CULTURE

No Easy Answers: Untangling My Ancestral Web | TaRessa Stovall

When I honor my Ancestors with shoutouts and praisesongs, I always begin with my mother.

Then I honor her mother, my Baubie.

Move on to Baubie’s mother and father.

Then on to Baubie’s father’s mother and father and that’s as far as I know the names to call on that side.

Names of Jews (maybe Ashkenazi, maybe Sephardim, maybe a mixture) who fled the pogroms of Russia as children to the frozen state of Minnesota, where they put down roots on the northern side of the Mississippi, learned English and carved out a living in North Minneapolis where the Black people lived. Where my mother grew up with a crush on her elder’s brother’s good-looking tap-dancing Black friend who became my father.

When I shout out my father and his parents, whose stories I don’t much know, I ask them to come through my dreams, plant seeds of their journeys so I can better understand the swirl of African, German, and Native American that they contributed to my DNA.

My mother was the middle of five children, with a brother and sister older than her, and a brother and sister younger. Her mother, my Baubie, was petite and overwhelmed by what we now know as chronic depression. When she couldn’t gather herself to parent her brood, my mother, whose designation in the family was “pretty,” stepped up. Her nickname was “Little Mama.” She cooked, she cleaned, and she held everyone’s spirits together, especially when her salesman father wasn’t closing enough deals to pay the bills. Then my Baubie would rise from her bed of sorrow and play the hell out of poker games with her fellow Jewish immigrant mothers. Her winnings provided food for another day.

My mother grew into a subtle beauty with an adventurous spirit. She graduated high school and left Minneapolis for California, working as a hat check girl in popular Hollywood nightclubs where she saw her favorite stars. She worked in jewelry stores for men who praised her looks and, telling her she didn’t look Jewish like it was a compliment, encouraged her to change her surname and trim her nose. She turned that nose up at their suggestions and walked out.

During World War II, with the Nazi Holocaust in full swing, she was one of the first women to work in the U.S. Naval shipyards in the Bay Area. And, despite being wooed by rich White men, her heart belonged to the good-looking Black tap-dancer-turned-jazz-drummer from Minneapolis who led her to Seattle, where they finally wed. Their marriage was tumultuous—she wanted a traditional provider husband and father like she’d known. But my father, who grew up in a brothel with alcoholic parents and turned to drinking at a young age to cope with the trauma of being abused, wasn’t qualified for or interested in that job. Amid the ups and downs of money issues and Dad’s infidelities, they created me and then my brother. Parenthood cured Mom of the desire to love my father into wholeness, and she encouraged him to move on.

The challenges of being a divorced, single, financially struggling Jewish mother of Blewish children never seemed to faze my mother. She rose to them all and triumphed, with her nurturing heart, unfailing glamour, soft-spoken wisdom, and culinary prowess.

She shone in the role she’d been training for since she was a child.

She became an adjunct mom to several of my friends, and my brother’s friends, and strangers on the street. They came for her delicious food and stayed for her heartful insights, always delivered in that sweet yet steely voice.

I know I’m biased and floating in a type of privilege that not all Mixed-race people get to experience. My parents bought a house in a Black and Mixed working-class neighborhood (the only part of town where families of color could easily own property). She made friends with the other wives of Black jazz musician men who married interracially because Seattle didn’t have any of those pesky “anti-miscegenation” laws to keep them apart. And she conspired with those other interracially-married women to bear children around the same time so that we wouldn’t be alone, wouldn’t be “othered,” wouldn’t grow up believing we were strange or confused or tragic. These women did this on purpose in the 1950s—before birth control even existed—and I admire their courage and commitment to children they hadn’t yet conceived.

Though Dad was clearly problematic, Mom never said a negative word about him to us. “You’ll learn about him from others, when you’re old enough,” she said when we asked. But we spent enough time with him to see the dysfunctions before we knew what to call them or understood their origins. She just said that he had been the love of her life, and that she didn’t regret her time with us, or giving birth to his Mixed-race children while Jim Crow was still ravaging the South and we were all technically illegal in many states of the Union.

