I read the text from Mama after working on a paper about the conflicting attitudes toward Charles II for a restoration literature class.
Yasmeen did you get my email
I look at the email. The subject is please correct.
I read it in her voice — not broken English, but English that flows with a light and quick accent. It’s the type of English acquired after living in the United States for 30 years, longer than you’ve lived in the country where you were born. It’s the type of English that has infringed upon your native language, so that when you visit Egypt — where you were born and raised — the taxi driver notices your Arabic is a little strange, casually asks you where you’re from, and hikes the price of the fare, swearing it’s an honest price for the service. It’s the type of English that hooks people to this ethnically ambiguous person — impressing them because the vocabulary is vast and the pronunciation is articulate, but like the Egyptian taxi driver they still notice there’s something off, and they want to know what it is. It’s the type of English that prompts people to ask you, during your lunch break, where you’re actually, really, originally from.
I peruse the email, deleting the unnecessarily lengthy sentences, editing them so there’s parallelism within them, restructuring the email as a whole so it’s more cohesive. I insert a few adverbs and light adjectives to give it a friendly but professional tone and send it back to her, telling her to let me know if she needs me to fix anything else. She texts me when she’s received it:
thank you loveyou
When I was thirteen years old, my mother decided to go to graduate school for a Master’s in Nurse Practitioning. It was then that I began to become a better writer, as I helped her with her written English.
Not only was my mother going back to school after more than twenty years, but she was also getting higher education in a language that was not her first, doing so while working full time and caring for a household of five. At thirteen, I was too self-absorbed to marvel at such ambition. I only paid attention to her pursuit of an MSN when it directly affected me — on weekend mornings. All I wanted to do was sleep in and update my Xanga with survey questions about the last show I watched, the last song I listened to, and the last book I read. But because my mother didn’t know how to type and needed to focus on formulating research questions and ideas for her case studies, I would instead transcribe her graduate school papers while she told me what to type.
The week before Mama had a paper due, we would spend the entire weekend working on it together. She would sit on a chair next to the computer, with nursing textbooks and sporadically scribbled-on notebooks strewn across the desk. Staring at the computer screen for hours and transcribing advanced medical terms about complex topics forced me to read and reread. Sometimes I would notice a missing comma, or see that two sentences didn’t necessarily flow well together, and I would change the structure of the words. Suddenly, I had a larger vocabulary, thanks to the research journal text I was paraphrasing.
At thirteen, correcting my mother’s written English was a deterrent to my enjoying a full Saturday meant for eating leftover pizza and watching Spongebob. But later, her English became something much more damaging — it made my strong and invincible and confident mother nervous, overwhelmed, and uncomfortable.
As I began to mature and experience the inevitable identity crisis of being a hyphen-American, I turned to my mother for answers and guidance. Mainly, I wanted to know what it was like living in the United States as a Muslim immediately after the events of 9/11, since I was only ten years old in 2001 and couldn’t understand the full scope of what it meant to our community.
Were you scared?
Yes. When we would call your uncle Osama in Egypt we wouldn’t say his name because we didn’t want the Department of Homeland Security to get confused.
What did you think was going to happen to us?
We had no idea — but some Japanese people came to the mosques to tell us this happened to them too at one point, so we thought we might be put in internment camps.
Were people really racist to you?
Sort of. My coworkers used to sit around the break room casually commenting how horrible those Arabs are and how the only solution was to go into Iraq and kill them before they killed us.Then they would tell me, ‘But not you, Sally! You’re a good Arab; you’re not like the others.’
Here was the good stuff, a situation every Arab, every Muslim in America has faced in some capacity. I asked my mother how she put those ignorant bigots in their place. Did she educate them about what Islam really teaches? Did she explain how bombing Iraq wouldn’t solve anything?
She confessed that she said nothing. She admitted that maybe if she spoke better English — English without an accent — she would be better able to respond to such ignorance. But she feared that her English as a second language would just make her seem unpatriotic, guilty by association.
I was furious. Furious that the media’s dehumanization of Muslims and Arab Americans was successfully seeping into people’s minds. Furious at my mother’s co-workers (whose Christmas parties and summer barbecues I had attended) for their ignorance.
But most of all, I was furious at my mother for allowing her friends to denigrate her — and all of us. She should have said something. Anything! I know I would have. I would have had quick responses; I would have put those ignorant people in their place.
Recently I was at the supermarket, waiting in line to buy American products — surrounded by my fellow American supermarket shoppers — when an elderly white man turned to me, put his hands on my shopping cart, and asked me why I wore a scarf on my head.
