(Minhaj in Homecoming King, My mother and I after voting during the 2016 presidential election)
Before anyone says a thing, my parents are wonderful people and I am proud to be their daughter. All of my respect goes out to them, Minhaj, and the daily fighters.
My mom and I voted for Hillary Clinton at the same time. We stood happily as my Dad, who also did not vote for Donald Trump, took our photograph outside of Brownsville, Texas’ courthouse. Weeks later during a phone conversation leading up to the inauguration they encouraged me to support our new President. “Give him a chance,” they repeated. The more I voiced my disapproval and resistance of him the more they viewed me as irrational. And even though they dislike Trump and his rhetoric, his morals, teachings, and choices for America they still stay silent. And the truth is I think they wish I would too.
An article on these trying times.
By Ae Padilla
Because I was not one of those people who adamantly believed Donald Trump would win the presidency, I cried the night of the election.
Did I think it would be a closer win for Clinton than I would like? Yes. I wasn’t delusional. But I did not, in the back of mind, actually think she would lose.
As I choked back tears on the phone the night Trump would end up giving his acceptance speech as the 45th President of the United States my mom asked me concernedly “what’s wrong?”
As dramatic as it sounds the question felt like someone asking you “are you okay?” as your house burns down directly behind you.
My mother, along with all my family, knew of my dislike for Trump and his followers. It was no secret I had volunteered for the Obama campaign. That I was “a liberal who went to a liberal university who now still resided in the liberal city of Austin, Texas.” It was also not a secret I had talked openly about the dangers of the rhetoric spewed by our now President.
But I don’t even think my parents realized how dramatically my nerves and fears were detonated by a Trump win.
“Stripped reproductive rights, the snowballing of hate against minorities, a collapsing economy,” ran through my head.
How could I do anything else but cry?
I had done my part and voted; I had done all I could do and now I was hopeless. And my parents, who were supposed to be on the right side, our side, did not act hopeless with me.
Instead my mom was merely disappointed, but ultimately calm, about the news. My dad was more accepting, more dismissive. “Everything happens for a reason,” he said definitively. “That’s democracy for you, the American people voted him President.”
Even as I bit my tongue, the only action I could take to hold in talks of the “popular vote,” I knew he was right.
Yet for some reason I grew furious with his lack of anger at our new norm, and the belittling way he reminded me of it.
I could understand people who weren’t riled up because they were uneducated. The type of people who do not understand how embarrassing it is to say “I don’t follow politics.” Who wake up every four years on an early November morning blissfully unaware about who is representing them for the next four.
But my parents are both college educated individuals who have always voted, from federal to city level elections. Often times they would get upset with me for not keeping up with Brownsville politics. “It’s your duty to get informed as a citizen about what is going on here,” they would remind me.
Even in college, three hundred miles away from my “permanent address,” they pursed their lips at my lack of absentee voting.
But I understand it.
My dad is a former judge and lawyer with his own private practice. He believes in fairness, justice, and the democratic process. He sees Trump as a man who doesn’t know what it’s like to make his own money, who scammed hard-working middle class Americans out of theirs, a celebrity completely out of touch with how ninety percent of Americans live.
My mom is a special education teacher. An immigrant from Mexico (at the tender age of ten) she summarizes Trump simply as a: philandering pig.
I say all this because I want to paint the picture of my parents accurately. These are two people who would never be seen as unopinionated, ignorant citizens. I paint a picture because it helps you understand my reaction when I called them weeks leading up to the election and they were still annoyingly calm.
Void of any denial. Becoming more complacent with Trump as Barack Obama’s successor. Aware of it or not, their passivity added to my growing anger, all of which came to a head when I spoke to them the night before January 20th.
I had just put the finishing touches on my sign for the women’s march. It was uncharacteristic of me. Big and bright pink, it had the emoji of that sassy girl sticking her hand out – I know you know which one I am talking about.
“Mr. President, I decide who grabs my pussy. Not you. Me.”
