pandemic and a period of civil unrest. T is back to taking to the streets every night to protest. Lou is back to making protest signs. Xe has a strong sense of right and wrong and all xe wants in the world is for people to be fair. Xe thirsts for justice, which makes sense as xir survival depends on a just and fair world. So we've talked about George Floyd. Just like we talked about Tamir Rice and Sandra Bland and Trayvon Martin and Philando Castille and so many others. Lou was excited to be able to ride in the Oakland Car Caravan protest. Everything seemed fine until that night. After the kids were in bed, T commented that maybe we've told them too much. She said that Lou and Yo now hated the police and were afraid of them and were afraid for us. They were afraid the police would kill us. They were worried about T going out to protest. Not long after, Lou emerged from xir bedroom unable to sleep, wracked with anxiety over police brutality. A few weeks later, a Black Lives Matter protest passed by the busy cross street near our house. The kids wanted to go down to the corner to hold signs and show support. As the main body of the march drew closer, police officers positioned themselves to block cross traffic ahead of the marchers. They were keeping the marchers safe. When Lou saw the police blocking our street on either side of the route, xe turned pale and started to retreat back to our house. Xe was convinced the police were there to hurt people. 

I'm wary of most police officers, but I can't bring myself to hate the police as a whole. I spent the spring of 2017 trying to become a police officer. While I acknowledge the systemic problems of policing as a whole, though I have been a victim of police violence, I just can't hate everyone who wears the uniform. This inability to hate doesn't stop me from being wary of any individual officer. I still do all the things I was taught growing up to make sure I get through police encounters alive. I support Black Lives Matter and I'm terrified of the Thin Blue Line crowd. I also don't want my kids, who by the privilege of their complexions will never need to fear a routine stop, to hate the police or fear them to point where they won't ask for help when they need it. I do want them to understand when to call the police and when to just leave things be. I want them to understand everything that calling the police really means and everything that could result. I don't want them to come to me at 25, seeing an unjust world and telling me, "Daddy, did you even know this stuff happens?" And I would have answer, "Yes." Because if I know then why wouldn't I tell them. If not to keep them safe, then to raise conscious, aware white looking secretly Latino-Asian allies?

It took some convincing, but Lou was persuaded to stay on the corner with us. I wanted xir to understand a couple things. First, that the police were not there to hurt people. Second, that there are things are worth standing up for, even when there's danger. I admit, that's a hard line to figure out. Whether to stand in the face of oppressive force, how much and for how long is dependent on so many factors I couldn't begin to try to explain them. I don't want T or the kids to stubbornly allow themselves to be beaten or gassed or worse. I also want them to start developing a sense for when to stay and when to leave. I want them to recognize danger rather than presume it (or on the other side, presume safety when it isn't real). I want them to be brave without being foolish. I want them to be cautious without being afraid. I want them to understand the world so they're not surprised by it. 

The thing I'm still not sure of is how much, how soon?

Kids, Your Dad is a Gosh Darn Hero

I wish I had a more dramatic picture, but I was busy being a hero.

I don't usually do a Father's Day post, but I guess I'm doing it this year because I'm feeling awfully fathery this morning. I've written a little bit about how I sometimes feel inadequate as a parent because I haven't taught my kids enough practical skills. They can barely swim. Aside from the 5 year old, they learned to ride bikes late and she only learned because the other kids did it first. I've lamented about the deterioration of my own hands-on skills. After taking wood working and working on construction sites as an adolescent, I convinced myself over the years that I didn't know how to perform basic repairs. I've recently been reversing that trend and engaging with the kids on home maintenance projects. We've been repairing windows, painting the exterior and caulking the tub. It feels good. I finally feel like the kind of dad I want to be.

Which brings us to last night.

It was a lush yard

Last night, I finally got the chance to do something really dadly.

This morning, at about 2:00am I heard someone coming up my front stairs. Yesterday, the neighborhood email list had been full of conversation about a mysterious series of occurrences where someone was knocking on doors and ringing doorbells in the middle of the night. When the knock and ring came, I sprang into action, convinced I was about to confront the Midnight Ringer. When I opened the door, there stood my neighbor from two doors down. 

"Charles? You're the Midnight Ringer?" Before the thought was fully formed, he yelled, "Your back yard is on fire!"

I sprinted to the back of the house. I could see the orange glow through the kitchen window. I reached for the phone, "Alice called 911," he offered out helpfully. It didn't register. 

"911 what's you emergency?

"My back yard is on fire"

"The whole yard, sir?

"No, uh mostly the fence. It's my neighbor's shed that's really on fire, but its in my yard too."

I stood at the back door momentarily stunned by the flames that looked like something out of a movie. The corner of the shed that abuts my fence in the yard behind my yard was engulfed in flames. I say shed, but it used to be a horse stable and had recently been converted to an outdoor covered patio. The fence that separates the yards was on fire about a third of the way along its length. I could smell apples on our tree being roasted.

I rousted myself from my stupor and ran to turn on our hose. I didn't want to wait for help as I realized that fire along the fence could get to my shed and then my next door neighbor's house. The neighbor on my left also has a garage that sits next to the burning barn. So, I faced the flames with my little garden hose expecting the water to turn to entirely ineffective steam. I was right. It was a futile gesture, at first. When I changed the hose nozzle from mist to stream, I was able to start putting down the flames. 

Honestly, it felt kinda badass. 

That's when I heard T yelling to the kids, "Get out! Get out! No that way, away from daddy. Go to the front." Sure, she was 100% correct from a safety perspective, though standing there on top of our garden box with my hose, I didn't think there was any imminent danger. My thought was, "But I want them to see their father being cool," though I didn't have the time or the inclination to really argue with her. 

By the time the firefighters came from two blocks away, I had things on my corner of the barn pretty well in hand. That is to say, it wasn't spreading but I was sure glad they came in to really get the deep soak that would ensure that there were no invisible embers that could reignite. They also put out the far side of the barn that I couldn't effectively reach with my little garden hose. For the next 90 minutes or so we chatted with the firefighters, the neighbors and each other. The kids made tea before going back to bed. We all forgot about distancing and masks for a minute as we assessed whether the remaining smoke was more embers in the wall, or just steam. (It was embers, they cut out a good section of the cross beams to quell it.) Yo got a fist bump from a firefighter. I asked if the foam they used was safe for our vegetable garden and they assured me it was basically dish soap.