I wanted to say something clever (“this red scarf matches my cute sweater!”), but he already knew the answer.
It’s your religion, isn’t it?
Yes, I stuttered. I could feel myself blushing and beginning to shake. He was a loud, forceful man, his voice interrogative. Now the other people in line were staring at us.
Where are you originally from?
Los Angeles.
(That wasn’t the answer he was looking for.)
Well, you know what us old-timers from New England say. “Welcome to New England! Now go home!”
Then he smiled and patted me on the shoulder with his large hands, as if to tell me I had been a good sport.
When he left, I began to cry. It had been my first direct encounter with someone who was being hostile because of my race and religion, and it hadn’t been anything at all like I had imagined. I had said nothing. I didn’t bring up Iraq. I was a native English speaker who didn’t have any trace of an accent, and I hadn’t known how to respond to such ignorance in the moment.
The other customers looked at me sympathetically. One older white woman apologized profusely for the man’s behavior and told me that I was welcome here. The cashier, a college student with peach fuzz, just tried to pretend the encounter hadn’t happened. He asked me if I was playing supermarket Monopoly, if I wanted any coupons.
Now when Mama texts or calls me from her office and asks, in a hushed whisper, about an email she’s about to send to an irresponsible co-worker, it occurs to me that perhaps she isn’t calling me to discuss grammar because she speaks English as a second language. I think that maybe she is just having trouble brainstorming a nicer word for “negligent,” and she knows that if she comes off as confrontational, even slightly, things won’t go well for her.
So I take her call, and we talk about her email and what she should say, and we try and think of less harsh words, together.
I am assuming that supermarket encounter happened in VT and I am not surprised in the slightest and tell me again world how I am living in this wonderful, liberal, scenic paradise?
Ugh. Seriously. This state. The people are either hewn from granite or made of woo and never the twain shall meet. Sanders. Sanderrrrrssssss. Come and face me.
As a Vermonter born and raised, I will NEVER understand why people project their hopes and ideals of utopia on on my little state. I love it because it’s home (and also I am probably hewn of granite?) but I am also quite critical of it. It’s got it share of shittiness. And now that I live in DC, I meet people every three months or so who enthusiastically tell me how quaint Vermont is and how they are going to move there and all their problems with be over because of Bernie Sanders or the scenery or cows or something. Why! Where are they getting their information?
I live in Barre. If anything, I am closer to being made of granite and crochetiness than woo. (Though I can’t claim to be a Vermonter because I can’t really claim to be anything. I have no home. I was born nomadic.) But for real though. Vermont is not a Ben and Jerry’s label or that one time you went to Quechee. I want to dump everyone who thinks like that in Barre or Rutland or the Northeast Kingdom for a day with no cash and no car and see how they do. Welcome to the quaint utopia.
While I feel for you on Vermont utopianism, I’m from New Hampshire and I get the libertarians. I dated an awful man from Massachusetts (well, you did that to yourself, TheasyPeasy) and he probably had a bigger boner for his perceived idea of bucolic, gun-filled NH than he had for me. Yuck.
(Also, hello fellow Northern New England transplant to DC, hello.)
But but Live Free Or Die? Live Free Or Die. It’s totally like Vermont but with Targets and a sliver of beach, right?
I can’t win in northern New England. I just can’t.
Vermont doesn’t have any Targets? But how do you accidentally spend $60 on various products when you just meant to buy a pair of sunglasses? And NH beaches are actually pretty sweet. Jenness Beach was always a favorite.
Every state has something wonderful and something awful. Nevertheless, they are my three favorites states (NH, VT, ME, in that order).
There are no Targets AT ALL. When I want to waste my money on beautiful, cheap, 100% necessary things I have to drive two hours away to Keene. They wanted to put one in near Burlington a while ago, but the hippies shot it down saying they didn’t want another walmart. Going to NH for a beach trip/Target run is seen as a massive endeavor. It’s an actual expedition into civilization.
I lived in VT as a child after moving back to the states, I love so much of it despite the madness, I just wish I could afford to stick around.
And then you’re just in Keene. Blech.
(I don’t really have anything against Keene. Minus that awful incident with Pumpkin Fest last year which was just appalling.)
I do dream of retiring to NH after a long career in DC. But I have no illusions about the snow, the lack of services, the quiet, pervasive racism, and the snow.
