Headed for the Compost Bin (via the Pumpkin Carving Party)

We just finished this book called Hospicing Modernity, about how the interlocking systems (capitalism, science, colonialism, mass production, etc.) that have created so much wealth and opportunity for some of us while perpetrating so much harm for others (including the Earth itself), are reaching the end of their run.
 

Our task now, says author Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, is not to shore up Modernity, or reform it, or burn it down (tempting though that may be), but rather to be fully present as we witness its demise. To untangle ourselves from it, so we can see both its gifts and its horrors with clear eyes. To loosen its grip on us, so that we can let it go in turn. To learn from its mistakes. To mourn the things we’ll miss when it is gone. To decide what we want to salvage from its decaying remains.
 

This is no simple matter. Like patriarchy or white privilege, Modernity is so deeply embedded in our psyches (no matter who we are) that we can’t see it operating most of the time. We must learn to question our instincts, to practice picking out the threads of Modernity within us, perpetuating itself even when we think we are critiquing or resisting it. Looking for “solutions”? Craving “certainty”? Expecting “progress”? Assuming we human beings are somehow separate from the rest of the planet? That’s Modernity whispering in your ear. Take a step back. Breathe. Question that voice. Sit with that uneasiness. Listen harder. Try to connect with the deeper, often Indigenous ways of thinking and living that Modernity has dismissed, suppressed, or monetized… without appropriating or romanticizing them yourself. See? Not simple.

Jack-o’-lanterns were long ago co-opted by corporations selling plastic skeletons and cheap candy, but I suspect the basic concept predates Modernity’s onset. Just as eggs and bunnies got strong-armed into Easter, these vegetables carved into flickering faces are the remnants of ancient autumnal traditions honoring the dead, barely masked by a Christian framework of devils and saints. 

Perhaps they offer us a chance to reach back back and find the ancestors (we all have them, right?) who lived and died in times of cataclysmic change. People who knew in their bones that we are all connected, woven together in a vast ecosystem that spans millennia, and reaches the stars. People whose bodies returned to the earth to nourish new growth. 

Friends, it is time to gather once again to celebrate the fact that we are all headed for the compost bin, one way or another. Let’s not be afraid to get our hands dirty. Let’s cut away what’s no longer needed, keep the parts that give us meaning. And let our light shine through it all, guiding the way toward whatever comes next.

(The 31st annual Pumpkin Carving Party is Sunday, October 26th, 2025. Please come!)

This Is What Democracy Looks Like (Spelled Out in Pumpkins)

It’s been a little surreal, as this truncated election season lurches into its high-stakes homestretch, to be immersed in an exhibit about the massive protests that shut down the WTO in Seattle in 1999.

One minute I’m looking at a photo of a giant puppet goddess surrounded by belly dancers, the next it’s video of riot cops pepper-spraying peaceful demonstrators. Union members in matching ponchos fill Memorial Stadium; on the jumbotron a longshoreman announces, to deafening cheers, that the ILWU has shut down every port on the West Coast. A group of steelworkers from Spokane leads a parade of environmentalists in cardboard turtle costumes. People shout “no violence!” at a pack of Black Bloc anarchists carrying sticks. Outside McDonald's, a French cheesemaker hands out banned Roquefort and explains how free trade is hurting farmers across the globe. Atop a nearby bus, a young man holds a banner: “VEGAN RESISTANCE.” 

Here is a future City Councilwoman marching with her Chicano student group, all in Zapatista masks. Here is a contingent of familiar Quakers, essentially unchanged by the intervening years. I chuckle at an enormous green condom with “SAFE TRADE” emblazoned on the side – ah, the ‘90s! – then wince at a guy in a gas mask waving an INSURRECTION flag, à la January 6th.

A row of stoic police officers clutch their wooden batons, while a young man offers them flowers. Then it’s a line of protesters, arms linked as frustrated delegates try to push through. And now an interfaith “human chain” stands in the cold November rain, embodying the crushing bondage of Third World debt. Their chant: “We’re here! We’re wet! Cancel the debt!”

Through all of it, I’m struck by the protesters’ focus on democracy: the idea that ordinary people should have a say in the decisions that affect their lives. On Monday, activists hanging from a crane unfurled two enormous opposing arrows labeled “WTO” and “DEMOCRACY.” On Friday, as delegates packed their bags, jubilant demonstrators lay down in the street to spell out “DEMOCRACY” with their bodies. On the days in between, drummers pounded on plastic buckets as people chanted “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!”

