I received a response to last week’s email (about Good Trouble) that I found really moving, so I thought you might want to read it. I think it brings into focus what is in that back of the minds of many. The author is a former client, who gave me permission to share this.
Dear Joy,
I am so torn. I am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors…while some people made the scary and uncertain decision to leave Europe as rumors swirled and the impossible seemed possible, others were determined to remain home, where their families and hearts were planted. Sadly, many of those were slaughtered.
For the first time in my heart, I am torn about what to do and when to do it. I am so deeply rooted here in the US. Both my parents were born in Europe, and their families made the journey to America only after the war had taken a toll (and many of their loved ones). They struggled to leave behind the world they loved, but it was no longer a sustainable place to live.
As a first-born American, I felt proud to create roots by having children to two American-born parents. I did, sometimes, lament that they were distanced from the immigrant experience (and treasures of such gratitude and hard work ethic culture that comes with it). Yet, it felt good to know that our kids had a culture that we could share with them…they knew great books from childhood (Dr Seuss, Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume) to which I was not exposed, as my family came from peasant, illiterate upbringings. We spoke the same language at home (I navigated trying to explain things to my family that was impossible due to language barriers). And we were all planted rather than longingly nostalgic for a different time and place that they would never know.
New York City, in my biased perspective, is one of the great cities of the world, and our kids were born here! They passionately want to stay into adulthood–potentially deepening roots that were unstable just 2 generations ago when my family left Greece after 500 years there.
And yet, here I sit–strangely contemplating if this is the time to leave, to save ourselves.
I don’t want to give up–and I also don’t want to physically fight. I don’t have that gene that enables me to put my life on the line in a public, political way. I do have the fight in my heart; I don’t have the courage to stand in front of a bullet and challenge the oppressor in that direct way.
And while I do keep a glimmer of hope–Cory Booker brought tears to my eyes and my heart did flutter a bit to know that we haven’t completely gone the way of Mao because he was able to speak out publicly in a way no one would have been able to in China or Russia–we don’t know when that could abruptly change on a dime. And, by then, I do believe it might be too late to leave.
There is the Anne Frank exhibit in the Center for Jewish History that I recently visited. Her father had lived in NYC, working for Macy’s at one time; when it became clear that it was time to leave Amsterdam, he appealed to the people with whom he had previously lived/worked, but it was too late–America would not allow his family to return.
I know many people would poo-poo my notion that it is time to leave. They would either judge this as cowardice, failure in fighting back, hasty and hysterical and/or unpatriotic. I get it. I don’t want to leave home. I love my home. And I love what America represents in spite of her mistakes and flaws. I also know that the people who fled Europe in time were able to preserve their families and then create new and meaningful lives, contributing to many of the great things about this very country. Maybe this is generational trauma and I am paranoid. But for the first time in my life, I am worried about protecting my children from American tyranny and the abuse and threats about which I teach in history and literature.
It is our role to keep speaking up and out; it is our role to fight back in a meaningful and peaceful and effective way; it is our role to protect our inclusiveness and democratic principles; it is our role to walk the walk of living out these principles; and it is our role to have faith and hope. Cory Booker made this clear; some of our representatives make this clear. MANY Americans make this clear. But with a crazy dictator-like regime, I don’t know if this can prevent the fall of our principles and the harm of so many millions.
So many of us acknowledge what is going on; so many are fighting against this current. Yet with the mere honor code of our government’s checks and balances, there is no real way to enforce anything without a gentle-person’s agreement, of which we do not have with this administration.
Ugh.
I hope organizing remains safe and a vehicle for change. I hope in a short period of time we can rest easier and maybe turn the tide of “history repeats itself” and, instead, be the opportunity to see history repeating itself ahead of time and change the course of doom and destruction–head it off at the pass!