As 4:00am rolled around, things were settling back down. The firefighters left. I secretly wanted some kind of "attaboy" or recognition for holding things down until they got there, but none came. Yes, inside I am still a 12-year-old hoping for affirmation from the people I wanted to be when I grew up. I did get a lot of thanks from my neighbors on each side for helping to save their yards. I in turn thanked Charles for knocking on the door. Though they didn't watch it all go down, I do think the kids see me as being a little more capable as a protector. I feel a little more capable too. Even though I spent many years training as a first responder, I still carry doubt about what I'll do when faced with an emergency. I feel better about myself this morning than I did at bed time last night. When we all got up in the morning I extolled the kids on how their dad saved the entire neighborhood.

Now, if only I could crack the case of the Midnight Ringer...

Chillin'

When a Loss is a Gain (or Why I'm Relieved my Fundamentalist Family Disowned Me)

I started writing this post almost three years ago. At first it was about how my cousin had gone off the deep end of religious fundamentalism. The thing is, I couldn't figure out exactly why I was writing it. I wasn't sure I had a larger point beyond, "Hey look, isn't this weird?" Somehow, even though it was an important topic to me, I couldn't figure out how it said anything about the larger world.

My cousin used to be a partier. Addiction and recklessness run in our family so he seemed perfectly normal to me. At some point, he decided to make changes. He went into recovery. He tried to eat better. He moved way out of the city, beyond the suburbs to a small rural town. He moved away from his old haunts and his old influences. But he was still himself. He was still fun and engaging and loving. If anything, he was more fun because he didn't do the irrational things he used to do when he was drinking. He also started becoming more religious.

I'm not against religion. I've become more religious over the last decade as well. I was confirmed into the same faith as my wife. My children were baptized. I had a brief tenure helping teach Sunday School. I find a lot of wisdom in the sermons. They've helped me learn to forgive and how to come to terms with things that have happened in my life. I believe that religion, like youth sports, can be a really positive thing even though it's been warped and misused for a long time. We chose my cousin and his wife as God parents for my middle child, even though their brand of Christianity was a little more hard core than ours. We felt that might be a positive. They would present a different perspective, and maybe we'd learn something.

But as time went on, my cousin abdicated more and more of his personal agency to the church. He'd long been a liberal, and claimed he still was. He made this claim even as he voted against same sex marriage and refused to discuss the topic. He began to see any disagreement as an attack on his faith. I admit, I did challenge his views on scripture at times. It wasn't typical internet atheist vs. believer head butting. My sect is liberal and teaches acceptance, forgiveness and love. My cousin's mega church teaches the things that fall more to the right of that. Still, I saw my conversations with him as exchanges between believers with slightly different approaches. My cousin lost the ability to have a conversation about these things. He followed the teachings of his pastor without question. When I asked him why he'd become so unwilling to entertain another view he'd answer with "What makes you think you know more than the pastor?" or "It's not for me to question, I am simply supposed to follow." It was astounding to see this man who saw himself as a leader in his family and his community become so blindly dogmatic. After a while I unfollowed him on social media, still connected but muted and didn't discuss scripture with him at all.

The final straw came early in the 2016 election season. He quickly became a hard core Bernie Bro, the kind who called Hillary Clinton a cunt, claimed that her and Trump were exactly the same and vowed not to vote at all if Bernie wasn't the candidate. The strained relationship between our family and his ruptured completely. He got involved in a Clinton-Sanders political spat with my wife that ended with one of them blocking the other. The final straw was when he posted a junk science link by a disgraced psychiatrist "proving" that trans people are mentally ill. He posted the link with a triumphant and emphatic "I knew it! I told you so!" and something about supporting conversion therapy. In the comments, I posted links to the many professionals and research refuting these ideas. He again railed at me for questioning his faith.

"Primo, I'm not questioning your faith," I replied. "I stopped trying that a long time ago. I promise I won't question your faith. I am questioning your science. If you had posted that God said this, I would have kept scrolling. You posted this claiming that science had proven something you had long hoped was true. You brought this into my realm. So I am definitely going to present the research that counters this so called study."

That was it. He disconnected from me on all platforms and I haven't heard from him since. It was sad. It was frustrating. I love my cousin and I remember the man he used to be. I was also a little relieved that he wouldn't have a chance to influence his God child anymore. If that were the end, this post would probably still be languishing as a draft.

I didn't know a lot of trans people growing up. Being from Berkeley I was pretty solid on LGBQ issues by the time I graduated from high school, but trans people still seemed peculiar to me. At the end of college I had at least learned that my attitudes towards trans people, while not outright discriminatory, were not what they should be. So I decided to fake it 'til made it. I decided to publicly support trans people on whatever they wanted regardless of how I felt about it. In 2015 the trans bathroom issue made me uneasy, but I found myself debating one of my students and taking the pro-trans people side. By the time we got to 2017 I felt like I had finally come around in mind and spirit.

I was just in time.


In January I wrote about my six-year-old "coming out as liking blue." At the time, I acknowledged that it was an odd way of looking at the kid's announcement.

"I know, maybe that's an extreme way of describing it, and yes, it's supposed to be funny. I'm sorry, I hope it's not offensive, but the way she talked about it, that's how it seemed to be for her. At the ripe old age of almost-seven, she talked about how she had always liked blue, but for some reason when she got to day care she just let everyone tell her to like pink. 'So I just went along with it. I don't know why, I wanted to tell them I really liked blue, but I felt like I couldn't. Then I started telling everyone that I liked pink. I don't know why. But now I tell people about what I really I like, and I don't care what they think."

I didn't know at the time that my child was practicing. Maybe they didn't know it either. About a month after I wrote that, Lou told us that they were no longer "she," they were "they." It was a surprise. I went through a lot of thoughts and emotions. My newfound acceptance of trans people was challenged. It's easy to support other people, it's different when it's your child. It probably shouldn't be, but it was for me. I had to fight against myself. I had to go through a similar process as I'd gone through the previous few years, but I had to do it a lot faster. I hoped it was phase though I never admitted that to anyone other than my wife. I wondered if this was the result of society making being trans seem cool. I realize how this sounds.

The calculus was simple. I've known too many gay and lesbian people and read too many stories of traumatic LGBTQ childhoods to not see what I had to do. The story is almost always, "I've known who I was since I was three-years-old." followed by whatever trials came with being able to finally come out and live as the person they always knew they were. As a parent, I often look at what my kids do and ask, "What's the risk?" In this case I had ask what would be the risk in accepting what Lou was telling us, or denying it. If it was a phase, the risk was that they would feel pigeonholed into having to keep this up as their identity within the family, like being "the smart one" or "the funny one" or "the loser." (In my family I somehow ended up being both "the smart one" and "the loser," and I've lived up to both at different times.) If I denied it the risk was raising a severely damaged trans person who told their friends, "My dad never accepted me and it was really hard on me." That risk was too great, I'm already sure to traumatize my kids in some other way, avoiding the obvious missteps is an easy choice. It was clear that I had to swallow hard, look to my wife for support and try to live my values.