I’ll admit the last quarter century has sorely tested my faith in this imperfect form of government. The last time I heard people chanting “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE,” I felt my heart sink. “Is it, though?” I muttered to a friend. We both sighed, hitched up our protests signs, and plodded on. This fall that bitter question feels terrifyingly literal. Is this what democracy looks like?  

The answer, my friends, is YES. If we have any doubts about our collective ability to cast our ballots, count them up, and declare a winner who then takes office, now is the time to recommit ourselves to this national project. Like an ailing fairy or a velveteen rabbit, democracy is not real until we bring it to life through our active participation. And if we let it fall apart, our options for determining and enacting the will of the people start looking pretty bleak.

My journey back to 1999 has shown me the incredible, volatile power of direct action, for sure. But that guy with the insurrection flag is a sober reminder that disrupting an institution you disagree with is a knife that can cut both ways. Fortunately, there’s another lesson here – one I think we need even more in this moment.

Twenty-five years ago, activists around the country reached out across issues and ideologies, across tactics and life experiences and dietary preferences, and formed a coalition to confront a common threat. It was messy and hard. They did not always agree about much, besides decrying the WTO. Sometimes their allies seemed naïve, misguided, or downright dangerous. But deep down they knew they needed each other. So they kept talking and listening, hashing out some common ground. And trying to model a creative, courageous democratic process of their own.

And it worked. Teamsters and tree huggers and cheese farmers and faith leaders stood shoulder to shoulder in the streets of Seattle and shut the WTO down. The harms of corporate-driven “free trade” became front page news. Delegates from developing countries, heartened by the protests, rejected the trade deal sought by wealthy countries. Graffiti around the city that week declared, “We’re winning!”

I don’t know if we’re winning these days, but I know deep down that we need each other to make it possible.

And so I am reaching out to my family and friends, neighbors and colleagues, fellow citizens and fellow human beings. I invite you to gather up your creativity and courage, your hopes and your fears – and maybe a side dish or a bottle to share. March over to my house. Find common ground among the pumpkins arrayed on my lawn. Occupy my living room. Sit shoulder to shoulder. Talk. Listen. Dig in, get messy, and make something beautiful together. I can’t think of a better way to prepare for whatever November may bring.

The 30th Annual Pumpkin Carving Party will be Sunday, October 27th. Contact Mikala for deets.

A View from Canton Alley

It’s the end of a long Thursday and you’re taking a quick break from the relentless firehose of incoming material for the new exhibit you’ll start installing next week, in order to pop in and say hello to the folks from Tsuru for Solidarity who have come to see the old exhibit before it closes on Sunday. You’re standing in the front of the theater looking out at these lovely human beings, some born in US incarceration camps during WWII, others descended from survivors of those camps; all of them have channeled the moral authority inherent in their family histories into an unyielding stand against injustice of any kind. You’re so grateful for the chance to tell them to their faces that the spirit of Tsuru is the beating heart of the Resisters exhibit, that it was one of the deepest honors of your career to work with the many people in this room who contributed to it, and how much it means to you that they have come to close out the show’s run with this special tour.

Just when you’re done saying all this, and you're handing the group over to the folks who will lead the tour, there’s a shuddering boom in the alley below the windows at the back of the theater – and then another, and another, and another. Someone asks if there’s some kind of construction project going on. Another person wonders if it's a bomb. Someone else looks out the window and says there’s a guy with a sledgehammer down in the alley. A couple of your colleagues run out the door, presumably to confront him. You’re not sure if you should follow them out, or stay in the theater to try to reassure your guests, or maybe (you think for a wild, wistful split-second) you should just go home and have dinner with your niece and nephews like you’ve been looking forward to all week. In the end you find yourself standing in the alley next to Tsuru leader Stan Shikuma, who is nearing 70 and maybe five feet tall, joining his solemn, silent face-off against an old white man who has been relieved of his sledgehammer by the museum's fearless, quick-thinking security guard, and who is now telling anyone who asks that “the Chinese ruined my life,” and that he came to Chinatown to smash some windows because “Something has to be done.”
 

