10 DAYS ‘til 2010: A HISTORIC MOMENT TO TELL MY GRANDKIDS
With only TEN DAYS left until New Year;s 2010, I’m going to countdown by blogging about 10 great moments for me in from last year. There are way more than 10 moments from 2009 so I’ll try to make this interesting.
At the beginning of 2009, something amazing happened. Something historic that I am proud to live through and will tell my grandkids. That moment was Barack Obama’s inauguration as the first black President of the United States. I remember the election on November 4, 2008 and thinking that our country has come a long way.
My family is a personal victim of racism’s piecing bullets. My grandparents were incarcerated into Concentration Camps during WWII for the sole reason of being Japanese. My great grandfather died in camp. Their scars from the camps are as permanent as the scalding marks placed on the Jews in Auschwitz, but racism’s scares are not just left on the back of my grandparents. My dad has also been burdened with the task of wondering why only the Japanese were taken. Being raised to be aware of racism and futility, I am a believer that racism is still strong and persistent in our nation.
At that moment, when Obama won the 2008 Presidential Election, it was a great step for our nation and vindication of the long journey of our country to overcome racism. A journey that is not over.
To me, Obama’s 2009 inauguration meant hope that through his black face and outstanding leadership, racism will be banished. To me, a big part of this hope is that it will encourages more minorities to run for office and get involved with politics.
I hope I will get to live through the first Asian American president, gay president, and women president. (I’ll note that if I became President of the United States that we would fulfill all of those since I’m Asian, gay, and a woman lol). It’s been more than a year and I’ll still say it:
“YES WE CAN!”