Since then, Lou has identified as gender fluid. I use "they" in writing because it's the most true pronoun over time. In real life, Lou has three post it notes that are changed out each morning. Each has he/him, she/her or they/them printed on the face and we use that so we know which pronouns to use that day. It's been surprisingly easy. The anxiety I had during the first few weeks has faded. It's helped that Lou's teacher and classmates have been supportive. It's helped that Lou isn't the first trans kid at their school, or at our church. The new reality of Lou's identity has even produced some typical toddler moments for Yo who spent months saying things like, "Daddy, Lou said they/them won't share with me!" Now it's become normal for us.


I still think about my cousin. I still miss who he was. Maybe I hadn't been thinking of him for a while because it wasn't until yesterday that the real impact of his disowning me became clear. There's no way he'd have accepted Lou for who they are. Maybe there's some small chance that knowing a trans person, loving a trans person would have brought him around, but this isn't a Hallmark movie of the week. I think it's far more likely that he would have made bad jokes, or worse, direct refutations of Lou's identity. The split we had over trans rights would have come at some point no matter what. Instead of losing him over "politics" I would have lost him over respecting and loving a child he swore before God to nurture and protect, not knowing that the protection the child would need is from people like him.

The Stories We Tell About Our Family

Life happens. It happens and it ends, and other lives go on. Somewhere in that chain we tell each other stories of what was, who was, and how we came to be here. Sometimes those are big stories, like Ken Burns documentaries. Sometimes they are small stories, like how your family, and by extension, you came to be where you are right now. 

My family is lucky in that we have a lot of that history written down. On my mother’s side there is a scroll that traces our lineage back to the early 400s. One of my great uncles had it translated from Japanese, and then later wrote a book that updated the family tree up to about my brother. When I was in middle school I read that scroll translation over and over. It’s the official record of our family from the time our oldest traceable ancestor moved from China to Japan, to when our happy band of half-breeds extended our deep roots into my hometown. That’s the for-real story.

There’s another version though, probably more than one, possibly as many as there are living family members. The version I tell my kids is based more on what I remember my mother telling me than it is on that scroll. My mother’s version is based on what her mother and grandmother told her. The general story is the same, but the details are probably very different. The stories shift and change like folklore handed down within very small tribe. Each generation wraps it in a little more color, a little more romance. 

The version I tell, and that I believe to be true as much as I believe anything that doesn’t have scientific research to back it up, goes like this:

My great grandfather left Japan shortly after feudalism ended. He had been a Samurai, but since he was not the oldest son he didn’t stand to get an inheritance. With no lord to serve, he made off for America like so many other hopeful Asian men. While he was here, he worked in a bicycle shop, but refused to handle money as such things were beneath his station. He later helped to organize farm workers in California’s central valley. I imagine him like a Japanese Cesar Chavez whose work was lost to history, wiped away when white farmers seized Japanese land and businesses during WWII. In between, he was sent a wife in a marriage arranged by their families. My great-grandparents settled in San Diego. My grandmother told me a story about making jam sandwiches and loading them into her red wagon to take to the Okies camped next to the stream near her house. She said that when the men would knock on the door looking for work, or for food, it was the first time she knew there were poor white people. 

That house is gone now, the subject of a mystery that was never fully resolved. By the time WWII started my great grandfather had died. I’m told it was just as well, that the indignities of internment would have killed him. My great grandmother and her children were sent first to the racetrack at Santa Anita where they lived in horse stalls they were forced to clean out themselves, and then to Poston III in the Arizona desert. The house was left empty with neighbors agreeing to keep an eye on it. The house was fine. Then there were G.I.s living in it. Then one day, it was gone. Just gone. Lifted off the foundation and carried away. The government denied there had ever been a house there. When I graduated from college in LA (from a school that used to be an orange grove where boys took my grandmother on dates, she told me) we all took a trip down to where the house had been. The street corner is now on the naval base. The annexation of my family’s house, and now much of their neighborhood seems to be complete.

My grandmother and a few of her brothers were able to get out camp. One joined the 442^nd all Japanese American regiment, another was already enlisted on that day that shall live in infamy. My grandmother moved to Utah to attend college and live with her brother in a converted mortuary. She bathed in the corpse tub and worked in a Chinese restaurant, as they were the only ones willing to hire Japanese. She took her degree in journalism to occupied Japan as the editor for the Stars and Stripes Army newspaper. While there she interviewed Tokyo Rose and Helen Keller. She also met an enlisted reporter named Kelly Roberts. She was his boss. They got married. After leaving Okinawa for Chicago and then spending a couple years in Pakistan while my grandfather was definitely not working for the CIA, they moved to Berkeley because they felt it was the best place in 1950s America to raise mixed race children. 

And that’s how it came to be that my kids’ school interviewed me for a family history project. They wanted to update some of the murals around the schoolyard with stories of how students’ families came to Berkeley. The kids in the class chose our family as one of the mural subjects. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t sure how much of what I told them was 100% accurate. I remember trying to verify some of the details years ago. “Is that what I told you? Gosh, I don’t remember.” was my grandmother’s response to most of my questions. Grandma is gone now. She never saw the mural her great grandchildren helped paint. I fretted over the details for a while, but in the end I decided that the story as I know it is true enough. It’s the one I think I was told and the one that I tell my kids. As family stories go, that’s close enough. 

Being a Good Landlord Almost Bankrupted Me

This is not my Berkeley house, but it's similar.

 Many people lament the state of the rental market in the Bay Area. I spent eight years charging below market rent because I believed in helping the middle class. My reward: being pushed to the brink of bankruptcy.

On the outside everything is great. I recently landed a dream job teaching at a college back in my home town. The job provides the two things I never thought I'd be able to have together, teaching in my field and living where I grew up, among my oldest friends. I always thought I'd have to sacrifice one of those components for the other. Then all of a sudden, this job opened up and it seemed like everything had fallen into place. Our years-long quest to find a way home was coming to a close.

Getting the job required some investment on our part. Aside from the years and student loan dollars we'd put into getting me into a position where I was a qualified candidate for a tenure track teaching position there were up-front costs as well. Unlike some universities with larger budgets this college did not offer to fly me in for my interviews. I paid my own way, on short notice, to fly across the country in order to put my best foot forward. It was just prior to walking into the room for the first interview that I learned that if I did well, there would be a second interview. I did well and when I was offered the second interview I asked if I could do it over the phone. The college preferred that I come in person, so I swallowed hard, and on even shorter notice, boarded a cross country flight in order to put my best foot forward.