And indeed, nine huge plate glass windows in Canton Alley have been shattered. Behind them you can see artwork by teenagers, photos of Donnie Chin, and a historic apartment that was home to generations of Chinese immigrants and their descendants during the Exclusion Era, and is now part of the museum’s immersion tours. Several coworkers and neighbors are here too, all trying to make sense of the situation, which has calmed down considerably but is still pretty volatile. At least one person has called 9-1-1, but she is apparently being told that the cops are all busy covering the Beyoncé concert and nobody is available to stop by and arrest this guy – who keeps saying he’s not leaving until they come.
 

You still can’t quite believe the ghastly turn that the Tsuru for Solidarity tour has taken, and at one point you blurt out, “I wish I could convey to you what was happening in that room when we heard that awful noise,” and the guy says, “I wish I could convey to you what’s been happening to me for years.” Your curiosity flares up over your shock and you say, “I’ll listen if you want to tell me.” He says that "the Chinese" kicked him out of his home, twice, and tortured him for fourteen years. Then he shrugs: “You’ll never understand.” This doesn’t feel like a fruitful line of conversation, so you go back to standing silently next to Stan, trying to radiate peace and calm, as more and more people arrive in the alley – from the apartments next door, from the offices upstairs, from sister organizations all over the neighborhood. They have come to find out what’s going on, to yell at the guy, to offer assistance, and to wonder together, with escalating outrage, what the hell is taking the cops so long. Showers of broken glass keep tinkling down onto the pavement as the hanging display panels behind the glass get caught by the breeze and knocked against the jagged edges of the gaping holes.

After a bit, the guy slides down to a seated position against the wall of the alley. Now, you have been manipulated before by a right-wing white guy who made himself seem pitiful in order to elicit your sympathy and distract you from the harm he was inflicting – but right now, to you, this man seems genuinely pathetic, radiating defeat. "My life is over," he says, several times. Certainly whatever cathartic triumph he thought this brutal act might bring has failed to materialize. Now it seems he just wants the cops to come and put him out of his misery.

But they keep on not coming, for another forty minutes. He himself begins to ask what is taking them so long. People laugh bitterly at this: “They never come. It’s Chinatown.” Welcome to our world, buddy. And so he keeps on sitting there, as people bustle around him, talking to each other about how angry they are, how much it will cost to fix these windows, how tired they are of this sh*t, how miraculous it is that nobody was physically hurt, how grateful they are for the quick response by your colleagues, and where the f*ck are the f*cking cops?? A crew of museum staff and volunteers – including several Tsuru for Solidarity folks – start carrying plywood panels out from the exhibit shop so the broken windows can be boarded up once the police have documented the damage. Nearly an hour after the first 9-1-1 call, a patrol car pulls up at the entrance to the alley. The guy struggles to his feet and holds out his arms for the handcuffs.

When you finally walk away from the scene and head out on your bike, your Quaker calm quickly ebbs away and a rush of belated adrenaline fuels your furious pedaling. You pass a couple of people smoking meth on the sidewalk, a bevy of silver-clad Beyoncé fans in cowboy hats, and a car wreck on the Jose Rizal Bridge. You make your way up over Beacon Hill, chanting under your ragged breath: Are. You. F*cking. Kidding. Me. It’s only after you have told the whole story to your partner on the phone and repeated it to your sister’s family over a bowl of cold-but-delicious corn chowder, and made your way home in the soft late-summer dusk to find your cat waiting patiently by the back door, that the tears come.

The next morning there will be stories in the paper about the shattered windows, the traumatized museum guests, another hate crime in a neighborhood that has been under attack for years. All of that is true, of course. But the image that stays with you – the story you tried to convey to your wide-eyed nine-year-old niece – is of a weak, isolated old man slumped against a brick wall, surrounded on all sides by a strong, connected community full of love and rage and energy. 

You hope he saw this too. He may never understand the long history of discrimination, exploitation, and violence that has made this community what it is. But you want to believe it's possible that one day he might learn to reject the poisonous ideas he has been fed, take responsibility for the trauma he has caused, and find a place somewhere in a line of people shouldering plywood boards, working together to repair the damage – and maybe find real answers to the problems that affect us all. 

But whatever happens to (or within) him, you know that here in the Chinatown-International District, the power of connection and community will prevail. And maybe at some point we'll be able to start building something new, instead of always fixing broken sh*t. This is the hard kernel of hope you decide to carry with you into the days and weeks ahead.