I signed it from “a nasty woman”
Apparent even through the phone, I knew my mom and dad were not as on board with it as I – and this was not because of the usual outcry from my mom directed at me about my use of “unnecessary vulgarity” (even though she herself curses like a sailor).
Instead the two were shocked I would be protesting on the day a new president would be sworn in. They were bothered my inability to again “give this man a chance.” They would never use the world unpatriotic but I’m sure if they had to give a word to it that’s what they would settle on.
In their eyes the same unquestionable respect I always owed them I now owed my President. Even just for that day, no matter what, I had to cool down my attitude and sit with deference while Trump stood over the bible in the national mall.
But what respect did I get back from Trump?
Where was the two way street of civility when he called my family racists and murderers? When he bragged about sexually assaulting women? When he then mocked these women’s intelligence and looks? When he made up blatant heinous lies about my former president? When he had rumored relationships with Putin? When he skipped out on his own companies and the money he owed workers? When he opposed progressiveness in almost every aspect?
Screw the presumed respect my parents believed I owed Donald Trump.
When I called my sister about this, still angry at our parents, she assumed I was overreacting. But as a follow up to this conversation two weeks later she ended up agreeing with me. “I don’t know what’s wrong with them,” she said half confused half irritated.
To me a lack of great defiance against the entire GOP and the President was akin to drinking the Kool-Aid.
So how could our parents in some way be part of that group?
For the life of me I could not understand why my sister and I had the same concerns while my parents had none. But I obsessed with trying to find out why.
Was it our age? The fact we might not be as jaded or have lived as long of a life to convince ourselves that at the end of the day who is President does not really matter at all? Or was it our generation and its influences? The unshakable truth that “everyone is a little racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic” does not fly with us as it did with Baby Boomers? (Especially when the person that statement is being directed to is our “leader”.)
For as much thinking as I did, and I sure did a lot, it was Hasan Minhaj’s hilarious and groundbreaking stand up Homecoming King that finally helped me connect some, maybe all, of the dots.
The first time I viewed Homecoming King I fell in love. It was as if instantly I had a new cultural piece of art in my life. The second time I viewed the Netflix stand up my whole family watched with me.
I figured my Dad felt the same about Minhaj’s performance as I when as it ended he shook his head approvingly – about the only way my dad will admit he likes something.
That’s when I knew.
Hasan Minhaj helped highlight and reaffirm everything I was slowly beginning to learn about my parents.
Even though my mother and father are what ignorant people would call “American” (IE: they don’t talk with an accent, speak English at home/work, and offer you cheese and wine when you enter their house) they are still living within, despite only one of them being an actual young immigrant, their own self-made immigrant mindset.
But it is only after the election that it’s showed itself in transparent ways I occasionally oppose and answered questions I always harbored about the two of them.
For one thing Minhaj’s program helped highlight the answer to why my dad could always ignore (or laugh off) hateful remarks about our race, and subsequently Trump’s own similar comments about us.
I realized it was because he expected them.
Much like Hasan Minhaj’s dad (Najme) following the hate attack on his family car (executed simply because Minhaj and his family were Muslims living in New York following the September 11th attacks) my own father acted just as accepting of Donald Trump’s own stereotypes, racist remarks, and hate spewed from his followers that started even before Trump took office.
The way my dad saw it it did not matter that many supporters of the president hurled slurs at Mexicans or other minorities. It wasn’t shocking. It was not the end of his campaign.
It was just the way it went.
Like Minhaj’s own father my father would probably utter very similar words to [“These things happen, and these things will continue to happen; that’s the price we pay for being here.”]
See my mom and dad are not unknowledgeable about the fear Donald Trump has placed into Middle America’s hearts about the “scary immigrants who are taking your job amidst their plan to kill you.” But my parents accept these lies without a need for retaliation – a need to educate stupid people and cleanse their bigotry.
That is because even growing up in a predominantly Hispanic area of South Texas they were not exempt to the trials of racism (if they strayed or stayed in the Rio Grande Valley.) From the in your face attacks to the subtle, still apparent racism of strangers being shocked by “how articulate you are,” to the casual way my dad laments about not being allowed to enter certain restaurants through the front door as a child, the deserved equality of all Americans was never bestowed on them.
