Must be the bad economy

Strange these stories about the “Asian invasion” of honors programs and magnet schools are popping up again. The Washington Post did a story recently about the fact that Asian Americans are now the plurality at the plum suburban magnet school. Another story in the LA Times asked the question, “Why do Asian students generally get higher marks?” During the late 1980s and 1990s, stories popped up in newspapers about why it is that Asians were “overrepresented” at the nation’s top-flight public universities.

Must be the bad economy. When things go bad, we target Latino immigrants for exclusion and use Asians as tools. Or we target public programs for cutting and hold up Asians as self-reliant model minorities. Comparing educational marks seems to be a favorite tool. We were in a recession during those discussions in the 1980s and 1990s. And here we are, facing job losses and inflation in the United States today. Time to pit minorities against one another again.

Here’s the thing, comparing Asian Americans with Latinos or African Americans and calling them “model minorities” and lauding their work ethic and achievements, while decrying the lack of ambition of others is not fair. Most Asians here are college-educated and here in the United States because they couldn’t find meaningful work at their home countries. The slaves who work $5 a week in Asia are still slaving over there because they can’t afford the plane fare to come here. If they were here, they’d be earning low marks, too. We can’t compare Asians here with Latinos and African Americans because our histories are different.

The fact is that for centuries, Europeans used dark people throughout the world for cheap labor, subjugating them as real slaves or paying them wages so they had a standard of living that was like slaves. African Americans were enslaved for centuries in this country and told that their children and children’s children could do no more and be nothing more than slaves. And Latinos were paid slave wages here and in their home countries and pretty much told the same thing — you deserve nothing better than your menial job. If for centuries, you keep people subjugated and uneducated to use them as cheap labor, there will be an entrenched culture of low expectations that will take years to reverse.

This doesn’t mean that because some Latinos and African Americans are living in a culture of low expectations that we should accept that as an excuse or a good reason to give up on offering quality education to Latinos and African Americans. It means it will take meaningful effort to change things. And while there have been many changes in this country, there has also been a lot of lip service and simply going through the motions in our public education system.

The use of Asians and stating that they are superior “minorities,” to say that there is something inherent and entitled about achievement among Asian Americans is to a. diminish the achievements of the individuals who have worked hard to do well in this country and b. to say that we should just give up on those other low-achieving minorities.

That’s just wrong.

First, we should not bar entry or set higher standards for students in so-called high-achieving groups (Asians), just because we are afraid of their success and differentness. And second, we should not give up on the egalitarian ideals of our country. A high quality education is a right for all people — Black, White, Asian, Latino, whatever. And third, and I cannot stress this enough, we have not done enough in this country to pay our debt to those who have built this country through their slave labor. We owe it — especially to African Americans — this debt of empowerment, of higher cultural expectations, of opportunities for upward mobility. We owe everybody a high quality education and we should groom all children to be ready for it.

 

Asian American DREAM

Recently, I came across this Web site/blog: aapidream.com. It is a class project for students from the University of California at Los Angeles, meant to be a venue for young Asian immigrants, who arrived in the United States with their parents, but have no rights as a citizen of any country.

The national discussion of the DREAM Act focuses almost exclusively on Latinos, with anti-immigration rhetoric directed against Mexican immigrants and their children. It’s hard to think that people of this country — the beneficiaries of one of the most egalitarian constitutions in the world — should direct venomous vitriol against children. But, the fact that this act hasn’t passed speaks to the fact that during tough economic times, politicians and the public turn xenophic.

What largely gets ignored during the discussion — for or against immigration or for or against the DREAM Act — is the fact that the current anti-immigrant environment has also had a detrimental impact on immigrants of all ethnicities and countries of origin, including Asians.

This Web site gives voice to the children of Asian immigrants — some who are the refugees of war, famine, poverty, and political torture. While many immigrants have come to the United States seeking improvement in their economic status and standard of living (what’s wrong with that?), their children had no choice on whether to leave their home countries or not. They came to the United States as wards of their parents, and grew up as Americans in U.S. schools and experiencing American culture. But under current laws, they have no rights and no country.

 

Did the Clinton people cheat or were they just gaming the system here in Texas?

Before going down to the local elementary school to caucus for the first time since I’d been a registered voter, I had been curious, almost giddy that we were going to be participating in this quaint, arcane process of counting bodies in a building. I have since learned that people –particularly partisan hacks paid to manipulate elections — game these mysterious, ambiguous processes and take advantage of people’s lack of sophistication and naivete.