She wasn’t close to her mother, but she never said why. I thought maybe it was because her mom hadn’t been able to be present and nurturing, though Mom said she forgave her for that. But when we visited Minneapolis in the summers, she’d drop us off at her mother’s apartment for a few hours, exchange a few terse words, then pick us up hours later. Since all of my other grandparents had already transitioned to ancestors, I didn’t have anything to compare this to. And while it felt a bit strange, it didn’t feel wrong, and so I never asked why.

A decade after Mom became an ancestor at age 84, I was writing my identity memoir. An older cousin on her side of the family asked if I knew what had come between my mother and our Baubie. “I have no idea,” I said. “Well,” the cousin said, “it was because of your dad.”

My first thought wasn’t about race. It was that since my dad had grown up with my uncle, my Baubie knew about his alcoholism, his womanizing, his lack of interest in husbanding or parenting according to anyone’s rules but his own. I pressed my cousin for more information.

“It was because he was Black.”

I was born on the same day as my Baubie. We shared a love of music and books. She was sweet to me and my brother, baking special cookies for us and lavishing us with fond gazes. That’s all I remember about our brief visits with her. It took me a minute to wrap my brain around the fact that my Mixed backstory was like so many—too many—others like me, where the non-Black parent was estranged from parents who disapproved. I hated feeling a part of a cliché.

I couldn’t figure out why she’d been pleasant to us when we saw her. Or why Mom took us to spend time with her in the first place. I was retroactively enraged on behalf of my mother. I wished I’d known these details when I was growing up, or when my mother was alive. As the firstborn, I’d always considered myself her protector, whether from my father or the world at large. But there was nothing I could do about what might have been the greatest heartbreak of her life.

My ancestral altar holds pictures of my mother and her parents, my father and his parents. I side-eye my Baubie now and let her know I’m unhappy about this part of my backstory. My cousin gave me the impression that Mom’s dad, my Zadie, wasn’t as much of a factor in this dynamic, but I could be wrong. Sometimes I throw him a side-eye, too, just in case.

My first instinct was to brand my Baubie and maybe my Zadie as racist. But that might be too easy. They lived with Black people. Did they look down on them? It wouldn’t be surprising—every group in the United States crafts their identity, in whole or in part, based on feeling superior to Black Americans.

I thought about the fact that humans are a tribal species. About the ways that immigrant parents always struggle to rear their kids with traditional values in a world that exposes them to new and sometimes frightening things that no parent can control. I pondered the cultural tightrope that all first-generation-American-born children must navigate.

I recognized the dynamics of Jewish identity and how marrying out of that tribe could be an issue because it might threaten the continuity and break the link from one generation to the next. Is the desire to maintain one’s culture through generations racist? Or is it simply human nature?

It hurts my heart that I can’t hold my mother and share the sorrow and rage that her mother’s betrayal caused her to suffer. I am furious at my Baubie for rejecting her child. So, as I fill the nine glasses of water on the altar, or make offerings of flowers, food, drink or symbolic items (a menorah and a Torah for my maternal grands), I chat with these Ancestors, both in my head and aloud.

As I lift their names in gratitude, clothed in West African words of blessing, I recognize the ways that the various and sometimes conflicting strands of my DNA intertwine. I understand that I am the synthesis of hope and heartbreak, struggle and triumph, rule-breaking and love outside the lines.

TaRessa Stovall is a Mixed-race #BLEWISH Boomer from Seattle now living in Atlanta, Ga. who writes about identity issues to build awareness and unity. Her work and journey are informed and enriched by having been a daughter, as well as the mother of two awesomely creative Millennials. Her identity memoir is coming soon.

Raising Mothers is a free online literary magazine for femmes and NBPOC parents of color. We center the work of the marginalized in our effort to normalize our stories and existence on the web, and in life. Become a patron

CULTURE, ESSAY

Overcoming stigma and shame: Seeking therapy as a Black Woman to improve my life, embrace my true self | Cara Tait-Fanor

A wave of guilt rushes over me before I call to let her know I am only one block away. Kai is definitely loudly calling for me in the background, and not making it any easier for her sister.

