It’s nearly 3 am on November 9, 2016. Donald Trump was just elected to become the 45th President of the United States amid the astonishment of almost the whole world.
My two younger sibling brothers, one male, and one female watched the final result and shook their heads in awe and terror. My teenage niece asked: “Mom I don’t understand, how could this horrible man win?” to the dismay of her mother.
Thao, my 23-year-old son, who proudly announced this afternoon, “I went to vote.” Thao voted for the first time in his life, told me that he seriously studied the two candidates and their position on different key issues before casting his vote to make sure he would not make the wrong choice. “Mom, what is going on? I don’t understand, this is crazy!” He exclaimed.
Thao’s question threw me into a state of immense sadness. I understood Thao’s confusion at the time. Thao was born in the United States. He was instilled with American education, grew up with American values, at least the values that before this election I thought were shared by the overwhelming majority of Americans, like “all men are created equal, “like” and justice for all..”
One time after I picked Thao up from school and drove past a row of restaurants in an Indian neighborhood in Cerritos. I remember telling him “I don’t like Indian food, their spices are so strong, I don’t like Indians much either, because they all have this dark and mysterious look about them and they seems not easy to trust …”. Not waiting for me to finish my sentence, Thao turned to look at me: “Mom, mom, I think what you just said sounds discriminating, I have some friends who are Indians, they are all very nice and their parents are very nice too, just like you and dad …”
This sudden observation about discrimination, a tendency perhaps hidden inside each of us to a varying degree, from my nine-year-old, made me embarrassed and I silently thanked the values that are taught in the schools of a country that calls itself a “nation of immigrants” a country where I, an immigrant, feel safe and don’t have an inferiority complex because of my race, when I can rub elbows with the native with ease. Since that encounter I have always reminded myself to live in a way worthy of the humane values of the US, a homeland outside Vietnam that I have accepted, attached, loved and be proud of.
But over the past year or so, this fierce and ugly presidential election has made it increasingly clear to me that not every American citizen shares these compassionate values. A candidate’s racist and full of hatred and division statements which elicited the barbaric screams of his supporters scared me, and made me recall a bad incident I wanted to forget. ..
In October 2014, I had the opportunity to return to Indiantown Gap, a resettlement center where I took refuge in for a few months after I left Vietnam in 1975. I wanted to go back there in the hope of talking to the people who had worked in the center helping thousands of Vietnamese refugees who had stayed there while waiting to be assimilated into the United States.
The friendly elderly volunteer in Indiantown Gap’s museum who was on schedule that day knew that I had been here 40 years ago. He greeted me warmly and took me to the camp activity room. There he introduced me to others who worked in Indiantown Gap in 1975 so I can ask if they remember anything about those days. Most of the people I spoke to were very kind, considerate, and couldn’t stop telling me about what they did to help the poor Vietnamese refugees who left everything behind to escape the communists then.
There was however one white man who stood in a corner, arms folded at his chest, and looked at me with an obvious air of dislike. When I approached him and offered to shake his hand, he looked at me with disgust, then told me bluntly to my face: “I don’t have anything to say to you, I was one of the people here who didn’t want your people to come to our country then, and I still don’t like your people now … “
Stunned, I stood still for a few seconds and tried to smile my most polite smile:” Well, now that I am here I want to take this opportunity to let you know that our people are very grateful for the kindness of the American people have shown us, and that we have all became US citizens, we have all worked, paid tax and are contributing to this great country, some of us even joined the US Army and rose to the rank of generals…”
My words made this man stop a little but his eyes were still full of hatred. ‘’Like I said, I don’t have anything to say to you. I did not like your people then, and I still don’t like your people now. I wish you guys just up and leave our country…”
Starring at his hateful face depressed me, made me sad and all of a sudden felt unsafe. To this day I still remember that uncomfortable feeling and I still don’t know why I didn’t tell anyone about that incident. It took me many days after that to convince myself that the blatant discrimination that he showed was very rare in the United States, and I slowly regained the feeling of peace and pride in America and being an American citizen, a citizen of a nation of immigrants.
Unfortunately, the recent election shows me more clearly now than ever before that in fact many Americans are filled with hatred for immigrants, at least the tens of millions of people who have been cheering wildly at Donald Trump’s election campaigns.
Setting aside Donald Trump’s flippant, his unethical and immoral actions, the fact that a man full of discrimination and bigotry like him won the election shows me the American people, at least those who voted for Trump, chose an America whose humane values have disappeared. An America which is becoming a stranger to me.
After the election results my uncle in Copenhagen called me and asked what my thoughts are.
It was easy for me to tell him how I feel. I told him to imagine the feeling of someone who suddenly found herself losing her beloved homeland, the second time and he will know how his niece feels.
What is much harder though, is how will millions of other parents explain to their sons and daughters, and how will I explain to Thao what is happening to America.
I have never felt more depressed and devastated.