Before I early voted last week, I had been uncommitted as to which Democratic nominee would have my vote. I had been impressed with the Obama camp’s organization, the zeal of their volunteers, their use of technology, and the personal nature of their campaign. I got several personal invitations from friends who had volunteered for his campaign.

I got  phone calls with recordings from the Clinton people. I had wondered: Where was the famous Clinton organization?

Tonight, I learned where they have focused their efforts: on rules and procedures, on manipulating caucus, on getting by through legal loopholes and the aggressiveness of campaign workers willing to creatively interpret these arcane caucus regulations.

My precinct in San Antonio was the largest in the neighborhood polling site with 11 delegates at stake. The line for the Clinton supporters in our precinct was flowing well, but the Obama side remained immobile. A few us started to wonder, “What’s going on here?” So we asked questions. And the young man with the red sweat shirt, the big smirk on his face and the Clinton sign on his lap just shrugged and said, “Hey, I’m just a volunteer. Don’t jump on me, we’re making things go as fast as we can. We’re only supposed to have one person checking IDs, but we’ve got two.” He had grabbed the precinct packets, which contained the enrollment forms and the precinct information and so he controlled the flow of the precinct enrollment.

I called our precinct captain — a civic-minded man in our neighborhood, apparently not accustomed to this kind of aggressive chicanery in our precinct — and asked him, “Is that right? Aren’t you supposed to be running things?” So we read the rules and procedures. And I went around the gymnasium of the elementary school, and observed how many people were checking IDs and enrolling people at other precincts — some precincts had two people, some had three — and I learned that indeed, the young man in the red sweatshirt was gaming the system. We got some Obama supporters who had already enrolled in their precincts to volunteer to check IDs and enroll people so we could get our line flowing. The Hillary camp was obviously trying to tire us out so we would just go home and not vote.

Another young man wearing a silver tie and a Hillary Clinton button was telling the Obama supporters that they could go home. But, I shouted out, no, it’s better that you stay. There was such an atmosphere of mistrust, misinformation, frustration and fatigue.

At the end of the process, the Clinton people outnumbered the Obama people in the election of precinct chairwoman and secretary. Those of us who had become enraged at the shenanigans had to watch the chairwoman and the secretary like hawks because they were trying to add nonexistent Clinton voters. When we caught them trying to add three votes, they shouted us down. It seemed to be a very well coordinated attack on our precinct. To tell you the truth, I don’t think any of these Clinton supporters were actually voters in my district.

This whole process has left me with a sick stomach. To think that these people could live with themselves and be happy manipulating an election, I can’t understand it. In the end, Clinton got six or seven delegates and Obama got four or five, with 59 Clinton people enrolled and 40 Obama people enrolled. I have to wonder: How many Obama people left because they got bad information from the Clinton precinct “volunteers?”

I had never been anti-Hillary. But this whole scene infuriated me. If she wins, I can’t help but think that she will have done so the old-fashioned way — by gaming the system and manipulating votes.

 

Update On Terrible Threes

Earlier, I wrote about a frustrating spell with my daughter. These days, she is practically angelic. What a difference the right antibiotic makes.

Just before her third birthday, my daughter had been diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. Well, long story short, the antibiotic the doctor had prescribed twice did not work either the first or second time. We were in the doctor’s office three times. The third visit, I questioned the efficacy of that particular antibiotic on the strain of bacteria affecting my daughter. The doctor became quite defensive and said that perhaps my daughter was simply “acting up” because that’s the standard of behavior that “gets attention.” She prescribed Motrin and sent us off.

Not liking that diagnosis or the treatment we got from that doctor, I called a friend, who is the director of a pediatric emergency room. And the nurses on staff at the pediatric ER were able to quickly and efficiently obtain a urine sample. My friend prescribed another antibiotic. And after three weeks of infection, she is finally PAIN-FREE!

These days, my daughter is smiling and so happy that she isn’t feeling any pain, she declares out of the blue: “I’m so happy, Mommy. I’m so happy.” I am, too.

But to see the difference in behavior is a lesson for me. Even though she’s like a little person and she’s much more talkative and verbal these days, I have to remind myself that she’s closer to being a baby than being an adult. How could she feel anything other than rage, frustration, anger, discomfort, and pain when experiencing a urinary tract infection? Why didn’t I understand that right away?