I begin to wonder if my weekly therapy sessions are selfish. If it is wrong to leave my two-year-old with her fourteen-year-old sister for my 45-minute sessions. Maybe this is putting too much stress on the family. Maybe I should switch to biweekly. Maybe I shouldnʼt be spending this money, since it is an added expense.

And then I recall life before therapy. The weekends that I did not get out of bed. The panic attacks in the morning before work. The moments of inexplicable sadness I felt in the middle of the night when I cried quietly, not wanting to disturb my husband. And I know that to not take care of myself, to not begin to find ways to do more than endure, or pretend … that is actually the more selfish act.

For as long as I can remember, I was known as cheerful, or friendly, or funny, or any version of a person that provides no reason for conflict. I told jokes, acted silly or confused, anything to make those around me feel at ease.

And then I couldnʼt do it anymore.

I maintained a façade at work. I literally would sit in my car, preparing to smile. I would do it all day, make it into the car, come home, and have nothing left to give. I was a crumbled mess pretending to listen to my child, and trying to muster the energy to hang out with my husband.

But my older daughter and husband knew the truth. Our household operated based on how I felt each morning. I began to see the impact I was having on them both.

I do not have a significant traumatic experience from my past. I have experienced success in my career, and have a husband who loves me and I adore. I have been blessed with two lovely children. I recognized the problem, but it took me another two years, and a new member to our family, for me to do anything about it.

Because of my good fortune, I did not think, initially, that I had the right to sit on anyoneʼs couch and tell them my problems. Although I had supported several friends and family members in finding a therapist and counseling services, and understood the importance of mental health and self-care, when the issue of therapy pertained to me, I was resistant. For years, I chose to put on a pained smile instead of trading it in for what I assumed would be judgement. I would literally play out telling my friends that I was in therapy and picture looks of sympathy, or questions, or confusion. I would let these thoughts wash over me, and let the idea of therapy escape like a fleeting thought. I was everyone’s “care bear” — what my friends called me. Care Bears are not sad. Care Bears are who other people called upon. If I needed help, who would my sister call when she was crying? If I was sad, would that mean any time I made someone feel better, or gave advice, would they be internally judging me?

So often in my life, these internal skits ruled my decision making. The character that I created served me for a long time. Mantras that I told myself so that I could pretend to be in control: Smile and be the funny one who tells jokes, so you don’t have to share anything super personal. Accommodate. Be too nice for anyone to tease you about your weight, or your looks. Calculate what you say and how something needs to be, based on your audience. Switch it up as needed.

All of these rules that no one gave to me, but I lived as my shield every day. If I really am honest … and take the ugly truth for what it is, as long as I was helping other people, it meant that I was better than them. It meant that I had everything together, and everyone else needed me. Feeling needed felt good. Until it didn’t—and I was the one in need. I had become lost to myself.

As I unlocked the door to the apartment, and began the long walk to my fourth-floor apartment, I could hear the lovely, frustrating and rewarding chaos of a toddler and a teenager that both currently have the same relationship to the word “no.” I slowed my pace, not out of reluctance, but to practice a mindfulness breathing exercise.

The door opens before I hit the third floor landing. “Mommy?”

Both children are inquiring with such urgency that I canʼt help but chuckle.

“Iʼm here.” I call up to them. And I truly was there. Present in the moment. Freer because of the tears I’d shed, and the thoughts I just spent 45 minutes sharing.

As a Black woman, even as I write these words, I feel a slight sense of shame or embarrassment. I still tell the kids I have a doctor’s appointment, and I have yet to breach the topic of therapy with my father. Why would I be holding onto a secret that is bringing me such clarity and joy? It’s the lie that on some level, I still hold on to. The “you just need Jesus, ainʼt nobody got time for that therapy” mantra that keeps so many people in dysfunctional life cycles. That somehow seeking help, means that I don’t love my God. I know itʼs a lie, but it still lives and creeps in my skin, and dances as passing invasive thoughts across my brain every Wednesday, before and after my session.

