Do You Think About Moving?
Or how to survive pageantry while raising kids through another tumultuous period of US history.
Listen to the story, read by me. If you prefer…
“Do you think about moving back to Australia?” is something I hear with fair regularity, amidst the rubble of America’s Trump: The Sequel. The most recent time was the day after my son’s 5th Grade graduation ceremony.
The public elementary school he and his sister attend is “language immersion”; meaning almost all of their curriculum is taught in Spanish (other families choose Japanese). It also means a lot of the student body’s families are immigrants, and might sometimes consider “moving back” to where they are from, too. If they can.
But on the big day there we all were, for all our own reasons. The ceremony outside, on a cool morning. The sky obscured by what we call the Marine Layer in these parts. Moms and Dads I normally see in everything from office formal, to pajama pants, turned out in their nice clothes. The kids’ grandparents came. Aunt and uncle, too. We took our daughter out of class to see her brother graduate from the only school they’ll ever attend at the same time.
From rows of folding chairs on the playing field, we watched as 120 kids filed excitedly onto the stage. Barely holding their feet in time with the piano player, as they had been instructed. Eager to get this thing going and start summer break.
After the Pledge of Allegiance, the Star Spangled Banner followed. If I wasn’t already feeling pained by what it means to be an American right now, these old oaths sure didn’t help. Violence against immigrants is in the news daily (among other horrors) and as I stared blankly into the stars and stripes, their banner limp against the flagpole on a windless morning, the words rang hollow. My hand, I confess, gradually slipped away from my heart.
As the anthem ended, a dad up back yelled (in a somehow polite tone), “ICE out of L.A.!” My kind of guy. He made me feel better. I craned my neck, but couldn’t spot him.
The principal and some kids spoke of acceptance, culture, diversity, love and learning. A few kids gave speeches that repeatedly stretched use of the school’s dolphin mascot to breaking point and beyond. My son wore a large green ribbon, topped by a frilled badge that read “Biliteracy Award”. Still, it was the English teacher I wanted to talk to, about crimes against metaphor.
Afterwards my son hugged his friends. We took photos. All smiles.
Two days from then we would take a plane to Guadalajara, Mexico, so the kids could attend a week of real Spanish school. To reunite with distant friends they met there last summer, and practice their local slang with the experts. Where we are welcomed like family, by neighbors some in the U.S. call animals.
But just like the immigrant families applauding from folding chairs, and standing to take photographs they’ll send around the globe, they know the truth. That no country is defined by its politics – no matter how vile. That some people hold strong. We have to. That the United States is many things and that our children’s school is just as important as any other institution.
Though of course I miss many things about my homeland, I very rarely think about moving back to Australia. Raising kids is in many ways a battle against good and evil, wherever you live, I figure. And even though I thought many times about joining the front lines of protest in Los Angeles recently, ultimately I’m bound to my home. To the work I’m doing. To the school drop-offs and pick ups and dinners and taxiing the kids here and there.
In large part, that’s how I work on America. The America I care about. Sometimes even believe in. I’m not willing to give up on that, just yet.
Instead, I’m another hopeful immigrant dad. Trying to hold down the fort. Willing my hand back over my heart when the country’s praises are sung. One good American kid at a time.