My daughter is strong-willed, at times cheeky, but like most people, she’s happiest when she’s not in pain. And I need to remind myself that sometimes a problem that a child is experiencing is not always behavioral… sometimes it’s medical.

 

Terrible threes…

My daughter turned three last week.

A neighbor, whose daughter is about three months older than my daughter and is in the same preschool, told me that a week after her daughter turned three, something terrible happened. She lost her relatively mild-mannered two-year-old and got back a feisty, angry, sassy three-year-old.

And darned it, the same thing happened to me.  My daughter looks so sweet to most people. And she can put on a good show. But, behind closed doors, my daughter can be the most strong-willed, manipulative little beast out there.

Take for example, bath-time. She hates baths. Starting at about 18 months, she really started hating it, showing her displeasure by screaming during the whole process. Well, she’s taken to kicking, wriggling and using psychological warfare. She’ll scream that she needs the potty, and then once on the potty, she’ll scream that she doesn’t need the potty and that she wants to go to bed. Of course, that’s a lie and we know it. So, we continue with the bath with her screaming, “You don’t love me! No! You don’t love me! I don’t love you!”

Her tantrums continue after the bath with her alternately demanding to wear her panties and then screaming for a diaper. With either on her bottom, she promptly removes whatever undergarments she might be wearing and throws them across the room. Once, she took her diaper and started biting it and screaming, “I don’t want a diaper! I don’t want big kid pants.”

These completely exhausting episodes often involve us wrestling her on her bed, Greco-Roman style, and completely tying down her hands with our arms so she can’t slap us. The tantrums can last up to a half-hour. During our most trying days this week, the tantrums have occurred twice a day.

It became evident that this was some sort of emotional period for her, because during one of these episodes, she started screaming, “I don’t want to grow up, Mommy. I don’t want to grow up. I’m not a baby anymore. I don’t want to grow up.”

I am hesitant to talk about this with older parents because I get such bad advice — “Slap her,” “Spank her,” “Show her who’s boss by smacking her,” for example. So, I’ve talked it over with other young parents, some who are family therapists, social workers, teachers, etc., experts in their particular caring profession.

We’re tired and exhausted now, but we accept that this is just a period of transition that could go on for some time. She’s going through something, something akin to what teenagers go through. She remembers the good old baby days fondly, but knows that big girl days are ahead of her. She knows that big girl days can be just as good or even better, but is frustrated by her inability to do everything that big kids can do. At the same time, she misses being held and doted over like a baby.  She cries about it and so do I.

 

The update on my Mazda

So, we’ve pumped $1,000 into my 2000 Protege after my car started self-accelerating on the freeway in December. The mechanic, who’s a friend of my husband’s cousin, replaced the idle air control valve. That cost $550 in mid-December. After the check-engine light came on again two weeks later, we went into the same shop and they replaced the exhaust gas recirculation valve. That cost $450 right after New Year’s Day.

It’s been 2 1/2 weeks and so far, no engine light. And let’s hope it stays that way… because if it doesn’t, the mechanic has another idea for what might need replacement — the throttle body. And from what I’ve learned, throttle bodies for Mazda Proteges can cost $500. Of course, they would then also have to charge labor. Yikes.

Another thing I’ve learned is that the fuel lines for modern, computerized vehicles need to be periodically cleaned out, especially if your pattern of driving is similar to mine. I drive short distances in the city. We live about two miles from Downtown San Antonio and everything I need to get to is within  five miles. That’s great for our lifestyle. But apparently, it’s not good for computer sensors inside vehicles.

Because the car doesn’t get going at a fast speed and because I do a lot of stop-and-go driving on city streets, the pollutants and gunk stay inside the fuel line. It doesn’t go away, unless you clean it out with Gumout or something similar. My mechanics have advised me to put the stuff into my fuel line periodically (once a month, twice a year, it has varied) and to run my car up and down a freeway for 10 minutes.

If the pollutants and gunk stay in the fuel line, they interfere with the many, many computer sensors that maintain the proper air-fuel mixture (there are several of those, including the ones I had already mentioned — the idle air control valve and the EGR valve — there’s also the oxygen sensors, the airflow meter and who knows what else).

We are staying with the car for now because we are trying to save some money. At first I was pretty frightened of the prospect that it could self-accelerate again. But, I am aware of the symptoms that could lead to the problem reoccurring. And so far, we haven’t experienced those symptoms. I’m hoping that by writing this, I am helping other car owners and not jinxing myself!