It worked. I got the job. In that moment I was thrilled and fine with the financial investment it took to  win the position. I still am. I still believe that I made the right choice in laying out the cash to secure a job that could make my family exceedingly happy. But the money is spent.

While I was at my first interview my father-in-law, who had been battling cancer for some time, was transferred from rehab to hospice. As soon as the interview was over I changed my return flight so that I could get back home right away. My wife jumped on a plane that evening as well, flying from our home in Maryland, to Arizona to be with her dad before he died. She purchased a one-way ticket, not knowing when, or from where she would return. It ended up being a week while she helped with funeral arrangements (he was to be buried in Indiana), and helped her mother move from Arizona to California to be closer to our families. After driving the moving truck to from Arizona to California, my wife returned home from the west coast in time for us to spend 14 hours together as a family before I flew off for my second interview.

We were satisfied with the decision to have her fly out on a same day fare so she could be with her dad before he passed. We were fine with the decision for her to miss work to help her mother. We believe we made the right choice in laying out the cash to help our family both emotionally and practically. But the money is spent.

Once I accepted the job we faced the prospect of moving. Again. We had been in out new home for less than a year when we decided to pursue this new gig. The kids had just recently related how excited they were to not spend another summer moving. Sorry guys.

I don't know if you've ever moved across country, but it's not cheap. We took a hard look at our finances and realized we would end up in significant credit card debt, but decided it was worth it. After all, this was the fulfillment of our dreams. This was a chance to possibly make the last move for the last job to the last house.

Don't we deserve to live in our house too?

The house. The house is what makes all of this possible, and what is doing us in. My brother and I inherited our mother's house when she died. For the last eight years the house has been rented to a nice family. We have rarely raised the rent, the raises have been below what is allowed by law, and the rent has never been raised to anything near market value. Without the house my family wouldn't be able to consider moving back. The housing market in the Bay Area is out of control. You'd think that having the house there to move into would solve a lot of problems for us, and you'd be right. It's also going to temporarily bankrupt us.

The city we live in is very tenant friendly. It's easy to see how that's happened over the years. As a mostly quiet university town it's always been a desirable place to live. As such, the rental market has steadily become higher priced. Over the decades shady landlords have done terrible things to get tenants out of rent controlled apartments to take advantage of boom times in the market. The result is a set of regulations that require landlords to pay relocation fees for tenants they evict for various causes.

For our situation, known as an "Owner Move In," we were required to pay $4,500 to our tenants because they claim that they are low income. Their family is actually a lot like ours. The person in the family I have been dealing with is also an academic who does some freelance writing. They have kids, just like we have kids. It hurts me to cast them out into the current rental market after eight years of stability. I know that I probably wouldn't be able to find an adequate place to rent for my family given my income. I wish I could live my dream, in my home, without having to displace someone else. But I can't. My income isn't that different from theirs. In fact, our incomes are so similar that based on my new salary, my family nearly fits the city's threshold for low income. That is, if our situations were reversed, I could petition to be paid a $4,500 relocation fee. But I can't afford to pay one.

At the time of our move our bank account showed $9,000 in combined checking and savings against $2,600 in debt. (These numbers don't include our monthly income or expenses). Half of that $9000 is the deposit we are holding for our renters, which will be paid back when they move out. The other $4,500 is what we will have to pay in relocation if our tenants can show that they meet the definition of "low income." The net result of that math is that my family will soon be in the nightmare position of many other American families. We will be heavily in debt, with no savings, no safety net. We will be one missed pay check away from disaster. And that's before we pay for our move, or know whether we'll be able to cover our expenses between moving and figuring out what to do with our current house. If you're keeping score, that means that for some time period we will have two mortgages (plus rent we pay to my brother for the house) and no savings. We spent more than another $3000 in moving expenses. All because we want to live in the house we already own. But the money is spent.

Trucks are expensive. (Banana for scale)

I get it. I do. I understand why we need laws to protect people from unscrupulous landlords. I don't understand why there aren't provisions in place to also protect middle class people who are also living on the edge. I called the city to ask what happens if a landlord doesn't have the $4,500. The woman I spoke to said she'd have to get back to me because it had never happened. In the end the city attorney, by way of a rent board counselor, informed us that we'd simply have to come up with the money somehow. I told her, "I don't have the money." She replied that the people we were evicting don't have place to live. She said it with mic-drop finality, the righteousness of someone who spends their life standing up to evil and defending the poor. "Neither do I" I replied. "If I can't live in my house I also have no where to live." She admitted, sheepishly, that I had point.

I'm not mad at the tenants. They have their own life altering issues to deal with on top of having to move. Just as we had our life altering issues to deal with on top of having to move. I don't even fully blame the city. The law is the result of years of scuzzy landlords screwing people over for profit. But that's not me. It's hard to believe that a city ordinance meant to protect people is also designed in a way that will leave my family penniless. Or worse, leave us in debt and without any cash on hand. This is how the stories of people who lose everything often begin. But the money is spent.

I'm scared. The only other time I've had a bank account at all zeroes was right after my divorce. But in that case I was 27 years-old and single. I had a student loan, but no other debts. I knew I'd be able to figure it out. Now, with three kids and major expenses from my move I'm as afraid for my future as I have ever been. Maybe you'll read this and scoff. Maybe you'll think to yourself that I'm better off than others. I am. Maybe you'll think I deserve this for being silly enough to chase a dream and think I could have it all. I ]would disagree. Maybe I should have been better prepared for all this, but it's hard to prepare for something you don't think will ever happen. The person who had this job before me was here for 35 years.

In reality it is my fault, for not pursuing money at the cost of all else. Where I live single family homes like the one we're renting out are not subject to rent control. This means that with enough notice I could raise the rent periodically to keep up with the market. Right now the house we originally rented out for $2,400 has seen roughly $350 in rent increase over eight years. That's $2,750 for a house that has a market value of $4,000/month. For me it was more important to have this one family in the house rather than pursue the maximum profit. It's my Berkeley upbringing that causes me to value the well being of the tenants and their family over that of my own. The fact that I have willingly sacrificed thousands of dollars and saved the tenants money, and probably at least one increase related move doesn't factor in to the law that requires me to give away thousands more.

In the situation I'm in now I do look back and wonder what would be different if I'd insisted on collecting market value all these years. But I know the answer to that. I'd be a villain like the landlords you see in articles like this where tenants have their rents increased double or triple digit percentages all at once. I'd be a symbol for everything wrong in Northern California's dot com era. I'd be the kind of person that the current laws are meant to protect tenants against. I didn't want to be that person. I have not been that person. But I'm paying the price anyway.