I was actually surprised this happened in Vermont! Actually I was surprised this happen at all…this was honestly my first encounter with someone outwardly hostile about my faith. But mostly people have been quite nice.
If it happened near Burlington I’d be shocked. But judging from some of the bumper stickers I see on a daily basis in Barre… Would not be shocked at all. I love you, Barre, I feel for you, but you make it so, so difficult sometimes.
This is really beautiful. Thank you for writing it and sharing your story and your mother’s story with us.
And your bio is great too 🙂
So true about the reactions we can muster when confronted, and how different they are from the reactions we construct at home, seething but safe. For me the most painful one is a crowded bus ride in Napoli, where a standing man rubbed his junk on my thigh the whole ride while I sat paralyzed with disgust. My Italian wasn’t good enough to ask to switch with my elderly seatmate, nor enough to tell the prick to go fuck himself–except that’s not quite true. I knew the words, technically, but still couldn’t say them.
Which is to say, at least now I live in a country where I know the language. Not that it always helps…the sarcastic retort works best mentally and poorly emerges from angry mouths. I bet your scarf did look great, tho.
This was so lovely. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this lovely window into your life with your mom.
Oh my goodness. Thank you for sharing, and you’re right, in the heat of the moment when you’re confronted by a bully, it’s so hard to stand up to them. They count on not fighting back. I’m glad the woman in the supermarket apologized to you but I wish she had said something to him, too! It’s easier to defend others rather than yourself, I find. I sincerely hope that if I ever see someone like this in action, I will step in.
It’s hard for politeness to respond to rudeness–that goes for the woman in the supermarket, as well as for the writer. How does one step in without sinking to the same level? Maybe sometimes one should sink to that level, I don’t know. I keep thinking about how the work was done on gay marriage: by gay people trying to get married, and by living their lives in public, not necessarily confrontational, but by being there, living their lives in public, all the time. Does that work for issues of race/ethnicity? Maybe not. After all, anybody’s child might turn out to be gay. Anybody’s child might convert to Islam, too, but I don’t think people like Mister Vermont see it that way.
I mean, you’re not sinking to the same level unless you’re also spouting racist bullshit, so…
My go-to in these situations is a hearty “and fuck YOU very much too!” delivered with a big smile. I learned that I’m never going to be able to say the super-witty, on-point thing quick enough, but why let the perfect be the enemy of the good?
It’s not the same thing/situation at all, but I know I thought of comebacks to racist schoolyard bullies about ten years too late to do any good.
This was at turns heartwarming, heartbreaking, and entirely beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I am so sorry for all the pain you and your mother have had to go through. I’m sure your mother is proud of you and grateful for all your help.
The section on your mother writing in her unique accent resonated with me. As an editor, I have had the privilege of working with several native Arab- and Turkish-speakers. Sometimes their word choice or grammatical structure will seem a bit strange to me, but I try to preserve as much of their distinct voice as possible. I make corrections pretty much the same way you described: fixing noticeable spelling errors, parallelism, etc. But I try to touch the language itself as little as possible.
I think there’s something special, something beautiful about the careful, cautious language of people writing in a second language. I wish there wasn’t as much stigma against ESL writing.
(Though I’ll confess I’m always happy to work with ESL writers–both on a personal “I’m happy to help polish your writing and boost your confidence” level and a professional “I’m happy to have work and a paycheck” one). As someone who struggled to write compositions in second-year French, I can definitely empathize with how scary it is to try to communicate in a language that’s not quite one’s own.
Thank you again for writing this piece. It has truly made my day.
Things (in order of most to least relevant to your actual post):-
a. Thank you for writing this. It makes me horrified for your mum and for you, and slightly panicked, and and even more full of admiration for anyone who can learn another language fluently as an adult and then go and make a proper, adult life for themselves and their family in a new culture.
b. My lack of brain/mouth filter in adrenaline-heightened situations means I usually voice the snappy comeback and, believe me, that brings its own problems: people who were inadvertently being thoughtless arseholes invariably get defensive and turn into intentional arseholes. And then end up calling you (or me anyway) a fat bitch. So there’s that.
c. I too know the pain of dead plants. Every time I promise it’ll be different. That this time I won’t kill it. Alas, it’s just not meant to be.
d. That’s a great photo! You nailed the selfie.
e. I’m a Jasmine too *waves*
Hi Jasmine! Good to know the other side of the coin. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of hypothetical situations.
I haven’t tried buying another one..though I did buy a cactus and that shriveled up too.
Jasmine, this is lovely; thank you for sharing it.
