From the plane, 11/30 (brace yourself)

Sitting on the plane back to Honolulu, I read my magazines – the ones I spent nearly $15 on – to keep myself company, since my money was stored away in the overhead cabin 2 or 3 rows away, way out of reach without inconveniencing the other passengers, and I couldn't buy a pair of 2 dollar headphones. (I’m sure the kindly gentleman in seat 23D didn’t appreciate my torso in his face when I put my bag up there to begin with.)

I read about Michelle Rhee, the chancellor or superintendent of public education in DC, and about MIA as an artist and revolutionary. Both with very different stories, doing completely different things, but sharing the goal of subversion. Rhee, with her attack on the school system in ways that both alienated and excited education proponents, and MIA, with her family activist background, unusual sound, and determined character that led to her success as a South Asian female rapper.

I thought back to my conversation with Viet about this – “subversion.” It’s the age- old question of, do we keep fighting the system, or do we just learn to work within it?

And then it led me to my own life, and my own passions about my community, about my politics and my own convictions. Different people take action in different ways – Michelle Rhee by just doing, without caring about what anyone else says, and MIA through her music. They both though, are working within the system to try and break it down.

What is my own way of breaking down the system? My own way of taking action? And why the hell do I care so much?

I definitely consider myself significantly privileged, in my everyday life – in education, materialistically, financially, even at home. I’ve had a good education thus far and have the resources to continue onto law school like I plan (knock on wood), just got a new macbook, can make just enough money to get by with parental backup as an option if not, and my family is the shit. I appreciated them before while I was in college, but I love them all the more now that I’m away in Hawaii.

The two women I just read about came from intense immigrant backgrounds and lived through some degree of intense hardship and struggle.

But then again, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

I was born and raised in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, on a street called Breed right by First and Soto streets. My parents are 14 years apart in age, my father my mother’s senior, and I only vaguely remember growing up in that house as a baby, with the vomit-green carpet and matching curtains. From watching home videos of myself and my sister growing up, I remember that I was pretty jealous of my sister when she was born, getting all the attention as a baby and all that. My mother had doted on me like crazy, being the first-born daughter that could read Dr. Seuss smoothly by the age of 2. But of course things change when a newer, cuter baby is born into the family.

Still, my parents did a good job of raising us without all that potential emotional baggage that can seep into a family’s history and subconscious.

Boyle Heights was an unforgivingly impoverished neighborhood, and it deprived our family of days out at the park, learning how to ride our bikes or run around and play ball with the neighborhood kids. Instead, my sister and I never learned how to ride bikes, and walking a block away was dangerous. We lived in something like fear, of the neighborhood gangs and drug dealing, and the occasional gunshots that would ring out in the middle of the night. Homeless folk would wander into our backyard and camp out there until my dad would scare them off with the katana (samurai swords) he owned. We were burglared a few times, but escaped any bodily harm, those 19 years we lived there. We even hated our neighbors.

In kindergarten I also attended the local school, Breed Street School, only a 2 minute walk from home. I have fond memories of that school, as the only Asian American kid (though of course I had no clue at the time) who unknowingly picked up the Spanish-accented English the other children spoke. I still made good friends, had fun, read books and stories to my classmates as the only kid who could read. It was thanks to my mom’s dedication to education that I moved on, later, in second grade, to a better-equipped magnet school.

Although an elementary school kid could never know it at the time, growing up we were in the lower middle class bracket. We had some nice things, but mostly not; with my dad working as a cook and my mom staying home, there wasn’t a whole lot that we could afford, especially in the way of luxuries. My mom started work, while I was in elementary school, actually, as a legal secretary for a family law firm. That helped out with income a bit.

I was of course, never the popular kid in school, though I rarely had self-esteem issues. Looking back I would describe myself as a confident, semi-awkwardly dressed, sometimes awkward-acting, outgoing glasses-wearing kid who was never liked by boys in THAT way, but I never had a shortage of good friends. Save the glasses part, I would say I haven’t changed much, though I am much more picky about my fashionable appearance these days.

But then, somewhere in the middle school-high school years, my mom made the decision to start going to law school. As a motivated, former straight-A student who had graduated from UCLA with a BS in Microbiology, she decided she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life as a dead-end legal secretary. She wanted to pursue success on the next level, and with so many years at that firm under her belt, law school seemed like the best answer. My dad, knowing it would take a toll on our family life, not having Mom around, and even worse, strain our financial situation significantly, still backed her 110%. If only we could all find supportive and loving men like that.

So law school began, and so did mom’s time away from home. She was rarely around anymore, and this was tough, since she was the one who raised my sister and myself. Helped us with our homework, all of that kind of thing. Amazingly, she still found time to do most of it. Dad is more of the silent parent type, and I admit, sis and I had a bit of an awkward time getting to know him better during that time, but it was good for us, as our relationship is happy and much stronger now.

