These days, Isaiah is content being his own Magellan.  He wanders the house, inspecting every little thing that he thinks is interesting, points (with his finger now!  not his palm like he’s gesturing for you to sing along!) and says something in his secret language.  I interpret the best I can and then give some moronic excuse.  My responses never satisfy him because he always looks somewhat disappointed in me after I’m done talking, like it wasn’t creative enough or something.  I get defensive.  Like, SORRY, THERE’S NOT MUCH TO SAY ABOUT THE DOOR STOPPER THIS MORNING.

I wonder what he’s thinking.  Every little thing he points to, I explain what it is and he looks so darn disappointed, as if the straw in his Mott’s Apple Juice box is actually a magic stick that turns into a sparkling rocket at night.  Sorry, Isaiah.  No such fun in our boring house.

The things I personally find exciting these days are the little milestones that Nick and I notice every few days.  This morning, he took one of his shoes, pulled the sides wider and pulled the tongue out, just like I do, and tried to stuff his fat foot into it.  I just stared at him, WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO DO THAT?  I’ve done it five times with you and suddenly he’s trying to put on his own shoes.  I swear, next week, he’s going to wake up and tie his shoelaces on his own.

He walks more steadily now and out of nowhere decides by himself that he’s no longer allergic to dairy.  Seriously.  This kid is in control of his own destiny.  Out of nowhere, he starts eating colby jack cheese like he’s never been fed before and demolishes it like his bones are screaming for more.  And no breakouts.  Nothing.

Another milestone, or rather, important step in his development is his personal decision that Nick is CLEARLY the better parent and way cooler than his mom.  So much so, he prefers his dad over his mom any minute of any day of the week.  The proof came earlier this week when we took him in for his 15 month doctor appointment.  He had to get his shots and even though it was Nick holding him and I was smiling in his face, even though it was Nick holding his thigh out for the doctor to stab, even though it was Nick holding his head when he was shaking it NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, HE STILL REACHED FOR NICK TO BE COMFORTED after the shots were over and he was screaming bloody murder.

Whose that lady over there?  Oh yeah, that’s that one woman who let me hang out in her womb for 9 months.  I think her name is Mom.  Forget it, I just prefer to say DAH DEE all the time.

Isaiah say MAMA.

DahDEE!

Isaiah say DADDY.

DahDEE!  DAH DEEEEE!

Isaiah say Baby.

DAH DEE!

Isaiah say MAMA.

DAAAAAAHHHHDEEEEEE!

Ok, how about MAMA?

DAHDEE!

Ok. That’s fine.  Thanks.

I am not a being living alone, severed from the world.

I am a living being, connected to forces, people, ideas, and energy all around me.

And being interdependent means not that I always rely and depend on others for advice, but I am constantly held up by these strings of love for survival.

Interdependence means community and solidarity, understanding and respect.

Here and now, I want to declare my state of interdependence for motherhood: I am my own person, interlocked in arms of support.  This interdependence has given me strength to reject dream-butchering voices that told me to

…take what I can get and be grateful I got at least that

…do whatever I had to in a relationship to keep it going

…be a stay at home mother

…that I was a bad mother for not being a stay at home mother

…that I was a selfish mother for admitting things other than Isaiah made my heart sing

…that I was a crazy mother for needing time away and actually taking it

…that I was a foolish wife to travel across the globe without my spouse for over two months

…that I should be more grateful that I married a man who happened to be white

…that I would stop questioning everything after I got married

…that I was indecisive because I kept choosing different paths to experience more life

…that I was an egomaniac for pursuing creative non-fiction writing

…that tourist places are the best ways to experience other countries

…that I had to choose between Catholicism and Feminism

…that I had to choose between gender and race

…that I wasn’t Filipino enough without fluent Tagalog

…that restlessness was a sign of depression

…that depression was a sign of abnormality

…that abnormality was something to be ashamed of

…that creativity was a sign of rebellion

…that liberal was the same as radical

…that radical was the same as progressive

…that love was the same as self-forgetting

…that marriage had to be a thing of habit and predictability

…that life had to be a routine of familiarity and safety

…that spirituality had to center on wholeness and ignore brokeness

…that I deserved to be punished for simply living out what I truly believed

…that problems disappear with geography

…that the deepest wounds would come from strangers and acquaintences

…that people give you the benefit of the doubt

…that once you cross the line you can always turn back

…that apologies move the relationship forward

Without interdependence, I would have listened to these voices and believed it, and walked down a path that would have led me somewhere to be less than who I am today.