I didn’t know herb plants in one’s home could be alive. NEWS TO ME.
Thanks Nicole!
Right? We should just buy them wilting and moldy.
I love that I can read this post and “The Best Books You Didn’t Read in 2015” on the same website.
Thanks for sharing, Jasmine. This is a really beautiful piece.
Thank you for writing this. It’s beautiful, and it made me miss my parents even more because I was (and am) also the child who corrected my parents’ written English.
Re: 9/11 and its aftermath — I was also 10 in 2001, and I distinctly remember my mother telling me not to tell anyone where my family was from (Iran), or what my parents’ names were, or what religion we were (answer: the wrong one, according to people like the man who so rudely accosted you in the supermarket). My parents couldn’t even speak their mother tongue in public, with each other or with friends, without being treated hostile-y by other people (and this is becoming a problem again, these days).
I remember when my Muslim friend had to put an American flag sticker on his car after 9/11 (his dad was worried and thought looking patriotic might help). Thinking of the fear he must have felt always broke my heart. I wanted to think we’ve made a lot of progress since then, but the rhetoric has turned so hateful again.
thank you for writing this.
No YOU’RE crying because someone else knows the pain of editing your parents’ english when you want to be watching cartoons, and then 10 years later crying because you’d been so selfish and teenaged.
It makes me so happy to have this perspective, which is a weird thing to say because obviously its subject-matter includes some traumatic and hateful experiences…what I’m trying to say is that this analysis of the role of language in your mother’s life is so beautiful and is yet another thing that, as a white person living in a country in which my first language is the dominant one, I have never experienced, and it makes me really grateful to add it to my understanding of the way people around me might be experiencing the world. And I would love to live in a world where your mother’s voice was universally valued because she sounds pretty awesome.
Also wanted to say that I’m sorry the most supportive reaction you got in the supermarket was to be welcomed into your own country. That is…discouraging.
Thanks for sharing – first because this was really well-written, but second, because my home state could do with a little more self examination on this sort thing.
… Is your dead plant a rosemary? Mine sure is.
Thanks for reading! It has everything–rosemary, basil, cilantro, thyme. And they’re all dead.
This is so true and wonderful, thank you so much for writing it. I’m a second generation British Asian and my parents, despite having been taught in English medium schools in India and working and living in the UK from their early twenties l, have always asked me to dictate my sick notes, from when I was about six. All of this is so perfect.
Great piece! It must be so tricky, balancing on that line between making your point and not tripping people’s fear alarms, when people act like your voice itself is scary. It’s exhausting to feel watched.
When 9/11 happened, there was of course talk of war pretty much immediately. But not against Iraq. The Al-Qaeda network was based in Afghanistan, and so the US invaded Afghanistan. They made noises about the horribly woman-oppressing Taliban to get support for the invasion. Iraq never came into the picture. Iraq was treated kind of like how Iran is treated now – as a functioning state under a dictatorship, not as an ungovernable wilderness where men camp out in caves to form cults and plot terror attacks (that would be Afghanistan).
The Iraq invasion happened years later, in 2003, and the excuse wasn’t 9/11, it was (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction and the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. As I remember it, it was considered really ignorant at the time to conflate Iraq with the 9/11 plot. There was only one American war in the Middle East to keep track of, and everybody knew perfectly well (this being a very publishised war) that the US military’s purpose in Afghanistan was to comb the mountains for Osama.
That’s why the existence of WMD:s was the huge debating point. Even at the time a lot of people thought it was a flimsy, made-up reason (which it was). If Bush could have argued that Iraq was part of the 9/11 conspiracy, no such excuses would have been needed. As it was, he hinted at it some times, but I think it was considered a bit rich even for him.
But after invading, finding no WMD:s and toppling the dictator, the US stayed for almost a decade. I guess that’s when Iraq, Afghanistan and 9/11 started to blend together in people’s minds. Now, it seems like most people believe that the Iraq invasion was a direct response to 9/11, even middle-aged people who followed the news at the time. I think I remember because I WASN’T an adult, because these are the first big international news stories I really engaged with. I didn’t double-check with Wikipedia or anything, but I feel like I have a clear picture in my mind…
I think it’s a little more complicated than that. Cheney publicly brought up Iraq’s relationship with Al Qaeda as early as December 2001, and the administration explicitly linked the invasion of Iraq to the “War on Terror” and said that the war really began on 9/11. It’s more than just the passage of time that has linked them all in people’s minds–it’s also explicit rhetoric and framing from the Bush administration itself. You’re right that it was considered ignorant in some circles to conflate the two, but it’s also true that many, many Americans did so in large part because of what they were hearing straight from the president! [As a side note, talk of war with Iraq was actually one of the first things that came up within the administration’s private discussions in the immediate aftermath of 9/11–even if the link doesn’t make sense, in a weird way it actually was what led very directly to the invasion.]