To add to the emotional stress of not having mom around much anymore, we had to deal with the reality of not being able to afford all of the everyday luxuries we take for granted now. We had to eat at home all the time, couldn’t afford a night out at the movie theatres, had to cut out a lot of the comforts of life. I just remember being stressed out and angry at my parents for everything. It was doubly a rough time – not only was the family having a hard time, but I was right at the peak of my adolescent hormonal angst. High school was definitely a rough time, in too many ways to explain.

But the one rough thing about high school that I can look back on now, and the thing I tell people the most when they ask about how I got so involved in community work, is that I swore that I hated Japanese Americans as a people, as my kind. Although I knew perfectly well and would admit that it was a part of my ethnic identity, the JA kids I was around just didn’t do it for me. I thought they were dumb, vapid, and a waste of my time. I also had a complex from being at a high school program called “The Highly Gifted Magnet.” As ridiculous as it may sound, it was rough being labeled the “smart kid” at school by the other kids – in band, other classes, and so on. And triple that from the fact that I was an Asian American girl.

Although, I guess it wasn’t really THAT rough, given that I was to some extent, the overachieving student – more so in earlier years than in high school, since I got a C in AP Calculus my junior year…but then again, I was in AP Calculus to begin with, and it was my first C ever – and did well because in a lot of ways I did fit the stereotype. I was even nice to everyone and glad to avoid any negative confrontations.

So that was high school - anger, bitterness, money problems, good and bad grades, and then here come college admissions. Despite being the top 5% of the entire senior class, I was rejected from all of the colleges I applied to, save UCLA. To add insult to injury, I had applied mostly to schools back East because I was so eager to get away from home and make it on my own – I was so angry at my family for everything (though they did nothing to cause my stress). But here I was, stuck in LA, just a half hour from home, and I was angry at the world.

But as most of you know, college changed my life. Shaped my politics, made me want to flip off the Man, hate white people, all that sort of thing. And during my junior year of college, my mom graduated from law school and was lucky enough to find a six-figure income law firm job.

Everyone told me then, how lucky I was that Mom was such a great woman, working part time while still going to law school part time (yeah, did I forget to mention that? As if law school at almost 40 weren’t amazing enough), and with a family at that! I guess I didn’t really know it then, but it is incredible, what she and my dad did. Held it together, and all for a better future – for our whole family.

Maybe it’s because I’m a compassionate being, or maybe it’s because somewhere, deep down inside – despite not having made an explicit connection – I do identify with these families, communities, people who suffer these kinds of hardships everyday, that I care so much about, well, our society.

Or maybe it has nothing to do with me – maybe it’s just how any normal person would react if they knew the truth about our ridiculous world.

Like taking the red pill, right?

But I do now understand, with more clarity and appreciation than ever, that everything I can do now is all in thanks to my parents – to the ones who came before me. My story isn’t one of first generation immigration, of extreme hardship or financial everyday struggle, like MIA or other went through, but it is one of privilege, of privilege that I now have because of what a young, impoverished naïve girl from Gardena, and an accomplished kendoist who cooks as a career were able to create when they made the decision to start a family. They created a secure, loving, and stable environment – one that, despite lacking large amounts of money, gave birth to me, and my sister – the headed-for-success fashion designer.

It is also true, that this generation has the capacity for something great. And let this be a prophecy that I put down now, on digital paper – that there is something great coming, and we will be a part of it. Never mind the cliché of change, it’s coming, blah blah blah – I know Obama is undeniably a part of it – but it is genuinely a feeling in my gut that I can’t shake off. Despite being somewhat politically stagnant in Hawaii, I feel like it’s the calm before the storm.

Something is coming.

I didn’t mean for this to become some sort of common Asian American activist piece – I must admit, although I’m glad we can all have moments of clarity about our ancestral accomplishments, identity, and all that sort of thing, it is getting kind of tired – but you know, sometimes the thoughts just flood my brain and I need to write it down, in case some rhetoric gem is wasted by my failure to grab some paper and record it. It also doesn’t help that I’m stuck on this 5 hour flight with the lights out, and no headphones because I couldn’t get to my wallet to pay 2 bucks for it. I’m also starving so this is a good distraction.

I feel like life is full of so many ridiculous contradictions, questions, and wrongdoings – and not to get all “we are the world” on you, but I think we’re just a misguided people.

Whether its “fuck the system” or “get in it to win it ” – the subversive version - I am adamant about the fact that I will dedicate myself to the work that I love so much now. I will never give up on my people, on my community, on my family and friends. This is an oath, of sorts, and a one, along with my prophecy, that I want to look back on in 10 years and realize I was at least mostly right.

Now, if only I can stop being such an “S”….

But I guess that is a story for another time. America, here we come.