The Opposite of Fear

When I leave work the night before the new Bruce Lee exhibit opens, the sound for the interactive in the main gallery space still isn’t working. The tech guy has gone home, and people from the out-of-town design team are up on ladders, FaceTiming their tech-savvy friends, saying things like, “No, I’m seeing two wires here – one is labeled XYZ, the other is OD7.” It doesn’t seem like another clueless, exhausted cook in the kitchen will do much good, so I head home to get some sleep before the Big Day.

It’s hard to sleep, though, because I keep thinking about that morning’s all-staff Zoom meeting, where we went over the plans for Friday’s member preview party and Saturday’s opening day festivities. There was a lot to go over: dignitaries, DJs, lion dancers, an aerialist, a photo booth with life-size Bruce Lee cutouts to pose with, wine and appetizers for guests, snacks for volunteers, and on and on. Friday night’s dress code would be party attire; the new staff t-shirts to be worn on Saturday were available at Cookie’s desk.  

I had been listening to the meeting on my phone as I hung the last photos up in the mezzanine gallery. When I finished there, I headed back downstairs to finish a sculptural installation of old hard-cover books, still tuned in through one earbud. The facilities director had one final agenda item. In light of ongoing anti-Asian sentiment and the increasing frequency of mass shootings, he wanted us to be prepared in case our exhibit events became a target of violence – so he had cued up an active shooter training video that he thought would be useful. I stopped outside the gallery to watch it on my phone. “It’s got some disturbing stuff in it, just to warn you,” said the facilities director, before he pressed play. 

And boy, did it ever. (This is your content warning too, dear reader – feel free to skip the next two paragraphs.)

The video is set in a crowded restaurant. A server is asking a young couple what they’d like to drink, when a fight breaks out at the bar. Suddenly there are gun shots, and everyone dives for the floor. People are screaming, tables are toppling – and the gunfire keeps coming.

As they cower, flee, and tend each other's wounds, the actors deliver advice to the camera. The server joins a stream of people bolting out into the street. “Running makes you harder to hit,” she pants. “If you can get to an exit, get out!” Back in the bar, the woman who had been ordering a drink is shooing a group of fellow patrons into a back room. “If your path to the exits is blocked,” she says, “find a place to hide. Lock and barricade the door.” She turns away to help move a filing cabinet, and we cut to the bartender, who is crouched behind the bar with a couple of other guys. He leans forward and whispers urgently, “We have no escape path, and the shooter knows we’re here. We’re preparing to fight as a last resort.” He hefts a fire extinguisher in one hand, turns to the guy next to him, and says, “Ready?” The video concludes with a quick recap of this grim decision tree: First choice: Run! Second choice: Hide! Third choice (and only if you’re out of other options): Fight! 

The video ended, and a grid of stunned, horrified faces appeared on my phone. I looked up to see our Exhibit Director, Jessica, standing in the doorway of the gallery, also with one earbud in, clearly shaken too. “Jesus Christ!” I hissed. “What the fuck was that?!” We stared at each other for a beat, realized we absolutely did not have time to process that particular trauma right now, and pivoted back to the exhibit punch list. Those images stayed with me, though – and came flooding back when I was laying in bed that night: the wounded woman, the sprinting server, the fire extinguisher in the bartender's hand.

When I arrive at the museum Friday morning, the sound in the gallery is working and Jessica is helping a television crew set up to film. We take turns testing the interactive, which allows you to step into a pool of projected water and have quotes from Bruce Lee’s favorite books appear at your feet, while words and images from his life pop up on the wall in front of you. I walk through the space, making sure nobody left a stray hammer on top of an exhibit case, or painters tape around a light switch. I have a running list of things we should have done and will hopefully find time to do next week (fix a typo, add gels to some lights, etc.), but I know we have done all we can for now. 

This final pass complete, I join the rest of the staff getting ready for the members’ event, which starts at 3 pm. People are setting up tables, printing signs, placing stanchions, running out to pick up food. There’s a jittery buzz in the air. The shooter video has added a surreal edge to our usual pre-exhibit excitement: The apocalypse is happening, and we are getting ready to hand out canapés.

Just after lunch an email goes out. The Executive Director wants us all at an impromptu meeting in the Welcome Hall at 2:30 – thirty minutes before the doors open. At 2:20 all the bathrooms are full of people getting into their party clothes; I duck into the media closet and change quickly, hoping nobody else has had the same idea. I arrive in the Welcome Hall to find my colleagues gathered; they are quiet, nervous, straightening their ties, fanning themselves with registration print-outs.

