When she made #blacklivesmatter poster, she specifically made one poster for each: her grandpa, her grandma, her mom, her papa, a white friend who was physically bullying her last summer that it took her quite awhile to say she loves her again and of course, herself.
She shared all the posters with me and kinda laughed when she showed how the poster for herself revealed her selflove and read it out loud.
It was an endearing moment to witness her strong sense of self: loving, inclusive and forgiving.
She loves hearing my stories affirming herself in helping me out, like forming pan de sal rolls yesterday, “Grandma, pretend you don’t know your granddaughter. I want to hear your story.” Isn’t that empathy? Validating me by listening to me at the same validating herself?
That is my daily intention- that when she comes to my house, she will feel immense love here, but with boundaries and will have the best nutrition.
Find the Caterpillar. She wants to feed it until it becomes a butterfly.
Today, she beat the drums to a rhythm teaching her grandpa to do one beat first, followed by three beats and then repeat.
I was her customer today for tea and pandesal with spam. I had to pretend how to drink tea with pebbles, stones and rocks while showing my enjoyment. She loved hearing me say, “Hmm, so good, hot and sweet.” She is growing up fast. But, we allow her to flourish by emptying ourselves of expectations.
Today, before we end the day, I asked her to clean up. She negotiated and said, “after 3pm, Grandma. I still want my snack.” She is eating well these days and we made up a song for tomato superman today, that by eating tomatoes, she elbows out the viruses from her body. She asked me to sing it twice.
Deconstructing spam musubiPutting back a deconstructed spam musubi
What a beautiful human being who is loving, who is listening, who negotiates for what she wants, who leads, but also complies with the rules and loves to help out. She is my idol.
Let America value lives of blacks; may the nation no longer be comfortable with unnecessary and unwarranted deaths at the hands of men in blue uniform, policymakers and powers that be. While working at a state public health agency ruled by white males, I was told by my white male boss to fire a Black supervisor reporting to me. “Why – what for?” He told me to write it up. I replied, “You go ahead and write it up. I will not fabricate information and sign my name to a false document.” I wanted him to make that command in writing. He delivered an unsigned performance evaluation and documented my alleged absence from the job, despite sick calls and doctor’s visit. He left unsigned envelope, instead and caused me emotional trauma. My support staff described that he inserted it underneath the shut door of my office.
Fortunately for me, a lawyer referred by civil rights organizations that I worked with advised me to respond with details, describing the facts and truth. It was supported by a Kaiser physician who saw me and she documented my prolonged internal bleeding. Each paragraph I wrote began with, Had this not been pretextual discrimination, you would have accepted my doctor’s note from a licensed facility…and so on. I stood up unwilling to lie which will lead to the unfair loss of job of a Black male supervisor. The irony is that this fellow human felt aggrieved and affected by the toxicity of upper mgt that during our one on one job evaluation session, he tried to tape record our conversation, but it malfunctioned.
I told him that not all are his enemies, that I am his ally, and he needs to differentiate working with an ally and against someone smiling at him, a white male, yet worked behind the scenes to get him fired.
Another time, a white woman, who competed against me to get the highest regional position resented me for getting the promotion. She told me I got the position through affirmative action, as if w/o merit in 1992. I asked her did she have an advanced degree? Did she work in coalitions? Did she take mgt and leadership courses on Sat. for 2 years? Did she get compliance rate of 90% in her enforcement cases?
I ordered 6 books on Black Americans and I have been reading daily for two weeks now. I have been doing anti-racist work and multicultural leadership development for 2 decades, including interethnic relations leadership development intensive training with Asian American Justice in Los Angeles, formerly Asian Pacific American Legal Center for several years.
When I managed a multicultural staff in a state public health agency, I trained all, with my talented and equally anti-racist team of supervisors who reported to me, using a theme of
“We are leaders, We are learners, We are teachers.”
It presupposes we can all learn from one another but it also carried a responsibility that we are all accountable to one another to grow ourselves so we can teach others in the team. It was my best days in life.
What my multicultural staff did not know was how I was victimized by a toxic management propagated by white male supremacists who stacked advantages of training and opportunities for whites. My darkest periods put me in a hospital from internal bleeding for 3 months, mediation with my white bosses and a Latino boss, with skilled civil rights facilitators, a white male and an Asian female.
I succeeded in getting middle management and upper management trained in hate crimes prevention and sexual harassment prevention training. An 8-hour training did not produce miraculous conversions of hearts but I had a full year of peace to complete training of my entire staff before retirement. No monetary damages, I simply wanted folks to be promoted on merit and without racial favorites of white males and white female preferences over more qualified folks of color.
How long ago was that? Since 1992 to 2004.
In the meantime, community folks pushed me to new experiences, one of which was Vagina Monologues directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera and produced by Ted Benito. Little did they know they were helping me heal from the ravages of white male supremacy.
To this day, most of the community folks I have worked with donot know the full measure of harm and toxicity I experienced. My family did, as they supported me. Documenting daily what I experience is part of healing my soul.
Retailers all opened – masks mandatory 99 days of #socialdistancing. #princess2015la started her day with us making pancakes. Her patient Lolo is teaching math using measuring spoons.
Her grandma talks to her about her weekend. We dissected three dreams. They were clearly described that to remember well and encourage her to share more, I took notes.