For too long, mental health has been viewed as a non-issue in the Black community. I am proud to be a Black woman, who comes from a lineage of people who have often endured trauma that could have broken us down, but I am also well aware that trauma without healing also leads to generational pain. My family’s relationship to secrets, sadness and anger is inexplicable, because it is just that–not spoken. Not addressed. Polite. But in the corner of every plate of food, family gathering, and gifts, are thinly shielded scabs that remain like new cuts because of politeness.

One element of my Care Bear character was to be the flighty one. To be the hippie. The one who beats to her own drum and does things differently. What people didn’t see is that the drum I beat to, still fell right against the unspoken parameters that I subscribed to, whether I thought I did or not. I truly began to see how they actually conflicted once my teenage daughter began to demonstrate how truly self-actualized, opinionated and open-minded she really is. All of the things that I poured into her, in opposition of my upbringing, began to make me uncomfortable because all of these values that I hold true don’t often show up as polite.

My father loves me deeply. He does any and everything for me. I even know that he knows, because my mother tells him everything. But my father is one of the main people for whom I am a Care Bear. Even as a child, I could see the pain of losing his sister to cancer. I remember walking into dark rooms with my father crying, and would say something to make him smile, or just sit and hug him. If I admit to my father that I am hurting, I’m afraid it would crack open the pain that sits in him as well. I own that pain. I own it in a way that makes no sense. It’s inexplicable, and something that I cannot resolve on my own.

The first session I had with my therapist, she asked me what I wanted to get out of therapy. I had no clear answer. I just knew that I wanted to feel better. Six months later, my answer is not really any clearer than that first day. But I keep going, and I am going to keep going, because pretending is one lie I canʼt tell myself. My family deserves better. I require a life that has real smiles, not practiced with accompanied fake laughter and accompanied by insomnia and tears. I am a work in progress that is proud to embrace both the work and the progress.

Cara Tait-Fanor is from Brooklyn, New York. She is a wife and mother with a passion for education, and forever a writer at heart. She is currently a principal of a NYC public high school.

A Closer Book, CULTURE, ESSAY

Ecofeminism by Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies; some International Women’s Day reflections | Cara Belle Scott

The UN theme for International Women’s Day 2019 is, “Think equal, build smart, innovate for change.” In Ecofeminism, first published in 1993, then republished with a foreword and additional preface in 2014, Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies demonstrate that the premises underlying such a motto conflict with women’s liberation and the movement for ecological preservation.

The notion that we could think equality into being is spurious and elides the hegemonic power structures that systematically produce harmful socio-economic disparity. Conceptually, this approach places harm-reduction in an intellectual realm, rather than in the material, bodily, natural world. Neither the methods nor the means for societal restructuring will emerge from the intellectual bastions of academe, think-tank, or other elite institution. Further, when considering equality we have to ask: equal to what and by what standard? Capitalism requires inequality and under its auspices the burden of inequality—i.e. impoverishment—can only be shifted to an elsewhere Otherized population. In her 2014 preface Shiva writes,

‘[A] model of capitalist patriarchy which excludes women’s work and wealth creation in the mind deepens the violence by displacing women from their livelihoods and alienating them from the natural resources on which their lives depend — their land, their forests, their water, their seeds and biodiversity. Economic reforms based on the idea of limitless growth in a limited world can only be maintained if the powerful grab the resources of the vulnerable. The resource-grab that is essential for “growth” creates a culture of rape — rape of the Earth, of local self-reliant economies, of women. The only way in which this “growth” is “inclusive” is by its inclusion of ever larger numbers in its ever growing circle of violence.’

Women’s work—unpaid care, emotional labor, subsistence production—is necessary work for our social existence; to exhort, force, or coerce women to leave this work (or “balance” this work) to enter the workforce of the paid employment market under the guise of equalizing women to men tacitly takes the capitalist-patriarchal world of men’s work as the standard to which all should aspire to attain. The costs of this are little acknowledged, yet they are numerous, with many of these exposed in Shiva’s and Mies’ activist writing.