I sometimes feel like piecing together digital photos, music, and meaningful text is an artistic expression.  There’s so much movement and feeling when you put something to music, it’s just incredible.

I’m putting the last touches on a wedding slideshow for Nick’s cousin, Janell, who is getting married in the beginning of May.  I love looking through the lives of people in pictures.  It gives me a glimpse of how beautifully unique and yet common our lives are — and how much love between families can be revealed in a parade of chronologically placed photos.

Have you ever built a slideshow?  It’s one of the things I consider myself a master with — the art of timing, format, synchronicity, color, music, transition, message, theme, age, and milestone.

It’s a work of art, truly.

If you ever need an exercise to reflect on how fast time goes and how relationships grow with time, offer to build someone a slideshow.  As you move from birth to gradeschool, dating photos and family trips, you’ll be amazed at how much you can get to know someone by setting their life to music.

Someone made a remark to me several weeks ago, a compliment about my marriage, “It seems like you and Nick are the perfect couple.  You share the same faith, you believe in the same things, you both excel in what you do.  You seem like you would never struggle.  You just seem perfect together.”

In the context of relationships, especially marriage, what does it mean to appear perfect?

I suppose for the man who told me this, my seemingly perfect marriage is based on the outward and expressive love and respect Nick and I give one another.  In many ways, I have realized in the past several weeks, we lead a very public life.  Job-sharing one full time position in a dynamic and vibrant church puts your marriage in the eyes of thousands. In some ways,  we don’t really have the luxury of privacy.  Often times our public presentations about faith and sacraments force us to truly reflect on its meaning in our lives and we are, then, indirectly forced to disclose stories, habits, history, and harmless secrets to our congregation.  I realized this when I led a baptism class this weekend, and led a group discussion on what it means to consider someone “holy.”  I just kept thinking of Nick.

And I shared that thought.

But to say we are “perfect” in any way is plain ludicrous.  There’s no such thing as perfection in relationships.  It is a continuous process of getting to know the other person and creating your life together.  Those decisions are easy.  Those decisions are hard.  Life gives you both.

But the one thing I can say about my relationship to Nick that sets our marriage on fire: we respect the heck out of each other.

We couldn’t be more different.  We couldn’t respond to anything in the same way, but we couldn’t be more in love with each other.  Respect is allowing the other what they really truly need from time to time and taking on whatever consequences or sacrifices it entails.

And when we take the time to breathe and look at one another, we are grateful for the other.  Endlessly grateful.

We shine with respect and gratitude.  That’s what has the illusion of “perfection” in marriage.  But it’s not perfections, it’s better: it’s love.

We always think what we cannot see is better than what we have before us.

I know I think that way sometimes.  It’s like that show, “Let’s Make a Deal,” which I cannot tear my eyes from when it’s in the middle of a deal.

The general idea is you are offered a chance to open 1 of 3 doors.  Or, you can take a lump sum amount of money, like $500.  It gets more complicated if you pass on your turn and give the chance for someone else (thinking that that person’s choice, say Door #2 is going to reveal a bag of birdfeed) so you can increase your odds of winning something huge (like a NEW CAAAARRR!)…

But if that person opens door #2 with the car behind it, sometimes you get left with the birdfeed.  It all depends on how you play the game.

Lately, I’ve been wondering how often I approach life like a game, scheming, planning, organizing, gambling away decisions and processes in hopes that I will end up with a great result in my lap.  I assume, oftentimes, that other people have it so much easier than I do.  With work, family, a spouse in school, a sister getting married, editors’ deadlines to respect, my own dreams to pursue — sometimes I look at someone else’s Door Number 2 and think, “They have it so much better than me,” without even really seeing what’s behind their door.  I assume.