As I remember it, they tried to tie it together using “War on Terror” as some kind on umbrella term. 9/11 was Terror, being a dictator is Terror, having weapons of mass destruction is Terror, so if you declare a war on terror and hear (invent) rumours about WMD:s in the hands of a Bad Guy, you obviously have the right to follow up on those rumours. And while you’re at it, why not deliver glorious democracy to the suffering people of Iraq? Why, it would be immoral NOT to invade…
The US WANTED to invade Iraq.
The War on Terror vaguely linked 9/11 to Iraq by association, but they had to work to create that association because they couldn’t actually say “Iraq kind of did 9/11” (because then what was all that business in Afghanistan even for).
It really seems like the association succeeded. I mean, I’m not even 30, so it feels really weird to watch history change shape, but people do lump the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan together like they’re the same, and like they’re both a response to 9/11. I would have had a hard time telling them apart if I’d been only a few years younger. Instead, it’s super strange to remember what the narrative sounded like at the time.
On the topic of thinking you’ll be snappy when bullshit happens but then not having the cojones: WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN??? Recently a random guy started talking to me and my kid (he had dogs, which my kid was into) & we were walking the same way so I chatted until he, apropos of nothing, said that we shouldn’t be letting so many Syrian refugees into Canada, they’d be better off in a Muslim country where they wouldn’t lose their identity. And instead of calling him racist to his racist face I just mumbled about how we’re multi faith and have lots of mosques and lots of other resources. Then he doubled down and said that he didn’t want to become Denmark, where they let in a bunch of refugees and now have the highest rate of rape in the world and I still didn’t confront him, I just said that didn’t sound like a believable statistic and decided we were turning at this corner right here.
I think ‘that doesn’t sound like a believable statistic’ is the BEST thing you could have said. Often these types are just looking for a fight/soapbox, and you gave him neither.
Changing his mind was never an option. So the only chance you missed is shouting out all your anger in his miserable face, which might have been cathartic, and for which you would not have needed snappy comebacks, just shoutiness
Thank you. It’s true I was never going to change his mind, I just felt like a coward, especially for not standing up for my values in front of my son. But he’s too young to understand that conversation anyway, so probably I would have just been modelling “shouting at strangers” behaviour to him, which is not what I want to do!
Sad that people can be downright racist and horrible to you and your mom because of their privilege, but that you and your mother have to edit her statements to make them more agreeable. Thank you for sharing your story!
Jasmine, thank you for telling your story, and for telling it so well – it really moved me. It also makes me determined to stand up for others if anything like this ever happens within my earshot. I wish you and your family all the best!
How do you respond? How can you respond? And how can you teach your children to respond?
Last night I read a heartbreaking article on the surge in bullying of Muslim children in schools. My son is only three years old, but he shares a small part of the Bernardino’s shooter’s name. It’s right there, lovingly stenciled on his lunchbox and shoes and coat and hat that he takes to school with him every day. It’s only a matter of time until the other kids are old enough to read it. What will happen then? Even as adults, we struggle to respond to open hatred and racism. How do you deal with sending your kid off to school, knowing it will happen to him, eventually?
You can try an insulate your family as well as you can. Try to pick the “right” town with as mixed demographics as possible, that sort of thing. But even the old belief that trying to stick to the Northeast would provide a little protection is proving futile, as much of the worst rhetoric and blatantly racist actions are coming straight from the Northeastern states. Trump and his crazy friends may eventually froth away, but they’ll leave the groundswell of Islamophobia that they’re building. So. He’ll have to deal with it at some point.
I do know that the human brain is awful at dealing with novel, negative situations. This is why we have a dreadful response time in emergencies, and why things like the bystander effect leave us standing like deer in headlights when faced with things like disasters, crime, and open racism. So perhaps we need to PRACTICE dealing with racism with our children. My heart freezes up at the idea of roleplaying dealing with a racist classmate (or worse, adult) with my baby, but I need to look at it like practicing Stop Drop and Roll for fire safety or other basic safety drills.