“Build smart” is vague enough to seem innocuous, yet when we look at its connotations the phrase can be seen to belie the real needs of the people. Namely, it masks the need for redistribution of resources and sustenance as a foundation of social construction, not increased technological “advancement” through “smart” technologies, not increased progression in building up the capitalist-colonial infrastructures, but a deconstruction of them so as to bring our lives into alignment with the natural world on which we depend. Interviewing grassroots organizers protesting against the building of a mine that was destroying the ecology of their village, Shiva asks, “What are the three most important things you want to conserve?” The answer,

‘Our freedom and forests and food. Without these, we are nothing, we are impoverished. With our own food production we are prosperous — we do not need jobs from businessmen and governments — we make our own livelihood… Gujral’s mine is destroying our work and our prosperity while they talk of mining and “creating” work and prosperity.’

Innovation is not a requirement for the change such women need. Rather, an attentiveness to the knowledges that have been systematically undermined by capitalist-colonial-patriarchal force. The knowledge of our ancestors whose ways of living sustained them for millennia, of our foremothers whose knowledges were such threat to burgeoning patriarchy, increasing privatization, and emergent capitalism that they were—and are—suppressed through ritualistic dehumanization. For change to be sustainable we need to uncover buried ways of being, we need not flights of fancy, but roots.

It’s especially pertinent in Women’s History Month to reflect on the origins of an international day for women, which are rooted in early 20th century women’s socialist and communist organizing (the Women’s Day of 1917 in Russia precipitated the Russian Revolution and the overthrow of czarism) and only became recognized by the UN in 1975—after the second wave of women’s liberationist grassroots organizing reverberated through the capitalist nations of the Global North. I suggest this top-down method deployed by the UN of neat sloganeering and implicit acceptance of hegemonic principles serves more to disconnect us and impose upon us than to approach women’s liberation in a manner consonant with women’s real needs and desires.

By contrast, Shiva and Mies approach writing from a perspective of grassroots organizing in the anti-nuclear power and anti-colonial movements. In Ecofeminism they bring together this experience and demonstrate how not only are the anti-nuclear power and anti-neocolonialist aims interconnected, but also how these movements are deeply intertwined with anti-capitalist, environmentalist, and women’s liberatory movements. As Ariel Salleh writes in her foreword:

‘Only connect — this sums up what the [ecofeminist] perspective is about. Ecofeminism is the only political framework I know of that can spell out the historical links between neoliberal capital, militarism, corporate science, worker alienation, domestic violence, reproductive technologies, sex tourism, child molestation, neocolonialism, Islamophobia, extractivism, nuclear weapons, industrial toxics, land and water grabs, deforestation, genetic engineering, climate change and the myth of modern progress. Ecofeminist solutions are also synergistic; the organization of daily life around subsistence fosters food sovereignty, participatory democracy and reciprocity with natural ecosystems.’

This International Women’s Day, I urge you to remember our foresisters in struggle, not piecemeal, but whole. To make the connection between our continued survival and a renewal of respect for our first mother, Earth. To recognize that the struggle for women’s liberation is collective and interdependent. Our sisters need us, and we need them. In solidarity.

The 20th anniversary edition of Ecofeminism by Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies with a forward by Ariel Salleh is published by Zed Books as part of their critique influence change series.

Cara Belle Scott

CULTURE, ESSAY

Legacy | The Face and Sound of Power

I approached my Jetta in the small Credit Union parking lot after using the ATM. My daughter and her best friend were chasing each other around the car, laughing.

“Get in the car.” I said. They kept running around, playing their own version of tag.

“Get into car or I will have to hurt you.” I said mockingly, knowing they understood I was playing.

“Don’t hurt your child.”

Startled, I turned to look at a woman standing at a nearby car. I had not seen her. My back tightened and I couldn’t form any words. The girls stopped too. As if under a microscope, I felt myself being examined. Forcing a smile, I said: “I was just kidding.” Who was she to decide what my intent was? On the one hand I get it – taken out of context it could sound menacing. It reminded me of how little we really know about what any of us does or why. In this case it became a funny story that my daughter still loves to repeat. In reflecting on this incident, I remembered two moments when I was that woman, except the stakes were real.

