Kelvin, over at dVerse, recently received a horribly racist and ugly comment about Asians. After reading his post, I am moved to write about my very lovely daughter, Zenny, a beautiful and golden-hearted girl from the Phillipines, whom my son was incredibly lucky to marry in 2000. She is as much a daughter to me as my other two girls.
Canada is a highly multicultural society, and we are proud of living together with respect to "differences", knowing that the underlying sameness is simply this: we are all human beings.
Kelvin asked us to write something on the topic of Asians. I know there are many other great responses to this prompt, so do click over to dVerse and take a look, to support people who are trying to rise above the true ugliness of racial slurs, one of the most offensive things I can personally think of.
In her life,
she has only ever been
good and kind,
generous and giving, and sweet.
She hurts because she lives
so far from home,
hurts because her mother's life
is still so hard,
hurts because
so few of her simple dreams
ever came true.
But this girl is as strong
as the coconut tree,
and as sweet as the mangoes
that grow so plentifully back home.
Her smile is as beautiful
as the morning sun, rising.
Her eyes are as clear and honest
as the night sky.
Her heart belongs to the ocean,
the forest, and its wild creatures,
but she lives, now, on the prairie,
twice displaced from her ocean home.
Yet she is cheerful, caring,
hard-working and willing,
and always upbeat.
Anyone who says an entire
race of people
is (fill-in-the-blank)
offends me in my soul.
They are missing
a vital piece of inner information:
we are, each one of us,
just human beings,
trying to make our way.
"Forgive them,
for they know not
what they do."
But let's hope,
one day, soon,
they get a clue.