Joël, our Executive Director, steps forward into the circle and thanks us for being there. He says he wants to acknowledge that the video we all watched yesterday was really upsetting. He says he was still thinking about it while he was ironing his clothes last night. He knows it’s important for us to be prepared for such horrors, because that’s the reality we live in now. But he wants us to know that if we were shook by that video – if we’re still shook – we’re not alone.

And he wants to remind us that the opposite of fear isn’t the lack of threat, it’s the presence of connection. He wants us to stop for a moment to look around at our museum ohana (family), to feel that connection. I glance at the young woman on my left, a friend I’ve bonded with over motherhood, skating, and more, through the years. On my right is the intern, here for the summer, who helped me sort books yesterday and is now looking sharp in dark slacks and leather boots. 

Joël tells us it’s okay to be vulnerable with each other, to share our feelings about all the scary stuff, because that’s what gives us strength when we need it most. He says our ancestors were tough as nails, and we are too – as long as we remember who we are and where we came from. He ties it all to the exhibit, too, somehow conjuring up the spirit of Bruce Lee – that indefatigable philosopher warrior – to join our circle.

Then he teaches us a chant he learned in Hawai’i, where he lived before he came to us. It was taught to him by Hawaiians, and he assures us it’s appropriate for anyone to join. We will repeat the chat three times, he says. The first round is to connect us to the land, to feel rooted in the earth beneath our feet. The second connects us to our ancestors, drawing on the strength that carried them through so many hardships and traumas. The third round connects us to the wider universe – or whatever we call the spiritual power that’s bigger than us.  

And so we chant together. Each round goes up a key, and our voices rise up through the space over our heads, echoing through the chimes of the sculpture above us, through the halls of the museum, out into the world. When it’s over, we clap in unison. Several of us wipe away tears. And then – bam! – we’re back to running around with our hair on fire, getting ready for the doors to open.  

The whole thing takes no more than five minutes – maybe seven. But the world has been transformed. We are connected as a team – as a family. We have each other’s backs, come what may. We are vulnerable, and human, and tough as nails. Our ancestors are there with us. And they are proud. 

Saya Moriyasu's "Sweet Hello"

Ungovernable

My circle of loved ones has a longstanding July 4th tradition of circling up, sometime between the pie and the fireworks, to read the Declaration of Independence aloud. Over the years this ritual has proved to be challenging but fruitful, as we ponder, together, the contradictions in our nation’s founding – and in its founders. We face the injustices baked into our roots. We renew our commitment to the flickering, fragile ideals that we have yet to achieve, but that are worth fighting for.

The last few years have been rough on the flickering, fragile ideals front. Meredith and I once had to retreat to a large cardboard box after the reading, having lost the will to carry on. Another time we substituted excerpts from “What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?”, a speech Frederick Douglass gave in 1852, which turned out to be challenging and fruitful in a whole nother way. 

This year I've once again found myself fresh out of reasons to celebrate my country, and have made plans to spend the holiday weekend in a neighboring one. But in between packing my bags and finishing up a long work week, I decided to pull out Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments” – the document everybody signed at the Seneca Falls women’s rights convention in 1848 – just to see how it might hold up in the light of the various garbage fires blazing around us in 2022.

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. 

So far so good. That “and women” is a small insertion, but it makes a huge difference to see my gender explicitly included up front, instead of having to project half the human race in between these opening lines.* Stanton continues, mirroring Jefferson’s prose:

Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes… But when a long train of abuses and usurpations… evinces a design to reduce [a people] under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

 This part frankly gave me pause. I’ve always heard these words as a soaring call to responsible citizenship: We can’t stand idly by when our government is actively harming people; we have a moral obligation to right our nation’s wrongs. But now all I can think of is guys with flagpoles breaking through the windows of the Capitol building. Of course the January 6th riot was built on fabricated abuses and fictional usurpations – but it’s not hard to imagine the shoe on the other foot one of these days. Will we be surrounding the Capitol in our turn, desperately trying to keep an illegitimate president from being sworn in, or an unjust ruling from taking effect? I want to be sure we can do it nonviolently, with a decent respect to the opinions of humankind.

