My face was salty. I could taste the tears that had been flowing all morning. The same tears that my toddler with her little hand wiped away from my face. “It shouldn’t be like this” I thought to myself as I held my two-year-old in my arms afraid of what the future may bring for her, for us.
In this post-election climate, I find myself wondering how the recent rise in xenophobic comments and racism around the country will affect us -a family comprised of a Middle Eastern man and a Mexican woman, both immigrants, and their young children.
I find myself surrounded by people who voted for the very man behind the white supremacist movements around the country. A man who’s careless rhetoric filled with hatred toward my roots has encouraged many to “say it like it is” insulting the very existence of my family. I wonder if they feel the same way he does about “us”. I wonder if we are safe.
I could not help it but to teach my young six and five-year-old children about racism. Forced by a comment made to my daughter on the school bus. “A fifth-grader told me Trump doesn’t like Mexicans or women” she said. Mortified I asked if that was said to hurt her or just to inform her of the facts. She really could not tell me. So I had to fast track time and talk to her and her brother about racism and how it is around us. I felt I was lecturing a pair of teenagers with baby faces.
I told them “we should never disrespect people and should try to always act with kindness but if someone is mean to you because of where you come from, because your parents where not born here or because of your appearance, you cannot tolerate it and you have to let an adult know immediately. This is not a joking matter under any circumstance and if an adult is the one who makes you feel sad, you have to call me right away.”
It is a harsh lesson to impart on such young hearts but it is one that needs to come from the parents before they start tuning in to the TV, the radio or god forbid, they witness it first hand. I hate to be a pessimist, but it suffices to read a few news stories of racism happening in schools with Latinos being a prominent target for attacks such as chants of “build the wall”, by their peers, to be horrified.
I don’t know what the near future will bring. I only know I’m scared for my kids’ innocence to be shattered by a careless comment from someone close to them. I hope I’m wrong but the news coverage doesn’t seem to bring anything promising for the new times we are about to enter.
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