There's a larger point to all this. Maybe it's something about laws that make the middle class cannibalize each other. A family having to leave their rental and facing financial pressure in a market made crazy by dot-commers and Airbnb, needs to take the full life savings of another middle class family in order to survive. Laws that targeted the 1% are backfiring and bringing ruin to a couple who have student loans and a home and who have tried to do everything right in terms of paying creditors. Laws that are pitting one normal family's needs against another's. Maybe it's about bureaucracy that lacks nuance.

There's a ballot initiative this year, Measure AA, that seeks to increase the relocation payment to $15,000 per unit plus $5,000 for families that claim to be low income. The wild thing is, there's no test for income status. All people have to do is claim to be low income, they are not required to provide proof unless the eviction goes to court. Had we been forced to pay $20,000 in order to reclaim our home we couldn't have done it. Essentially, our renters would have laid permanent claim to our house. It's unacceptable. A normal middle class family like ours shouldn't be held hostage simply because we didn't want to sell our home. Worse, we shouldn't have to be painted into a corner where the only way for us to get our house back is to drastically raise the rent in an effort to force tenants out. To borrow a phrase, "Ain't nobody got time for that." Besides, it's morally and ethically uncool. Sadly, if measure AA passes it will be the only way for people like me, people with no savings and no cash, to get their homes back when it is time to stop renting them out. If AA were in effect last summer I'd still be living in Maryland hoping that the job I wanted came open again while I was still in the workforce. My dream, my family's dream, would have been denied even though we've tried to do everything right.

Maybe this is the final cost for all of the great experiences we've had. Along with declining to raise the rent there have been times when I have placed experiences above finances. I chose to stay home and raise my kids rather than work the 93 hours-a-week I had been putting in the previous few years. Maybe I'm a secret millennial, and not the hard working Gen-Xer I'd believed I was.

I have been blessed to be able to pursue An Interdisciplinary Life. I have hope that I will be able to bounce back from a bank account that reads $0.00 in assets and more than $5,600 in debts. I look forward to being able to follow this up in a year and telling you it all worked out. But the money is spent, and I regret nothing.

How I Became a Mexican by Chiori Santiago

This is one of my mother's most popular pieces. It was read aloud at her wake.

I can't find it online anywhere and I don't know where it was previously published. I'm putting it here for you all to enjoy. If a copyright issue comes up I'll take it down again, but I've done a lot of searches for it over the years and have come up empty.

My mother and Grandmother c.1975

When I was eight years old, I arrived in California. Within a week, I was Mexican.
         
Before I was Mexican, I was Pakistani. My family had just come back to the U. S. after four years of world travel, including two years in Karachi, the capital city of Pakistan. I started school there. As far as I was concerned, I was a Pakistani, with all of the wonderful fluidity of the culture as enjoyed by Western ex-patriates in the late 1950s: Camel rides on the beach, four o'clock tea on the lawn, gooey jam tarts and curry dishes that exploded through the top of your head, my brother chattering with the nanny in Urdu, his first language. When we returned to America I missed terribly what I thought was my homeland. For a year I cried and begged my parents to end our visit to this bizarre country so we could return to Karachi.

Chiori c.1955

Before I was Pakistani, I was part of the Census Bureau's complex multiracial nightmare (that's according to a headline in the San Francisco Examiner published at the time of the 2000 census). I was the taboo post-war baby of Yoshiko Tajiri and Chester Fuller Roberts Jr. My parents met in occupied Japan. My mom was the civilian editor of the Army newspaper, the Tokyo Stars and Stripes, and she was my dad's boss. My dad, a private first class, was a reporter and copy editor. The way my Mom tells it, they spent long hours putting the paper to bed, and eventually they followed suit.

Yoshiko and Chester

When they decided to get married, their commanding officer forbid the marriage on the grounds that American G.I.s weren't supposed to fraternize with Japanese civilians, overlooking the fact that my mother was an American citizen who'd grown up kicking butt in South Central Los Angeles. So when my mother got tired of waiting, she marched into the CO's office and threatened to kick his butt if he didn't approve her marriage, and he was so shocked by this metamorphosis of Madame Butterfly to Killer Bee that he gave in. My parents eventually moved to Chicago, where I was born and in due course, my two brothers and a sister.

That's all by way of explaining that our becoming Mexicans in California was something of a surprise for everyone in my family. It didn't happen all at once. It was more of an evolution. It started with a question, the question that all happas know, the question that binds us all by a common thread. That question is:

"What are you?"

When my brothers and I got to California and began hearing The Question on a regular basis, we would launch into this long explanation about our Italian great-grandmother and our Anglo pioneer grandfather and the relatives in Japan, as our mother had coached us. The questioner's eyes would glaze over and invariably they would stare down at us (because they were almost always grownups) and say firmly:  "You're not Japanese." Then they would tell us what they believed we were.

Now, my Mom had been evacuated from California along with tens of thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War Two. She knew very well the sort of racism we could encounter on the liberal West Coast. One of her worst fears was that one day we would come home and ask:  "Mom, what's a Jap?"

She was completely unprepared when I came home and asked:  "Mom, what's a spic?"

Chiori c.1977

This may be the most difficult aspect of interracial romance. You're brought together not by your differences but your commonalities, and let's face it, the whole proposition is easier than you've been led to believe. So you start to think, hey, we've built a bridge between cultures, and our children will reinforce that bridge, and we'll all link hands and cross that bridge into the 21st century, and you hear a John Williams overture swell in your head and you get all misty-eyed, you imagine little white children and little black children being judged not by the color of their skins and blah, blah.


So that's cool. Then you wake up and boom! You have a houseful of little tiny people who are some other race that you never even imagined, like a bunch of illegal immigrants who've sneaked in and are squatting on your neatly defined racial territory.

 In my case, I realized that my race had nothing to do with my DNA or with my parents’ ethnic histories. My race was defined by my face, which I guess is pretty obviously inscribed by the memory of my Klamath Indian ancestors and my Mediterranean great-grandma Mimi. Basically, I have "mestiza" written on my forehead.

Viejitas yelled at me in the street when I couldn't respond to them in Spanish. As I got older, white people began to greet me with a "Como esta" and then proceed in broken English to ask for my delicious and authentic recipe for chili beans. My high school Spanish teacher accused me of taking the class for an easy A, because of course my family already spoke Spanish at home. In college, I tried to join the Asian Students Union but was rejected because, I was told, "race goes through your father's blood, so you're not Asian." Meanwhile, the La Raza Students Union kept asking if I was a vendida, a sell-out, because I wasn't a member.