The problem is that there’s nice, easy to remember sound bites and actions to remember for dealing with fire. There’s no Stop Drop and Roll for racism, no government organizations helping us cut the emergency up into manageable pieces to remember and deal with. For very little children I would think the focus should be on disengagement, seeking safety, and reporting. But as our kids grow into teenagers, should we change the drills to give other tools as well? Not saying that people HAVE to confront racism, but giving them the practice so that they can confront it if they choose to, and aren’t blindsided into muteness by surprise?
I don’t know any of the answers. These are just the things that keep me staring at the ceiling at night after the three year old needs a 4:30 am potty break.
This is beautiful. Thanks for writing it! (There is not enough beautiful writing about loving mother/daughter relationships.)
Also, old white guys in stores. When you’re in line (or the cashier) and can’t get away. Ugh.
(And I have some herbs I water and repot and move around so they’ll get lots of sunshine and they’re still dying and whyyyyyyyyyy?)
I know it’s not the same, but I often experience this just in terms of sexism. That in your head sassy retort, the casually statistics laden comeback, suddenly dry up when there’s a man in front of you who is acting aggressively and scary. Even when it’s not intentionally threatening, even when it’s just your male uber driver commenting on how attractive you are and wanting to talk to you about it, the words just shrivel up in your throat and it’s hard to swallow because suddenly you’re in a situation where you don’t know how that person will react–sure maybe your comeback will cause them to leave in shame and renounce their ways, but maybe they’ll start shouting, maybe they’ll even respond with physical violence.
I find stories about people who go back to school after a long gap fascinating, and that your mom was doing so in her non-native language just makes her even more intensely cool. And her part in awakening your editor/writer skills is a boon to those of us who get to read your writing. Thanks, Jasmine’s mom!
Confrontation sucks; so often, no matter how often you practice a script just in case / against the inevitable, unfurling your tongue in the moment is an effort.
Thank you. It's true I was never going to change his mind, I just felt like a coward, especially for not standing up for my values in front of my son. But he's too young to understand that conversation anyway, so probably I would have just been modelling "shouting at strangers" behaviour to him, which is not what I want to do!
Always fun and interesting to read your writing!
After reading your writing and bio, I just want to say this: I’m so glad to hear you will be an educator! You will have one of the only opportunities to expose someone to a new worldview and have them actually LISTEN. It’s great!
Jasmine, I love so many things about this narrative. Similar to you and your mother, I am always tongue-tied in the face of ignorance/rudeness but am the queen of quips and snarky repartee when I am snuggled in my bed that night! I sometimes wonder how it would feel to be able to be that callous and confrontational and then I realize that I hope I never learn what it feels like to be that hurtful and insensitive. Your writing style conveys such elegance and beauty and I, too, am so happy you will be an English teacher. Your students will certainly benefit by having a teacher with your skill level as well as sensitivity. I am so grateful for all the comments to your article, This is truly one of the only comment sections I have read that haven’t had some ignorant bore spout some inane comments about how all muslims should… or when you’re wearing a head scarf, you should expect… or some other stupid comment.
I agree it’s refreshing not to read ignorant inane comments, but I think the reason there aren’t any here is that this comments page is moderated.
Ugh. You write beautifully and so sorry to you have to endure Old White Guy Making Witty Remark Of Which He Is Terribly Fond syndrome, which happens to women, especially women of color, everywhere. If this happens to you again, apropos “go home”, remind him that a lot of Native Americans are thinking the same about him. On the other hand, not saying anything at all is probably a good survival skill. Since I’m surrounded by Angry White Men, I don’t have stickers on my car, or make verbal responses, unless I’m absolutely sure they’re not armed with guns. I’m serious. This country is one of the most childish I’ve lived in…
My son’s father is Muslim, originally from Iran. We don’t live together, and my son (who is 13) has my last name, so he probably won’t be confronted as often as if he had his father’s last name, but he loves and is close to his dad’s side of the family, so we talk about these kinds of things. After the San Bernadino shooting, I told him he might hear kids saying things about Muslims, and that if he did, he should say, “You know what? My dad is Muslim and he’s just like everyone else.” I tried to explain how people are irrational when they’re afraid. Luckily we live in a very multi-cultural city and he is hardly the only Muslim or part-Muslim kid in his school, but still I fear for his safety. His first name is a common name in that part of the world, and not in this part.
I can only hope that all of the idiot politicians on the right lead to a Hillary landslide. Hillary is not my favorite candidate, but I don’t think she will tolerate anti-Muslim rhetoric, or actions.