But my parents accept it because they were born Hispanic and their family came here willingly.
So the inconvenience, as Minhaj mentioned, is a tax you willingly pay for all else you receive.
[“Like you’re going to endure some racism, and if it doesn’t cost you your life, hey, you lucked out, pay it there you go Uncle Sam.”]
***
Both my parents growing acceptance of Trump came also from patriotism, a national allegiance I struggle not to call “blind patriotism.”
When you assimilate into American culture as an immigrant you are always on the chopping block. No matter the pride immigrants take in receiving the oath of citizenship, they know once they are officially a citizen of this country the judgment begins immediately and the expectations of “Americanism” or rather “the press releases” to prove how American you are, as Minhaj calls it, is inevitable.
If you don’t already know what this boils down to it’s what is expected from Americans as a whole.
It is the expectation of learning English perfectly. It’s the expectation of being able to navigate and master the lexicon of American pop culture, and the culture of national pride – it’s embracing all of the small things that are implied “Americanisms.”
My parents are familiar and cooperate with this assimilation. Without realizing they are constantly showing how patriotic they are. Down to the small examples.
Like when my mom pays a service to have the flag erected in her front yard for all federal holidays. Or when my dad, without fail, takes his cap off during every rendition of the Star Spangled Banner we hear at sports events. And actually gets upset if a flag dare touch the ground.
But more than just supporting the concept of generic “patriotism” with purchases of Old Navy Fourth of July t-shirts, they defend America as a concept, particularly when they assess someone is not being “respectful” enough to it.
A (troubling) example of this comes from my dad.
My father, a vocal proponent of our rights guaranteed to us by the constitution, honors the flag and what it represents so much that even though I have heard him acknowledge and speak out against inequality of Black Americans (who are every day unjustifiably killed more than white men) the last time Kaepernick was brought up in a casual conversation his condemnation of him was immediate.
“How do you not stand up for your flag?” he said in disbelief. “I mean that’s not right,” he said growing more offended.
No amount of me convincing him this was a peaceful protest, a part of the first amendment he often cited, did anything to change his mind. Nor did my quick reminder about Dr. Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez, two people who helped radically change unfair situations for minorities through the same civil protest.
To my parents it is not a decision if you stand for the national anthem. People who do not follow this simple rule should be reprimanded not applauded.
In other words you better stand for the flag that gave you a chance.
Unlike my parents (mom) I don’t have to “prove” how American I am by saluting the flag. For me it does not represent this better opportunity than the one I used to possess or would be limited to had my parents decided to stay in Mexico. Instead it serves as a reminder of the home I know needs to improve.
***
Times change.
And sometimes in the crazy world (of politics) we live in I fight the everlasting feeling my parents must change themselves and join the side of vocal resistance.
Then again if they are not believing Trump’s lies maybe I would do better to focus my efforts on those who could side with us come 2020?
Maybe it’s up to me to let go of my rooted anger and disappointment I have that my Mexican mother did not support her minority daughter, a survivor of the metoo movement, in my march.
Maybe it’s up to me to not feel that because my mom is a minority woman she has any more accountability than the white men of the world who wrote Harambe in on the ballot because they.just.dont.undestand. what this means for some of us.
Ultimately maybe it is up to me to realize like Minhaj’s father, my parents are always trying to protect their children and this can account for some of the reason of my mom’s resistance to me being part of the resistance.
She was, and is, worried about retaliation of people who see me rocking the boat. She is terrified about people who might show their opposition to me with violence instead of yelling towards me at a rally.
Connected to that same idea of fear, she is worried about this affecting my job, ability to get a new job, or ability to network.
And she is smart enough to know articles like this one live on the internet forever.
At the end of the day I know they fear where our culture, a one they are equally a part of, is going under the leadership of Trump and Pence but no matter what they will never say it to anyone but each other.
Once again they will set up the script for me that Minhaj’s addresses.