Jefferson and Stanton both justify their demands for a new form of government by enumerating specific abuses committed by the old one. This seems like a solid rhetorical strategy – though in this age of alternative facts and polarized ideological identities, I have little faith that even the strongest evidence can build solid support for the kind of change we need. 

Like Jefferson's, Stanton's list of grievances includes a few cringe-worthy moments. The lady had her prejudices and blind spots, as white feminists from privileged backgrounds often did – and still do, myself included.** 

She also had a lot of 100% legit complaints, which she laid out with passion and eloquence. I am happy to report that some of these have since been addressed. Stanton herself did not live long enough to cast a ballot, for instance – but I have been voting proudly since Mike Dukakis got trounced back in 1988. Colleges are no longer closed against us, thanks to Patsy Mink and Title IX. I can own my own property and keep my wages, such as they are. So yes, we've made progress – and I’m grateful. 

There were, however, several items on the list of man’s repeated injuries toward woman that still resonate 174 years later. Here are a few:

He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.

He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

This last one hit a raw nerve, after last week's Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. It seems to me that choosing one’s own sphere of action is central to the exercise of liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and basic human dignity.  Deciding where you will spend your time and energy, the responsibilities you will shoulder, the goals you will pursue, the course your life will take – we don’t get to control all of these things, obviously, and some of us have more ability to control them than others. But a world where someone else decides this stuff for you, where you don't get the choice to exercise your own judgment in these matters? This is where Dobbs v. Jackson has taken millions of women, with the stroke of a pen.

When I found myself accidentally pregnant in my early 20s, I knew having a baby at that moment would change the course of my life in ways I didn’t want it to change. I consulted with my conscience and my (personal conception of) God, and decided that this particular little spirit would get sent back to join the swirling energy of the Universe, paving the way for the children I did want to have – and would go on to have, a few years later. Thanks to Roe, I had easy access to a safe, legal medical procedure that allowed me to undo the consequences of a moment of careless passion. My abortion wasn’t a fun experience, exactly, but I certainly haven’t missed that unborn baby. Neither, I’ll wager, has anyone else. 

I realize now how lucky I have been, living my whole reproductive span in a time and place (and with the resources and support) where this was all a given. When my mother discovered she was pregnant a couple of years before I was born, she had to seek out an illegal abortion; my daughter’s reproductive choice is now limited by geography, and may shrink further in the years to come. I don't need to outline the ever-increasing barriers to abortion that pregnant people in red states have faced in recent decades, or the brutal policing of women's bodies that has disproportionately affected BIPOC and poor people for centuries. We know that the fall of Roe will make life a thousand times harder for millions of people who are already suffering – and who cannot shoulder the burden of another painfully slow legal and political battle on top of everything else they're dealing with. I don't know where I will find the will to carry on this time around, but as Bryan Stevenson says, "Hopelessness is the enemy of justice," and so carry on I will.

I will miss our neighborhood 4th of July celebration this year – the ribs, the pie, the circle of family and friends reading 18th-century prose, the DIY fireworks lighting up the sky late into the night. But I will take some time to acknowledge the progress we have made toward Jefferson's radical vision of equality, and to honor the many valiant, brilliant, flawed human beings who worked so tirelessly to get us this far. I will remember that patriarchy and white supremacy often intertwine to set us against each other and stall our collective liberation. I will recommit to examining my own biases and defensiveness, while still speaking my truth.  

And I will continue to ponder the moral and strategic questions posed by our nation’s founding document, as we chart the path forward from here. Our present form of government has failed to secure our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – and has, for many of us, become destructive of these ends. What is the mechanism for instituting a new government – or radically reforming the one we’ve got? How do we establish the consent of the governed, when we can’t agree on basic facts? 

One of the rallying cries I’m hearing at abortion protests these days is “WE WILL BE UNGOVERNABLE!” I definitely prefer it to the delusional “WE WON’T GO BACK!”*** There’s this thrill of People Power about it – you can almost see the masses rising up, taking over the streets… But then what? What do we want to do with all that power? How will we structure its deployment? Being ungovernable may be an exhilarating and crucial step in the process, but honestly, in the end I want my country to be governed. Fairly. With compassion and foresight and evidence-based policies. By a government that fucking works. For that, I would pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor. Such as it is. 