I belong to a gym and everytime I am in the locker room, it’s like a jungle trying to find an available locker.  The sign that a locker is available is the hanging key off the lock.  Along some of the walls in the locker room are tagged lockers “Luxury Boxes” for the VIPs.  I always want to sneak a peak inside and see what’s so special about the VIP Luxury Box.  Mine only have a chrome bar and two hooks, which is all you really need for a gym locker, but I wanted to know what made the luxury box so luxurious.  Maybe their hooks have extra teeth so they can hang more things.  Maybe they get shampoos and special towels.  Maybe they have shelves and maybe, maybe, maybe….

Today I got into the luxury box.

Nothing.  It was the exact chrome bar, exact same hooks.

The only difference is that there was a tag calling it the Luxury Box.  I think sometimes people fall for the hype, willingly believing that the title telling us we’re special and we have something spectacular reserved for us behind Door Number 2 means we are indeed special and deserving of spectacular things.

Inside, though, it’s all the same.

I was brushing my teeth and THISCLOSE to forgetting about writing today, even though I have been thinking about it off and on throughout the day.

But the day got away from me.

I had Isaiah all day and he only squeezed his adorable eyes closed for an hour nap, forgetting he’s supposed to nap for at least 2 hours.  Then I had Nick and my Thursday date night where I got a Filipino take out food for 2 and a bottle of wine.

Sometimes Love is the only acceptable excuse to not get to writing.  As my eyes are falling as I type this, I know that the writing I would have done today is still inside me and it will come out again at another time.

As a writer who believes in the power of the everyday narrative, I rarely attend large celebrity events.  Through Facebook, I was alerted to someone named Dave Eggers who is not only a bestselling author, but a true activist for literacy and education.  He founded a non-profit creative writing center for children and his work seeks to amplify the voices of marginalized people and pressing issues of social justice.  A real rugged soul.

I thought it was good.  But, I’m probably not the best person to write about going to see a celebrity writer.

I can see why I’d ask him about form, content, diction, and style.

But people were asking about parenthood, business funding, even a job inquiry (that was a real gem) and Dave Eggers is given the floor to speak…and I started checking my cell phone. I’m not a celebrity-goer.  And I’m not a fan of someone manipulating the situation asking Dave Eggers for a job while he’s on stage.

Afterward, I was looking desperately for the bathroom and felt like a fish swimming upstream.  My shoulders were being knocked left and right as I was the only person heading back INTO the lobby area while everyone else was pouring out.  I was forming a poem in my head about going against the flow of suits and fur coats when Dave Eggers almost knocks my shoulder.  He narrowly misses and I look curiously in his eyes.  I see that glazed look of so many public speakers.  That self-protecting look that disguises the inevitable fatigue of talking under the hot, bright lights of a stage and answering questions from complete strangers.  He had about two hundred people in line waiting to talk to him at his table.

Suddenly, I feel sorry for him.

I thought of the last person who signed a book of mine: Grace Lee Boggs, a 96 year old activist who had spent her life fighting for youth, revolution, peace, and radical love.  And yet, with Grace, her eyes were completely different than Dave Eggers.  Grace had this look of insistence and the widest smile I’ve seen in years.

I thought of her.  Grace, the Detroit resistant with a heart bigger than all of Michigan.

I stood in line with friends as they waited to have their books signed.  I was the only empty-handed one.  As much as I admired his work and especially his interest in transnational issues, I was more lit up from the insights of Grace than the uber famous Eggers.

What makes one author a celebrity and one author a well-known activist?

I think it’s in their message.

Eggers profiles stories that tug at the heart, that draw us into the disbelieving story of human injustice that makes us want to apologize for who we are.  Grace Lee Boggs speaks about our unimaginable capacity to love our country and neighbor enough to fight for change.

Eggers tells people a story.  Boggs tells people to love.

Most people would rather be entertained by a story than to learn how to be a better person.  That’s the difference between a celebrity and a true activist.