Chiori c.1983

Finally, I gave in. Refusing to be bothered by identity confusion I became— Chicana! Viva la raza! I became an angry movimiento chica. And I had a lot to be angry about. After all, the minute I became Mexican, my IQ plummeted. Had I remained Asian, I would have been just another obedient college-bound student with Coke-bottle glasses. But as an official pocha, I instantly became slothful, unemployable and prone to passionate outbursts. On the plus side, I suddenly gained a sense of rhythm and was able to dance the mambo.


Maybe all these people knew something I didn't. After all, I am a daughter of the Nisei equivalent to La Malinche. (She was the indigena who guided Cortez's men on their conquest of the Aztecs, and gave birth to the first mestiza.) That heritage makes me suspicious to everyone of all my races. When navigating the multitude of racial boundaries in this country, I'm constantly asked for my passport. People really need to know to which tribe I pledge allegiance. Do I have a green card that lets me dance the Electric Slide or eat Sunday dinner in the basement of an AME church? Is my visa up to date for a taste of pansit or hourdomsamsee? Do I have the stamp of approval that allows me to partake of Passover or dance Tanko Bushi? And why can’t talk story be my second language?

I can't blame people, really. Hello young lovers, wherever you are---I am one of your kids, and we are your multiracial nightmare. Because we are as elusive as refugees under cover of darkness. We cross borders at will---shape shifters, category dodgers, screwing up the neatly laid-out subdivisions of your suburban census.

Chiori and sons c.1990

Personally, I don't believe in interracial dating, so I ended up with a guy just like me: an Italian Afro-Puerto Rican raised in an all-white section of Long Island. I mean, he grew up listening to so much Aerosmith and Abba that when we met I had to give him Latino lessons. We’ve raised a couple of kids who are basically the same race as Tiger Woods. I use chopsticks when I fry tostones, and when no one's looking, I pour tonkatsu sauce on the lechon con arroz blanco.


Not long ago a friend of mine asked, "Y porque no hablas más español?" And I tried to explain, to give my old happa rap and to tell her that I only turned Mexican, I wasn't born this way.
She looked at me as if I was crazy and said:  "Pero no, no, no puedo creer que eres japonesa, tu eres pura, pura latina." You're totally Latina.

I think, that's what love is. You're born into the world and sometimes, your family finds you. Thank god I became Mexican. When I became Mexican, I got a name, a point of reference and a sense of belonging. I got una familia that opened its arms and adopted me--no questions asked.

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You can read another of Chiori's pieces on ethnic identity here: "My Inner White Guy" by Chiori Santiago

Chiori was also featured in "The Global Me" you can read an excerpt about her HERE.

The Time I was Totally (Accidentally) Racist and Why it’s Still Not OK

I recently read this blog post by comedian W. Kamau Bell about an experience he had with racism at the Elmwood Café in Berkeley. Reading the post was like a punch in the gut. It’s well written. It touched me because I have almost always been in inter-racial relationships, and because it shows how easy it is for people to look at a scene, apply their (sometimes) unconscious ideas about race, and then act like racists. In Bell’s story it’s a waitress, but in other stories it’s a cop, or a teacher, or the unofficial neighborhood watch vigilante. But that’s not why the story resonated for me.

When I was in my early 20s I was a waiter at a fairly popular restaurant in Berkeley. Now, if you’re not from Berkeley, there’s a belief that Cal (University of California) has a high percentage of Asian students. I have no idea if this is true relative to the numbers of Asian students at other universities in California, or in the US. I know that the folklore of it is enough that when I was a senior in high school my Japanese grandmother told me, “Don’t put down Asian on your application. They already have too many Asians and they won’t take you. Just put down Puerto Rican.” I don’t think my Asian-ness hurt me. I probably would have done better if I could have hidden my 2.3 high-school GPA. At any rate, there’s supposedly a lot of Asian students running around Berkeley.

One day I was working a lunch shift. It was kind of a slow day, but for some reason I was feeling really rushed. I think it’s because I had some tables outside and some tables inside. Whatever it was, I was not doing a good job in general that day and not for any good reason, I remember that much. A couple came in and sat in the back. It was an Asian couple, dressed in nondescript clothing, the woman had long hair, the man wore glasses. I was tardy in greeting them, I was embarrassed about that, and I was rude because I was ashamed of being bad at my job. I took their order, but for whatever reason I was slow in bringing it out.

While I was being slow and terrible at waiting tables I kept an eye on the couple as best I could. At one point the guy said something like “Are you ever going to acknowledge us?” He was clearly exasperated. I think I gave him weird grumpy look. I went and got their drinks and brought them over.

“We didn’t order these.”

“Yes you did.”

“No. We didn’t.”

“Yes you did. This is a heff, and this is a pale. Did you not know what they were?”

“You haven’t even talked to us yet.”

“What are you talking about? Of course I have. Fine, what do you want?”

“You know what, never mind.”

And with that they got up and left. I was furious. Sure, I hadn’t done my best job, but this seemed insane. I brought the drinks back to the bar and was telling the bar tender the story when I looked up. Coming back from the bathroom was the couple who had ordered the drinks. The guy gave me a look that said, “Yes, you took so long we both went to the bathroom and now we’re back and you still haven’t gotten our drinks.” I thought to myself, and probably muttered, “Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Yup. The couple I’d had the confusing exchange with was a second Asian couple in nondescript clothing. The man had glasses, the woman had long hair. The couple that had decided to leave looked back and locked eyes with the couple I was sheepishly bringing drinks to. They didn’t say anything, but the small nods and grim smiles they exchanged said, “See, this guy’s a fucking racist.” I knew right then that at best I wasn’t getting a tip, at worst I was getting fired.

I made a lot to excuses for myself over this. They were dressed so similarly. Their other features, the hair, the glasses, would have produced identical answers in a game of “Guess Who?” They had decided to sit at identical copper stand ups at opposite ends of a part of the restaurant where the north side mirrored the south side. I’m not racist towards Asians, I am Asian!

I made a lot of excuses, but I never really believed them. This experience has haunted me for years and I almost never talk about it. The truth is I failed to take the time to see people as individuals. I made quick decisions based on superficial factors. I proved that I’d be a terrible person to task with picking someone out of a line up. (I think this helped me understand how unreliable eye-witness accounts can be.) I could have remembered if they were on the brewery side or the bathroom side.  I could have looked at the woman’s purse to see if it was a clutch or a purse or a bag.

But even if you buy any of the reasons to let me off the hook the fact is that those four people didn’t know any of that. Their experience of it was that I just mixed up two Asian couples, who to each other probably didn’t feel like they were alike in anything other than being Asian. I caused them to feel the sting of casual bullshit racism. And it was my fault.