*And yes, we need to extend that invitation to nonbinary, genderfluid, and gender nonconforming folks as well. Eventually we may get to the point where the word “people” covers it, but right now I am feeling the need to shout out the people whose claim to equality is currently under attack.)

**In this case there’s an unfortunate reference to the “ignorant and degraded men – both natives and foreigners” who have been given civil rights ahead of the educated, respectable women she considered more deserving. Note that this document was written 20 years before the 14th Amendment granted the franchise to formerly enslaved men, while explicitly excluding women; Stanton’s bitterness at this betrayal did not improve her capacity for intersectional analysis, alas.)

***SCOTUS: “Hold my beer.”

Some Days, It's Cookies

Intense afternoon today, watching testimony from the 1981 redress hearings in Los Angeles. The wrongs suffered by Japanese Americans during WWII are well known now, but forty years ago these stories had not been shared publicly much at all; many of those testifying had never told their own children what had happened to them, let alone a congressional commission. The details of these stories are heart-wrenching: businesses lost, dying children unable to get medical care, fathers picked up by the FBI and never seen again. But it’s the delivery that is revelatory for me, today – the faces and voices convey an emotional context I’ve never gotten from reading the words on a page. The catch in people's voices as they describe the indignities of being housed in horse stalls and fed like pigs, their meager servings slopped into pie tins. The incredulity, forced out through tears: "I couldn’t imagine my government would do this to me!" The bitterness of a mother whose son was drafted from the camp; she knew the government would see him as “cannon fodder.” Middle-aged nisei reliving the terror their six-year-old selves felt, waiting in line with their anxious parents to board a train to God-knew-where. The weeping woman who denied her children their own Japanese heritage because she wanted to erase it after what had happened to her – and now, she says, she knows she was wrong. A man, asked to summarize the main points of his testimony because it is getting late, smacks the table with sudden rage, "I will not be hurried by you as a representative of the U.S. government. Ever!"

And this astonishing moment: a white lady in sunglasses marches up to the podium and tries to rip the written testimony out of the hands of a dignified gentleman who has just shared a statement from the 100th/442nd Veterans Association. A security officer (also a white lady) throws herself between them and wrenches the man's papers back. The room erupts – sansei are on their feet chanting, "Get her out! Get her out!" – and the attacker is escorted from the room to jeering and wild applause.

Image: Two cookies on a plate, covered in sprinkles

I'm pulled back to 2021 by a knock at my door. Three small children – two Asian American neighbors and their toffee-brown friend – are standing on my porch, giggling. The littlest boy (whose devotion to Pokémon earned him the right to inherit Simon’s old Pikachu costume when I was clearing out the basement recently) proffers a plate with three cookies on it, each bearing a physics-defying load of sprinkles. His big sister (who sits next to my niece in class and played endless fantasy games in the garden all summer long) holds out three squares of painted paper and tells me I can choose whichever card I want. The friend (whom I’ve never met, but you’d never know it from his enormous grin) says, “No, I get to choose! I’m the guest!” and hands me the pink one. The swirly watercolor is still damp. I admire my gifts with effusive delight and beam my thanks at the mom waiting on the sidewalk. The kids bounce back down the steps; I turn back inside to watch the rest of the redress testimony.

Hours later, I’m sipping my bedtime eggnog and brushing neon sprinkles off my shirt, feeling grateful: for the cookies, for the walk-in booster shot I got at the Vietnamese pharmacy this morning, for the salmon supper my housemates cooked, for the menorahs flickering and Christmas lights twinkling on my evening walk. My gratitude is shot through with a fierce protectiveness. I can’t shake the image of those three beautiful, gleeful, innocent faces on my porch this afternoon. My body is kind of a wreck these days, but I am more than ready to throw it in front of anybody who tries to hurt those kids – or scare them, or shame them, or silence them, or make them feel anything but loved and valued and at home. The same goes for the Vietnamese elders waiting to get their shots at the pharmacy. I think about the perils they might have faced as six-year-olds – or in the last year, for that matter – and I wonder about the Jewish family I saw gathered around the menorah in their window as I walked by.