—

I was at Magic Mountain with my family and had gone to the bathroom. As I was at the sink washing my hands, I heard a woman shouting at her child, who was cowering in a corner. The tone and aggressive posture frightened me and I could only imagine its impact on her daughter. The walls of the restroom reverberated with her voice. I approached and stood by her, unclear on how to engage her or what I would do if she kept yelling or began to hit her daughter. I wanted to be close, to have her feel my presence and know she was being watched. What led to this moment and what would come after were not mine to know. I just couldn’t walk out until something changed. She calmed down after a few minutes and I walked out to join my family. An amusement park can be fun, but I imagine the child remembers the bathroom scene as much as the roller coasters.

A far more charged incident occurred while standing in line to enter the San Francisco Giants baseball park with my nephew, who was about 11 years old at the time. A man pulled his son, who looked to be about 7 years old, out of the line and started smacking him. The violence shocked me, as I had been raised with or around parents who did not hit their children. All my father had to do was touch his belt and we froze, the threat sufficient for us to behave. I instinctively yelled at this father: “If he was an adult we would be calling the police!” before I was filled with the terror of consequences, knowing this man was clearly capable of harm. He stopped and yelled: “Stay out of this lady!” Grabbing his child, he got back in line.

No one said a word to me or him, we all stood still like the bronze statue of Willie Mays near us, hoping the line would hurry up and move. Hoping the Giants would win and help us forget what happened outside, and forget far more brutal attacks on children across the globe. As we all walked up the large ramps full of fans chattering like a flock of orange and black birds, I looked around, worried the man would track me down and threaten me. My nephew remained silent beside me and we sank with relief into our seats to watch the game, eat garlic fries, and enjoy a summer afternoon together.

—

Every time my daughter laughs and tells me: “Don’t hurt your child” I smile because it was not her reality and she did not worry about me using my physical and lawful power to scream at her or hit her. Part of my strategy was maintaining a community around my twins who were not chained to norms of controlled politeness. They experienced exuberant dancing parties, protest marches, and my push-back toward teachers and counselors who fostered inequity. They heard me on the phone insisting on my rights as a consumer and urging them to speak up when a product or food item did not meet expectations. It was practice in low impact situations so their confidence and courage could grow for the harder situations ahead. I did not want them to flinch in the face and sound of power — not mine, not authority figures, not the current US president, and not the demagogues of the world who will attempt to batter their truth.

My daughter has seen my anger over the years and is not afraid to tell me I am yelling when I am speaking at a volume that is within my normal range. I exude decisiveness and as an extrovert to her introvert my energy is hotter than I feel or intend it to be. I adapt my tone when necessary, but I still scream on roller coasters, croon “Take me out to the ballgame”, and bark “No justice, no peace!” at protests.

I also feel a deep sadness about the many children who have been and are hurt all the time – physically, sexually, and/or emotionally. I am angry at parents who cannot acknowledge their abuse of power. I also feel compassion towards parents who are abusive because their power was taken from them as children, or is taken now as wives or employees, as people of color, poor people, or immigrants.

While my twins did not always enjoy their martial arts programs, it was one of many acts to impart a legacy that protecting themselves from abusive power and standing up for one’s truth is every human beings’ right and inheritance. It was worth the grumbling I heard from the backseat of the car as I drove them to classes. The legacy is worth every rolling of the eyes now when I remind them professors have office hours for them and we pay insurance companies to deliver benefits promptly and respectfully. They and all of us living in the United States will have lots of opportunities to hone our skills in the coming four years. Bring it on.

Linda González has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. Her essays have appeared in aaduna, Huizache, Cooweescoowee, The SN Review, and Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul, (in English and Spanish). Linda is still raising and being raised by her now 20-year-old twins, Gina and Teo. You can read more of her work at lindagonzalez.net.