I am not overly religious, but I will take prayers from anybody of any religion for my car. Light a candle for my Mazda. Send me your good car karma and I will send it right back to you.

 

Mazda sucks. Big Time.

My 2000 Mazda Protege is — for all intents and purposes — practically dead, even though it only has 68,000 miles. Let me clarify: It is running — but a little too easily. Last week, after lifting my foot off the accelerator pedal and without hitting cruise control, my car started accelerating on its own. I hit the brakes, but it didn’t stop my car. That freaked me out. Compounding the whole situation was the fact that my two-year-old was in the backseat. Luckily I was on the freeway and not in a parking lot, or in a school zone, or in traffic. I exited the freeway to a street that I knew would be practically abandoned. I put the car in neutral. That finally slowed the car down, but it was revving at 5,000 RPM in neutral. So, I turned the engine off. Shaking, perturbed and worried for my child, I called AAA for a tow.

Just why my car just suddenly started accelerating on its own has been a mystery to the two mechanics that I’ve brought it to, so far. The codes for this problem are not coming up on the computer. Wasn’t there a time when mechanics were able to diagnose a problem without computers? Anyway, the only clue that my car — which has since stopped accelerating on its own — can offer is that it “sails” on its own for a couple seconds when I lift my foot off the pedal and idles high — about 1,000 RPM — in park. I’m bringing it to a third mechanic tomorrow. And if he can’t figure it out, I will bring it to the Mazda dealership’s service department, even though my warranty has expired (5-year, 60,000 miles — they know how to time it really well, don’t they?).

I have been hesitant to bring my car to the dealer because the last time I did so, they charged me $60 just to hook the car up to a computer when my check engine light came on. What was the problem? The gas cap needed to be screwed on tighter. It cost me $60 to learn that my gas cap needed to be screwed on tighter. Sure, I should have tightened my gas cap. But, given that I had been using them and wanted to keep using them — they are the Protege experts, aren’t they? — they could have chosen to cut me some slack or offered me a bit of a discount, especially considering the fact that it’s pretty easy to hook up a car to a computer diagnostic device (I’ve since seen it done three times — it takes one minute and the computer is hand-held). But, they didn’t do the right thing. They charged me $60 to perform a one-minute procedure.

I wanted to like Mazda. I bought one, after all. I wanted my car to live to the ripe old age of 20. I wanted it to be the car that I used to teach my daughter to drive. But more than likely, it will end up in a trash heap before the year is done. I can’t comfortably drive a car that spontaneously accelerates on its own.

 

Trilingual?

My daughter, who is 2 years and 9 months old, has taken to speaking a gibberish language that she calls Shee-Shash-Shush. We think it’s a hilarious statement on autonomy and self-determination.

My husband speaks to my daughter in Spanish. I speak to her in English. And she responds to us in the respective languages we speak to her. But when she feels like it, when she’s feeling playful or when she wants to make a political statement about getting dressed, having to take a bath, potty-training, etc., she speaks to us in Shee-Shash-Shush. We respond to her in what we believe is her language, but she retorts back: “No! Want to do Shee-Shash-Shush all by myself!”

The more languages a person can speak, the more prepared she will be for this 21st century world of globalization!

 

Be strong. Get on that airplane with your baby.

This Thanksgiving, we’re heading to California. And my toddler daughter MJ can’t wait. She loves to fly.

Before my father died a couple years ago, however, I couldn’t muster up the courage I needed to hop on an airplane with her.

You see, MJ was one of those screamers - the infants who protest the indignities of car seats and strollers; the ones who aren’t satisfied unless they have total control and absolute freedom.

So, I shunned flying to family reunions. Regretfully, I stayed home after considering whether to help my father celebrate his 65th birthday in California.

Then, just a few days after his birthday, my father died and we had no choice but to squelch the fears and get on that airplane with The Screamer.

Not only did she not scream as we made our connections and jostled to and fro, she seemed to enjoy the spectacle of people rushing back and forth, the rolling of the luggage wheels, the creaking of the giant carts, the swirling of the conveyor belts.

Getting to the airport and going to new places, it seems, is more entertaining than her every day life. Who knew that infants and toddlers could be so much like… real people?

Well, since then, my daughter has logged 22,000 air miles, traveled to South America, and tolerated a 365-mile road trip up the California Coast. All without serious power-to-the-babies protests.