When I close my eyes I can see the web of human connection that holds us all together. I know it is frayed and thin in places. I know its history is full of ragged holes that have destroyed entire communities and let countless individuals slip away into the darkness. And I know there are people out there living in pain and fear and shame right now, that I don’t know how to stop. (It’s not always as straightforward as tackling a crazy white lady in a congressional hearing, after all.) But that doesn’t mean I’m powerless. I can – and do – contribute my energy, creativity, and resources to the web that holds those kids, those elders, that family -- and me. I need to keep working to repair the broken places in that web, to fortify the weak connections, and to extend its reach, so it will include all the people who have been cut off or abandoned. Sometimes this feels like a hopeless, thankless, endless task, a crushing responsibility that I cannot escape. Some days, though – it’s cookies.       

Chinga Las Fronteras

I saw a lot going down on the streets of Seattle yesterday. It might have been the weather, which was beautiful, and brought everyone outside. Or maybe it was just that I forgot my earbuds when I headed out on my bike, which meant I spent the day immersed in the actual world around me, instead of a podcast… 

There was the toddler with tiny glasses who wobbled into my path on her tricycle as I pedaled through Judkins Park. A crew in orange vests unloading swaddled street trees from a truck -- with a guy on a mini backhoe digging the holes, a cigarette dangling from his lip. The Garfield Drumline practicing on the football field. Somebody carrying an enormous mirror across a parking lot. People were everywhere out there, whacking weeds, jumping rope, walking dogs. Sleeping on the parking strip next to an empty wheelchair. Cramming books into the library return slot. Chasing their friends around the playground with a pool noodle. The sheer variety was fascinating. I kept pulling over every five minutes to take notes so I could remember it all. 

Then, toward the end of the day, I saw something I knew I'd never forget: a triumphant woman ripping up her deportation paperwork outside ICE headquarters in downtown Seattle. 

Maru Mora-Villalpando, kick-ass immigration activist (and mother of one of Josie’s middle school besties), learned earlier this week that the government has dropped its case against her, and granted her lawful permanent residency. A small crowd of supporters had gathered to mark the occasion. Maru pulled out a sheaf of papers and explained that she’s been carrying these copies of her deportation proceedings with her everywhere she goes, so that if ICE ever tries to detain her she can prove that she's already being deported. She showed us the plastic folder her daughter had made for these precious pages, decorated with hearts and bears. “I fucking carried these things with me for nearly four years,” she said. “And I’m really happy to be rid of them!”

She tore them in half, then quarters, then eighths. Then she read from the immigration judge’s statement, which listed the many “positive factors” that led them to grant her “discretionary relief”:

The respondent is the mother of a 24-year-old US citizen daughter, Josefina. The respondent has a long presence in the US and has no criminal history. She is gainfully employed and is very active in the community advocating on behalf of the rights of immigrants. While the Court acknowledges that not everyone in this country may agree with the respondent’s message or tactics, she has the right to speak, and through such right she energetically carries on with one of this nation’s most cherished traditions, which is to advocate forcefully for one’s position through non-violent direct action. It is clear from the many letters of support in the record that her voice is a respected one in her community.

All of this is true, of course – and was roundly cheered by the crowd. But Maru was clear that this is not about her individual case, not about this one judge deciding this one respondent deserves to remain here, despite having overstayed her visa 25 years ago. She pointed out that if ICE has the prosecutorial discretion to drop this case, then they have the discretion to drop every deportation case. They have the discretion to free Ruben, Tien, Rene, Lam, Tony, Israel – migrants currently languishing in the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma (where covid rates have spiked in recent months). They have the power to shut down all the detention centers. They could choose to welcome desperate Haitians at the southern border instead of blocking and harassing them. They have the power to do the right thing. And, Maru reminded us, it's our job to make them do it.

“This is Native land, right?” said Maru. “This is Duwamish land, and the Northwest Detention Center is on Puyallup land. At the end of the day, this is not about countries, it’s about our right as human beings to go where we need to go to be safe. So fuck borders. Chinga las fronteras.” She starts up a chant: “Fuck ICE! Fuck ICE! Chinga la Migra! Chinga la Migra! Louder! Make sure they can hear you on the 21st floor!" She tilts her head back and belts it out. "FUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKK IIIIIIIIIIIICE!” 

When we had finished (for now) carrying on one of this nation's most cherished traditions, I hopped on my bike and headed towards home. People were still out there, everywhere I looked, doing all the ordinary, magical stuff humans do. One of them would be getting her green card soon, and going to visit the family she hasn't seen since 1996. One of them I knew there were stories like that playing out all around me, and I felt connected to them in a way I haven't in quite a while. Fuck earbuds. Chinga las auriculares.