Ellen Somekawa, Executive Director, Asian Americans United, Philly

Casino was going to be built at the Chinatown in Philly.  Everyone thought it would be great.  The only question was how much CHinatown wanted in exchange for having this on their border.  They organized.  December 2010, the license was revoked.  The people voiced their fight against Chinatown to drive casinos out of Chinatown.

Fight against predatory gambling.  The business is about impoverishing their clients and addiction.  Their motto is Play to Extinction — play until there is no money left to loose.  Home equity, future earnings, assets.  particularly in philly.  this preys on the poor, people of color to maximize their wallets.  The money goes straight to business.  Gambling addiction is number 1 concern of Chinatown and which is why they protested.

Chinatown was a place for immigrants to build their dreams, build their lives.  It was a place where they built to have public space, green space, a park bench. it didn’t make sense to have a casino there.

Signed petitions.  door to door.  Gave them to politicians.  City council didn’t care.  Said it was ok to build.  They might as well have put a sign up that said, “We dont care about Chinatown.”

The city did a lot to protect white washed casino riverfront.  25% is of poverty line is in Chinatown.

We take this as a victory that the casino, but another casino is up less than a mile away from Chinatown and there’s talk to put in a trolley.  They have targeted Asians and it’s calculated.  Mayor is pushing for a second casino to be built by Chinatown again.

There may be a cover that this is about organizing, but it’s more than that.  Here are our guidelines:

1) we need to build our fighting capacity. we need to build new leadership all the time.  commit to youth leadership.  help people come to consciousness and political awareness.  young people must train next generation coming after them.

2) take time to help people treasure their neighborhood, the relationship to each other.  organizing isn’t just righting what’s wrong, but building what we want to see: a school, community garden, connection among people,knowledge of elders in our community, value cultural differences.  if neighbors don’t care about each other, what happens when they are threatened to be “the other?”  we need to find joy and love in the struggle.  part of what keeps us going is the joy and relationships we create through our work.

Alex Tom, Chinese Progressive Association, San Francisco

“Check Please!  Hidden cost of dining at low road restaurants in San Francisco Chinatown”

Story behind the cheap prices of Dim Sum…

Since 2001, CAP has organized workers to win back stolen wages and collected over $3 million dollars

— fought against wage theft (where employers are basically stealing part of their employees wages) in clothing, restaurants, particularly Golden Dragon restaurant and wihtin a day got their wages back.  New on Sang Poultry Market — got their wages back in 8 mo.

This is “hot shot” organzing, but it’s not foundation building.  if you really want a base, you can’t always be doing this kind of work and start at the bottom. not just the angry people, it has to be a collective among many kinds of people.

Advocated for and created job training and placement programs

Passed policies to benefit low-wage workers (even tho they got their 3 million wage theft, but it’s not “winning” because we were basically given what was already owed to us.  that’s not winning)

—Prop L – raised SF minimum wage to highest in country ($54 million transfer of wealth/year)

— paid sick leave

Focused on restaurant: highest concentration of low wage Chinese immigrant workers

Lack of data on Chinese workers, health and work leads to survey project

— wage theft happens all the time in Chinatown and anywhere there are high concentrations of immigrant workers

Formed the Chinatown Restaurant Worker health and Safety Project

Department of Health Checklist for Food Safety Inspectors — but they care more about the consumer than the worker — e.g. employers cut their finger and bleeds while doing food prep.  They care more that the consumer will eat that person’s blood rather than caring as well that the worker is always overworked and regularly cuts their fingers.

Wage Theft

no minimum wage, 50% of all workers, 70% kitchen workers

no overtime 76% of those working overtime

Unpaid wages (back wages) 1 in 12 workers

8 millin or more every year lost to Wage theft in chinatown restaurants and that money is kept by the owner

family of 5-7 live in one room

“Being a dog would be better than being a person in the United States,”  said a worker.  They don’t feel human.  These are the conditions we are talking about.

Organizing a community: You have to push a community but they also have to be ready.  It’s a balance.

Formed Progressive Worker Alliance

Pictures of organizing….

what is our role?

asians are all racilized to be silent, subservient, the model minority student, worker, etc…this is a common thread

asians are what maintain the system where are used us as the wedge.  we are dehumanized and have to be the agent of change to transform and reimagine the sytem

we are needed everywhere to keep on fighting!