Before reaching this liberated state a couple years ago, we had just a few rushed hours to prepare for travel. Within 12 hours of being notified about my father’s death, we were on a Southwest Airlines flight to Southern California.

We had little time to research, pack and prepare. No overanalyzing things. No time to read and re-read, pack and repack.

We had just enough time to buy the tickets, bring the bare necessities, and read a few pages in a parenting book.

The books offered some helpful advice. The best offering was this from Elizabeth Pantley:
“If your child falls asleep easily and stays asleep, try scheduling travel for during your child’s nap or sleep times. If you have a finicky sleeper, on the other hand, avoid traveling during usual sleep times, as your baby may just stay fussy and awake.”

Fortunately, MJ inherited her father’s sleep genes.

So, it works like clockwork every time: We run her around the airport. She gets tired. We give her a filling snack. And when it’s time to nap, she dozes on the plane.

We’ve traveled for weddings, Christmas visits, conferences, and a family reunion. Last year, we traveled to Quito, Ecuador, for my husband’s grandfather’s 95th birthday. Each time it has worked like a charm.

We rarely see babies screaming on airplanes. Babies are happiest up against a warm parent. And on an airplane, parents generally stay in place and hold their children.

Maybe I’ve become more patient and tolerant of young travelers now that we have one in my nuclear family.

But the truth is, a lot more people in this world love children than hate them.

In fact, in some countries and with some airlines, it’s company policy to give parents of small children preferential treatment.

Travel with a baby? Travel with a toddler? I recommend it wholeheartedly.

 

El Día de los Muertos — Farewell John Gutierrez-Mier, rest in peace Dad

Here in San Antonio, and in many other cities across the globe where the Spaniards left a mark, Latinos honor their dead loved-ones early in November on All Saints Day (Nov. 1) or All Souls Day (Nov. 2).

During these days, my mother would pay special homage to her father, my uncle, and now my father, who have all passed away in recent decades. She would go to church and pray for their souls and think about them. Since my father died a couple years ago, she has been visiting his grave site. In the Philippines, family members make a special trip of visiting graves, sweeping away dirt, lighting candles and leaving offerings.

Mexican Americans in Texas honor their dead loved-ones similarly, except they’ve incorporated pre-Colombian traditions, using painted or papier-mache skeletal figures to represent their loved ones, marigolds (flor de muertos) to attract the souls of their loved ones, and symbols representing the earth’s elements.

Recently, I attended a memorial for a dear friend who passed away. He was much too young to have died. John Gutierrez-Mier was just 43 years old. He died a couple of days after a surgery that was to have bought him some time while he waited for a heart transplant.

Last week, friends and family held a memorial in his honor, where his Tía Virgie from Philadelphia erected an altar, to which friends added ofrendas of fruit, other food, sports memorabilia and Tecate. His friends told wildly entertaining stories about his famous forgetfulness (a device used at his convenience) and his big heart, his love of people and pets. Because it had been a while since I had last seen my friend — he lives in Ft. Worth and I live in San Antonio — it hit home for me that he was dead, that he died, that he no longer was with us. It was a beautiful memorial and a moving offering to this wonderful soul. I will miss him.

Right now, San Antonio is awash with very public Día de Los Muertos altars in museums and other institutes of culture. Many of the altars are more art than offering, more cynical than sentimental. Today, we visited the SaySí Día de Los Muertos displays. Students and their professional artist instructors made altars — again some more art than altar.

But, a few left me in tears — particularly a teenager’s offering to a friend, complete with photos of this beautiful young woman smiling while talking on a cell phone, sticking out her tongue at the photographer, and swimming on the beach. Next to these photos of this vibrant person was a photo of her grave. It left me moved and chilled all at the same time. So young, so beautiful. And no longer with us.

The exhibit had me thinking of my dead loved ones — my father who died suddenly 2 1/2 years ago and my dear friend, John, who passed away just this August. I held onto my daughter and fought back tears as I thought about the fleeting nature of life, the pain we suffer when our loved ones leave us and the cycle of life that brings new loved-ones into our lives, as it removes others. So suddenly, these loved ones disappear.

The display moved me to remember that while yes, we mourn the deaths of the people we love, we also must seize all opportunities to honor and appreciate people while they are alive and with us. It gets harder and harder to do these days, especially for immigrants whose loved ones are across the seas or over borders. But, death and these memorials honoring our dead loved ones are a reminder to us all to live the lives we want to live and to truly love the people we love.