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CULTURE, ESSAY

Post-election: Mothering in the moments after

Mothering-in-the-moments-after-Celia-C-Raising-Mothers

There’s a homeless man who collects cans and bottles by my workplace. His right knee is in need of surgery, which causes him to walk with a limp. He is exactly 11 years and 20 days older than me, but he looks like he could be my dad. He has an American flag tied to the side of his cart. I typically run into him on the street corner when I’m leaving my shift to pick my daughter up from school. If I have a few extra minutes to spare, we’ll shoot the shit for a bit, and if I have a few extra dollars, I’ll buy him some lunch. A couple of months ago, I walked out of work to find him visibly upset. “Man, I’m SICK of all these Trump supporters!”, he said to me with a slight crack in his voice.

Before I continue my story, it should be noted that I live in the Bay Area. Oakland, to be exact. We’re so liberal here, we give all the other liberals raging headaches. If you have the nerve to get us started, we won’t shut up about how progressive we are, how enlightened we are, how accepting we are, how open-minded we are, and how truly special we are for being all those things. This is not to say we’ve created some sort of perfect utopia here (far from it, actually), but we’re a community of people who aren’t ashamed to pat ourselves on the back for fighting the good fight. After this past month, I think it’s fair to say that we should also maybe be reflecting on how arrogant we are, because it’s now been proven that with great arrogance, comes great ignorance.

So with that arrogant/ignorant way about me, I rolled my eyes, chuckled under my breath, and simply replied, “HERE?!” He looked me square in the eye and without even the slightest stutter, stated, “Sweetie, they’re EVERYHWERE.” He’s a black man. I’m a brown woman. And in the deepest, darkest pit of my soul, I knew he was right.

On election night, while my husband was at work, I sat alone on my couch, watching the tragic and embarrassing results come through my TV. I hoped for a miracle, and sobbed for my daughter who was sleeping peacefully in the next room. “I can’t wait for Hillary Clinton to be president!”, and, “Did you know Isabella’s dad voted for Hillary, too?”, were some of the last words she had gleefully said before going to bed. I had a whole lot of explaining to do the next morning, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

I was about 8 or 9 when I first witnessed and started to understand racism on a profound level. My parents had taken my infant sister and I to a local coffee shop for breakfast. Our food came, and somehow there was a mix-up with our order. Our waiter apologized, and then turned to the busser who had made the mistake and called him a “stupid Mexican.” I guess our privileged light skin fooled that waiter, because he clearly was unaware that sitting right in front of him was a “stupid Mexican” family.

I remember two things from that morning. One, I had never been punched in the gut before, but I imagined it was incredibly similar to what I was feeling. And two, my immigrant (and arguably emotionally unstable) father pounding his fist on the table, and telling that waiter that he’d break his legs if he heard him talk like that again. We sat mostly in silence for the rest of our meal, and I couldn’t tell if I felt like crying, or throwing up, or maybe doing both. Before we left, my dad pointed to the busser and told me that he was one of us, he was our people, and it was our job to fight for our people when they could not fight for themselves.

That was nearly 30 years ago, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m raising my child in a world that’s only deceivingly progressed. I wonder how, when, or if she’ll ever make sense of any of this. I wonder if she, too, will feel like crying and throwing up. I wonder how just a few months ago, our society went from telling our kids, our girls, “You can do anything…”, “You can be anything…”, to, “Well, actually…” I wonder if the moms on Instagram who stress the importance of keeping our country’s current events “age-appropriate at home” know how painful it is for moms like me, moms who have no choice but to have these gross and heart wrenching conversations with their children. I wonder if we’ll ever learn.

My family made plans to go to a peaceful protest a few days after the election. My daughter, a typical 5-year old, whined that she didn’t want to go because it might be boring. I knelt down to her level, and reminded her that there were people in our country who were in pain and felt they couldn’t fight for themselves. I told her that those people were our people, that we would fight for them, and that we would fight for us. Here’s to hoping history won’t repeat itself a third time.

Celia Catalino is a photographer who lives in the Bay Area with her husband and hilarious daughter. She is a proud Californian who isn’t interested in ever leaving. You can see her work at celiacatalino.com.

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