Esther Wang, CAAAV – Organizing Asian Communities, New York

CAAAV…Committee Against Asian American Violence a grassroots membership based group that organizes diverse working class and immigrant asian communities to build self determination, change concrete conditions, and to participate in a broader movement for social, racial, and economic justice.

–speaking about the hx of CAAAV–

shifted to focus on grassroots community organizing and how systemic forces impact immigrant communities

ORGANIZING Model — 5 Strands — basebuilding, leadership development, campaigns, alliance, building, organizational development

What’s happening in Chinatown (focusing on the one in NY)?

hx of an immigrant community which is incrasingly under attack

bordered by luxury neighborhoods; NYC is some of the most expensive realestate in the world

garment factories are leaving hte US and other factors driving the economy are now financial and realestate industry which are located in NYC specifically right in Chinatown so there is a lot pressure on those neighborhoods

New developments are occurring; building of new condos — gentrification of Chinatown; are built for people other than the people of Chinatown.

Other housing issues: landlord harassment, no hot water in winter, raising fees on tenants legally and illegally, eviction and displacement, Landlord neglection (intentional) leads to fires, land/realestate speculation

Prioritize building leadership from the grassroots– engage the tenants and work with them on the housing issues.  help them fight their issues with campaigns, rallies, etc.

Engage in policy work — strengthening rent laws for example.

SHORT CLIP of showing organizing and advocacy work being done.

Senator Hoon-Yung Hopgood introduction

Hoon-Yung Hopgood Addresses Audience

— APIA is one of the fastest growing ethnic group in Michigan and the nation as well

— we all owe the communities around us for where we are today.  for some it’s parents, families, mentors, educators.  but we all owe someone something

— we all have a growing and budding awareness of the issues around us; we must nurture that as well

Diana Choi introducing keynote Helen Gym

Helen Gym, Asian Americans United  aaunited.org

(disclosure — she is an AMAZING speaker, and I couldn’t catch everything because I was kind of stunned by her brilliant rhetoric!)

–great honor to be here.  7 or so years ago, I stood here introducing Grace Lee Boggs.

I want to talk about education.  It’s an upside down world.  Children are exploited, trafficked, starved, uneducated, miseducated all for profit.

No commitment is made to Detroit schools, a fraction of hte budget is spent on public schools compared to inmates.

Billion dollars standardized tests have infiltrated the system to have a one size fit all education.  That is upside down.

50% dropout highschool

90% do NOT get a high school degree

that is upside down.

each person has aright has a right to library. safe education.  decent.

education has been a playground for billionaires like gates the walton family who are rewriting the national edcuation policies with their money

asian americans have been a part of this, we are not excluded from this

schools and media teach repeat the boring litany… of upside down

You are a yellow pearl, that is what it means to be asian americans.  we need to reclaim our roots and right side up this world.  edcuation must change students and their world.

–discussing progress in china town organizing–

no stadium built, we have children playing.  we think about green spaces in philly chinatown.  after 140 years, basic things are still lacking.  we are not afraid of taking on institutions.  we value the hx of our people.

we use folk art – see, value, and respect cultural knowledge.  this is an act of resistance.

children learn oral hx storytelling, dancing and drumming ensemble.  when they know and love traditions that can question the structures that harm and try to take them away.

We don’t make friends this way  (shows slide of politicians who are denouncing their efforts).

We exercise community rights like fighting for community gardens, libraries, reclaiming space.  we celebrate culture through our youth.   Festivals have become a time for expression and the young are participating.  They know that space is precious.

Picture of Asian american student telling the superintendant, “Once we open our mouths we are terrorized,” she said.  Picture: It’s not a question of who beat whom but who let it happen.

The heart of revolutionary struggle is radical love, fearless and urgent.  It doesn’t matter how many people you have.  It doesn’t matter what’s the issue – tiger mom or ranting UCLA student on youtube – it doesn’t matter.  Now is the time.  If you are waiting for others to do it, you will wait a very long time.

we walk in a long hx of those who walked before us and we follow a path that is equally long.