So what’s the take away?  I’m not writing this to make excuses for the woman at the Elmwood. I’m lucky that this was before social media and blogging because I was able to learn a valuable lesson without being fired (neither couple even talked to the manager). I also hope that it can show that we do have to be vigilant in our actions and perceptions. I grew up as a mixed race kid in the most famously liberal city in America, and I got so comfortable in the idea that I was past racism that I made a mistake that offended four people. Maybe you think “Come on, it’s not like you were yelling slurs at the JCC.” OK, sure. But I don’t like the idea that four people were able to feel confirmation (probably for the millionth time) that the world sees them as a homogeneous “other.”  Even if I’m not racist, I contributed to the experience of racism in the world. That sucks.

When I talked to my wife about this she was relieved. She constantly beats herself up about things she thinks about race, especially when she doesn’t feel like she can think of a way to mitigate those thoughts. She’s not a racist. Far from it. But she did grow up in a mostly white world. This is something she’s confronted head on over the last ten years in exactly the ways you would want an ally to do. For her, this story validated the work she’s done, because it shows that even us iPride veteran hippie POCs have work to do. So I think that’s part of the take away too. Not to excuse racist acts, but to produce some empathy for people who misstep in their thoughts while on the journey to cultural enlightenment. And to take some of us, who might think we have it on lock, down a notch, and encourage us to keep being mindful and vigilant.

Here is a version of my remarks at Affys memorial. It's not exactly what I said, I didn't have much written down. Instead this is culled from my memory of what I said, or wanted to say. But I wanted to share it with you in case you wanted to have it.

Photo of George Bertelstein by Jessica Rose

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Standing here now reminds me of the last time I stood before many of you in the woods and spoke. That was at Affy and Katy’s wedding.

Unlike George, I have an almost complete in ability to speak in any way other than off the cuff. So I hope you’ll forgive me if the transitions and relevance of my comments don’t totally flow in a way that makes sense. But that’s what having a conversation with Affy was like. He’d make three or four logical leaps in his mind that he wouldn’t share and then he’d give you the conclusion, and it was up to you to try to put it all together and figure out how he got there.

Afran Abraham. Abraham is fitting. Affy was a father, not just to Leo and Sophie, but in a way he was the father of our mirth. From the time we met him it felt like any gathering of people was just that, a group of people in a room, until Affy got there, and then it was really a party. It’s like, when he got there everyone could totally relax and have fun. Like air had been pumped into the room. Affy was fun in a completely unselfconscious way. He could dance like no one was watching while also totally hoping everyone was watching. He was like a miniature Bacchus, our personal God of carefree enjoyment.

I’ve been trying to figure out why this has hit me so hard, why I’ve felt so unstable the last week and a half.  We’ve lost people before, I’m sure we all have. But this was different. When we were in our teens and twenties we knew some of us weren’t going to make it out. That was who we were, it was how we lived. When we made it into our thirties I thought we were safe. That the danger had passed and we wouldn’t have to do this again for another thirty years. The reason I’ve been so unstable is because I’ve lost one of my pillars. I’ve lost one of the people who made me who I am. Affy was one of the few people who have ever made me feel totally accepted, totally comfortable. He did that for a lot of people. He treated everyone like they were his best friend. He made me feel so comfortable I would do things for him that I probably wouldn’t do for anyone else.

I’d like to tell a story about that, if you’ll indulge me. This was back when we were both working at Togo’s, and living at Affy’s parents’ house. I was renting a room in the attic. Some of the old Togo’s crew is here today. So we lived on the north side of campus, and worked across campus on Telegraph. Togo’s had a very simple dress code, pants and a white polo shirt. I had just been promoted to low level shift manager, and it was my job to enforce the dress code. So one day Affy shows up. Late. And he’s wearing the most ridiculous pair of acid-wash, cut off, jean shorts you’ve ever seen. And that’s not the worst part. He’s also wearing, and if you will, please close your eyes and try to picture this shirt. It’s a purple t-shirt, and says, “LOVE” spelled out in glittery, rainbow puff paint dots that look like tiny Hershey’s Kisses. And I’m like, “Affy, you can’t work in that outfit.” But I also know that he’s going to have to walk all the way back across campus and all the way back, and he’s already late. So I grit my teeth, and I take one for the team. “The team” being Affy.

“OK Affy. We’re going to trade clothes.” So we go to the office and trade clothes. Now, Affy was slightly larger than me, so now not only am I wearing this Tobias Funke outfit, but it’s huge on me. Have you ever seen someone in baggy cutoffs? So now I have to walk back across campus in this outfit. And it’s the first really nice week of spring, and the college girls are out in their it’s-finally-spring-and-I-can-get-some-sun outfits. So there’s just beautiful girls all around looking hot in their spring garb, girls I want to date because I’m eighteen, and I’m wearing Affy’s acid wash Daisy Duke nightmare outfit. So what do I do?

I strut.

Because I know that’s how Affy wore it over there.

I strut, because if you’re going to wear the man’s clothes, you have to sport the man’s confidence.

I think many of us are searching for answers, and I don’t know if there are any answers to be had. Something that has helped me, that has gone through my mind often these past days, is a prayer we say each week in church. We say this prayer to God, but I think it works just as well for Affy, or for each other. I’d like to share it with you, and though I know that we have many different faiths and beliefs, I hope there’s something we can take from this.

We confess that we have sinned against you

In thought, word, and deed,

by what we have done,

and by what we have left undone

We have not loved you with our whole heart,

we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We are truly sorry, and we humbly repent.

The message I take from this that we have to commit to loving each other. I think that when we look at the regret in our life, it’s the things left undone that we regret the most. So I urge you to take the time to reach out to the people you love. Do it small ways. Let them know you care, that you’re thinking of them, that you love them. We are a community, and it’s only by loving each other with our whole hearts that we will be able to survive.

Thank you.

Who's it For?

I have a new hobby. More on this in a minute.

Isn’t the internet great? It’s great. It is probably the greatest media invention ever. Well, maybe not. It’s more like mortar. I mean bricks were a great invention. They were better than building with rocks, but they didn’t become way better than rocks until the invention of mortar. Hell, mortar was such a great invention it even made rocks better for people who couldn’t afford bricks. The internet is the mortar of media. It takes all the other bits we use to build our understanding of the world and not only connects them and holds them together, but forges them into a stronger cohesive whole. Damn I love the internet.