About a big bear eating her Papa. The bear was finally put in a cage. [The dominant figure in her daily conversations with me is protecting her father from harm. She asked why my adult children are not living with us and had to explain how adults grow up , get a job after years of schooling and want to live on their own. She continues by saying “when I become big, I want to still live with my parents.”]
About a gorilla that is so big, “many hundred thousands bigger than me”, and had his playmates: Fire, Water, Blast and Rock who could all talk. They were also put in a cage.
Her friends, Thunder and Fire, and she played with Snowbee. Asked who is Snowbee and she said, “an imagination” all three found a mouse that could talk. The mouse had an idea of going into the thunder as thunder hits the ground, and the mouse died and her husband was sad. #raisinglovingkindpatientsmartgrandchild
Even the air has changed. It feels a lot lighter. But, we still cannot breathe with masks worn indoors and outdoors, occasionally. Picture this for Blacks, daily. They cannot feel comfortable nor are they safe in America because of their skin color while their white counterparts are presumed to naturally belong in any landscape, in any setting, and assumed with merit at the starting line of life. Blacks start several feet behind the starting line and many are kept from progressing to their natural lives by racism and racist presumptions.
#blacklivesmatter marches continue in different locations of Los Angeles and they are effectively done with no words, just silence. Silence to feel someone’s pain, to feel another’s presence, to listen without a quick retort of our own but perhaps, to raise questions from a place of curiosity and even offer words of understanding their depths of pain.
Ever, a 5-year-old, joined her mom and dad at rally on Sunday, June 7. She was joined by her uncle, his partner, and another friend; yet to her, all are uncles whom she gives hugs to, including an auntie, a white woman sister. The three who joined her family are young whites concerned about #BlackLivesMatter.
“Grandma I wanted to say to the police: Take care of people, don’t kill them.” She watched the news about George Floyd and was restless the day after, that we talked about what happened at Sunday’s rally.
She held a poster:
“Respect the Existence or Expect Resistance.”
Cover photo taken by her mom. “My mom made that, Grandma, what does it mean?” she asked. “It means if I am not listened to and respected for who I am, I can fight back.”
Moments later, when one of her grandparents was half listening, she said, “Lolo, you are talking over me.” I was surprised by her statement, but both of us paused and listened.“
You know I love you so much,” I told her. “Grandma, I love everyone in my family,” she responded.
Photos of doors were taken by moi to illustrate how opportunities are presented to us by race: closed and shut tight for Blacks, partially open for those with connections and a wide open door for whites to participate and dut at the decision making table.
Other photos and memes are from Facebook and Instagram’s posts.
Lord, heal us and free us Lord from doing evil. God’s justice is after all fairness to all, not just white folks.
Special thanks to Nicole David Yalong who posted the memes and Jim Bloomington for the photo linking racism with COVID-19. Thank you to @coriput for the photo of 5yo Ever.
My #lockdown ended up being a life of discoveries.
Discovering my adult children and their partners are kinder, gentler, more compassionate and really know how to survive in a pandemic. All I did was say yes to what they offered: indoor plants, groceries, prepared lunches and bento boxes from very good places at affordable prices. I felt so pampered and pumped up by their love.
That goes also for my brave octogenarian neighbors, Bonnie and Larry who are just the best examples of kindness, weeding our front lawn, buying me croissants, and making apple tarte tartine.
The best discovery is to be supported by my hubby, not indulged, not pampered, supported by basics of life: harvesting lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, baking sourdough bread, washing dishes and who did the groceries every 10 days and made power juice for the family.
Without a cleaning lady, I was physically exhausted with cleaning, laundry, cooking, baking. Good thing I had Koreanovelas to relax with at night.
Last night, I felt liberated. I could not sleep until I finished writing a piece. Thanks for encouraging me YB Chavez, my #earthsangels in writing, source of comedy – I managed to get beyond writer’s block.
My daily sources of inspiration came from Jesuit priest, Fr. James Martin, two priests of Holy Family Church in Artesia ( Fr. John Cordero and Fr. Joachim Ablanida), Fr. Joel Bugas in NM, Fr. Rodel G.Balagtas‘ phone calls and texts, Bishop Marc Trudeau and Pope Francis.
My source of facts and science came from Spectrum News, LA Times, New York Times, Washington Post and Governor Andrew Cuomo, a voice of logic, common sense, reason, empathy and commitment to public good, as Assemblymember Rob Bonta, Gov. Newsom, and Mayor Eric Garcetti. I know we are not yet out of the pandemic but I just want to thank all that I could while I can. Thank you for supporting this Grandma.
Best part of this pandemic is how Hydee Ursolino and son created a website for me with so much love, inspiring me to write over 50 journal digital entries. This is truly a labor of love from mother, son, and cousin.
Today’s unexpected gifts of frozen filet mignon and lobster tails came by Fedex. Oh my, I was just thinking of what to get for dinner and it came via FedEx.
Thank you God for my family, community and friends! Thank you to Mon David and Nicole David Yalong who braved the first week of pandemic to bring us oranges, Nonoy Alsaybar for the oranges last week, Ana Burog for the mangoes, dear friend C for our ube pandesal, pandesal, siopao, palabok; Don Martin Sagarbarria and Miko Zuñiga for sending ensaymadas and Thea Fernandez Martinez for taking care of my Yoli orders. I feel so loved by family and friends!! Salamat po!!