[Are you supposed to just put your head down become a doctor, get a house in the ‘burbs, let them call you whatever they want to call you, and then you laugh later?]
Ultimately my parents will dismiss my concerns based on my sensitivity, my inability to brush off news (which is true.) They will hope in the same way Najme Minhaj did that I will keep my opinions and beliefs to myself because they will hurt me in the long run.
They hope I will “get smart enough” to avoid the fray.
***
Both Minhaj and I have played our cards.
Mine was becoming a bartender after graduating from The University of Texas (when I should have found a more stable professional job.) The other was not growing out of my dream of being a writer. And the third, as ridiculous as it sounds, is my open opposition to Donald Trump and the GOP.
Or perhaps, if I wanted to put a blanket statement on this, my card would now read: stating/writing/exploring political social issues against my parent’s wishes.
What this all comes down to is this card, my card, is what my parents view as a direct disregard to their wishes.
Once again as a child of a minority/immigrant I didn’t understand until now that even as a twenty-seven year old woman I am never my own person. I am always still a representation of the two people who made me.
My parents won’t admit this, because they might not know it themselves, but after years of introspection I’m forced to.
Their ownership bubbles to the surface, apparent more than ever, when they start recognizing my anger towards the latest political scandal or scandalous event. Before I have the chance to open my mouth they’ve silenced me quickly – as if afraid other people might hear my convictions, as if afraid what I say is now what they say, they think, and more importantly what they taught me.
***
Make no mistake about it my parents are two of the best people in the entire world. To myself. To others. To the marginalized.
They never let themselves get walked all over or taken advantage of by anyone. Hard working, diplomatic, with the ability to let certain facets of life roll of their shoulders, I strive to embody most of their characteristics.
And of course I strive to be validated by them, who would not want to be validated by two of those most important people in their lives?
As the past two years have dragged on I do get glimpses of the validation I ultimately wanted, but it comes in small bursts.
It’s displayed in a simple laugh from my dad about how the whole Trump family will get indicted. And just as suddenly from him, a truthful frightening remark like “It’s only a matter of time before Roe vs. Wade is overturned.”
Or from my mom, a brief moment at Thanksgiving — just the two of us stuffed, drinking wine, moving in and out of conversation. It’s then when she turn to me and said: “I see this President as a low life, tacky, not like the others. I don’t care for him but I keep that to myself.”
And from them both the recognition of my article in the local newspaper I grew up reading with them about the inhumane conditions that undocumented children face on the border (only miles from my Brownsville house.)
(Although I know if I was being honest with myself I would say the community’s approval of my article is what helped them solidify their decision to be proud of me for this very public stance.)
Despite this I can, almost always, understand their viewpoints. I understand they are people with fully formed opinions of their own brought on by their unique life experiences. I am aware my dad is a lovable cynic and my mom is opinionated but tactful.
I know that second or third generations, or people like me growing up in a more tolerant time and different political climate with a different soap box to speak on can’t adequately fathom the complexities of what goes through the minds of people like my parents.
And I know most certainly that I am their very privileged daughter who does not work in politics or volunteers for as many democratic campaigns anymore but still believes that this is not the time to sit back and say nothing. This is the time to stand up and yell everything.
And my small articles, ones like these, are just another voice to make that sound louder.
Hasan Minhaj faltered, as I, between whether to let all of the injustices, inequality, and corruption of this country roll off his back or instead choose to be part of the process in pushing the needle forward little by little for the next generation.
[“But isn’t it our job to push the needle forward little by little. Isn’t that how all this stuff happens? I don’t know. The pendulum swings back and forth for me.”]
Minhaj ultimately answered that question with the premiere of his show “Patriot Act,” his work at The White House correspondent’s dinner, and his unapologetic take on Trump in America.
He now definitively joints the journalists, the rising politicians who never thought they would run for office but none the less feel compelled to, and all the people who are sick of the normalcy that is our country as they try to tackle the radical embrace of extremism.
They are all a voice.
They all provide proof of my favorite uplifting quote, one I return to in the toughest of times.
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
aepadillablog 