Which brings me to my new hobby; as soon as I finish watching a movie I head to the computer and look it up a wikipedia to learn more about it. I was looking up “The Hurt Locker” recently and the thing that stood out for me was the section detailing Iraq War veterans’ impressions of the film. Unsurprisingly they basically panned it. They also seemed to feel it was the best movie about the war to date. So there it is, it’s unrealistic to the point of being absurd, but it’s also the best one yet. What struck me about this perspective is how familiar it felt. It’s the exact same sentiment the rugby community had about “Invictus.” It’s roughly the same reaction people from Berkeley have towards NBC’s “Parenthood.”

This is when I had this month’s “aha” moment. These works aren’t made for “us” they are made for “them.” Who the “us” and “them” are depends on what who we are and what we do. Confused? I didn’t think so. For “The Hurt Locker” “us” is Iraq war veterans and embedded journalists. For “Invictus” “us” is the rugby community and South Africans. For “Parenthood” “us” is people from Berkeley. See where I’m going? It thought you would. The thing is, making movies and TV shows that resonate with the demographic depicted is almost impossible. The people who are the real people who are being fictionalized and depicted in popular media are too close to the subject matter to ever really be satisfied.

Even “reality” can leave a bad taste in the mouths of the “us.” In 1994 PBS spent a year at my high school filming a documentary about race relations called “School Colors.” Whiff. It was terrible. The filmmakers clearly had an agenda and ignored anything that didn’t fit the narrative they wanted before they arrived. The documentary depicted Berkeley High as completely racially segregated in every way resulting in a powder keg of race related tension and violence. I don’t know anyone who attended BHS at that time who had the experience depicted in “School Colors.” Yet everything in the film actually happened so I guess in a way it was real. It just wasn’t real enough for “us.” (For a much more resonant depiction of BHS in the mid-1990s check out “Yellow Jackets” by Itamar Moses.)

Here’s the truth that the “us” has to embrace, if these works were made with an eye towards resonating with “us” they wouldn’t appeal to “them” or anyone else. And there’s a lot more of “them” than there are of “us.” Media made for “us” is so specific and has so much potential to get caught up in little details while making assumptions about shared knowledge that the vast “them” would feel lost and left out. Besides, the “us” is already in. We’re already invested. We get it. The goal of the creators isn’t to draw us in, it’s to draw everyone else in. The goal is to provide a glimpse of our world to the masses. In doing so it’s going to change, sometimes to the point of seeming foreign to “us.” But if “Invictus” got a few people interested in rugby, or social justice then the film will have accomplished the goals of both the filmmakers and the rugby community. If “The Hurt Locker” helps people understand the stress and chaos of war then it’s served its purpose. Even “School Colors” was right in that Berkeley is not the race relations nirvana people dreamed it would become back in the 1960s. The point is that the “us” need to be satisfied with the details. The Bravermans from “Parenthood” are A’s fans, it’s a nice touch. The show is still pretty detached from the Berkeley I know, but they have drinks from Peet’s so I tolerate the inaccuracies. I think that’s the most we can hope for in service of the greater goal of bringing our passions exposure to a wider audience. So maybe it’s time for “us” to take a new tack and appreciate these works for what they are and what they bring to “them.”

Your Mom Has Taken Over My Life

Photo by Tenysa Santiago

Sorry. That should read "Your Mom" has taken over my life. "What's that Sir Rantalot? What do you mean?"

Well as you may have heard (but probably not, I do have illusions about my reach in the world) I'm getting my fifteen minutes of fame. Back in July I decided to poke fun at a coworker by making up some "Yo momma" jokes. Specifically jokes that started with, "Your mom is so Berkeley..." We thought it was all pretty funny so I posted some of the good ones as a note on my facebook page. In the note I encouraged my friends to add their own "Your mom is so Berkeley" jokes.

After a while, as the note was shared around, I created a facebook group so we could reach a wider group of people. I figured this would be something we'd giggle about for a week or so and then it would fade away. But a funny thing happened. People I didn't even know started joining the group and posting jokes. When the group got to 50 members I was astounded. When it got to 300 members I sent out a message to the members thanking them for making the group "the most successful thing I've ever done on the internet." After that I didn't look at it for a long time because I figured that was that.

Then we got mentioned on what I thought of as "some guy's blog." It turns out it was on Berkeleyside which is a Berkeley news blog founded by some pretty serious journalists. This marked the first time someone mentioned a potential book from the material on the group. Since I didn't know who Berkeleyside was at the time I thanked them, posted a link on the group and again pretty much forgot about it. I checked in now and then to read the new posts, a couple more people suggested a book, but I really didn't think much of it.

Until about three weeks ago. That's when I went back to check it out and found that we had over 950 members. I watched it like a hawk for the next few days waiting for it to hit 1,000. When we hit that nice round number I sent out another facebook message thanking the members for their contributions. That message led to our second appearance on Berkeleyide.

What I said in the 1,000 members message is true. I really do see the concept as a way of honoring my mom through humor and community connection. I can't believe something I thought of as a way to kill time at work has touched so many people. There's something there that helps us Berkeley kids see our common bonds after growing up looking at the rest of the country and feeling like freaks.

Anyway, two Fridays back I received a facebook message from a reporter for the New York Times asking if I wouldn't mind being interviewed about the group. Sure, why not? The article came out in the Bay Area section of the New York Times on Friday, March 18th, 2010. I have to say, it was a pretty cool thing to see. When the interview was done the reporter mentioned that a lot more people might see the group after the article was published. Just as before I thought, "Sure, how many people read the NYT online?" Well it turns out it's a lot. But the article didn't just show up there. It was in the print edition (which I didn't expect). The other thing I didn't know was that when something appears in the NYT online it gets picked up and re-posted in a million places. Well, around 2,640 places according to Google. But that's a lot and includes NPR. NPR! I started thinking, "Maybe this book idea isn't so crazy after all."

In the past week and a half since the article we've added 580 members. It's crazy. In order to keep up the momentum I've added a blog and a Twitter account. These two endevors have taken up a lot of time. Today I read a post by a group member who mentioned that he saw a teaser on our local NBC affiliate's eleven o'clock new cast about a story on the group. Today I waited for two hours before they rescheduled to Friday. So now I might be on TV. For this thing that started on facebook. It's crazy.

I've been Sir Rantalot for six years, pounding out opinions for a readership of roughly six people. Now, in nine months I'm getting fifteen minutes of minor local attention for something that took me six minutes to come up with. Maybe this is my "Java Jacket." The simple idea that starts without fanfare that turns into something bigger than the creator expected. I know I never expected this. But now with the blog going, and the group growing, I'm trying to get this book out there. If it comes to fruition I'll be pretty stoked. I guess you never know what will come of your ideas.