Thankful and Thoughtful

Sitting down with my family for Thanksgiving dinner we started going around the table one by one to say what we are grateful for this year.  When it came to my niece’s turn, she didn’t just say what she was thankful for she mentioned several marginalized groups that her thoughts went out to during this season.  Days later her comments still resonate with me.

My thoughts go to the people at the border and yes, the troops sitting waiting for the caravan it can’t be much fun being a pawn in a political fight.  I thought about the homeless, the people in prison, or in immigration detentions, the list seems endless. At the end of all this thankfulness just doesn’t seem enough.  I've heard people criticize Thanksgiving first for the roots of where it came from but also why take "ONE" day a year.  The disenfranchised are disenfranchised everyday of the year holiday or not.

What are disenfranchised people thankful for?  People who are prevented from participating fully in this world how does thanksgiving help them and what can I do?  I ask myself this every day.  Since being in the Peace Corps I strongly object to the tactic of handouts alone.  That’s not to say people don’t need help, they do, but what will help people in the long run?  As much as I believe in opening avenues of self-reliance by building skills and working to end prejudices, I have helped homeless service organizations at hygiene centers, I have helped hand out Christmas presents at a shelter, did childcare, and worked with mentally ill adults. 

What I am most thankful for are all the people who are working to make this world a better place for all of us.  Being a sustainable activist year after year is not an easy task and during this time in history activism, and resistance to the racist, worker, and gender biases in the world today has become more important than ever.  Change doesn’t stop for the holiday.  In the end as I share a meal with my family I just enjoy the moment and think about my goals to change the world in the coming year.

The Never Ending Elections

After blacking out the news for several days, Wednesday morning I turned on Morning Joe.  We won the house. Lost seats in the Senate. Women in record numbers won seats in congress, thank you Emily’s List and the Women’s March.  Many State Legislator bodies turned blue.  Early that morning Trump fired Sessions, people took to the streets to protect Special Counselor Robert Mueller. The tide has changed and the current towards democracy seems strong.

It all seemed settled and I turned to reading enjoyable memoirs, and novels.  Then today, Saturday, I turned on Joy AM, Florida and Georgia elections still in limbo.  Not just Governor races but Senate and Congress races too.  By the end of the day the governor and senator races in Florida went into recount mode.  The Georgia governor’s race still in limbo with many law suits filed to get all ballots counted. Here we go again the fight for the vote. Maybe I jumped to soon about the tide changing.

The blows came from both sides, Republicans accused Democrats of voter fraud.  Democrats accused Republicans of voter suppression.  Most news networks except maybe Fox News, report voter fraud is a rarity. When you look at how to vote even here in Washington State where everyone votes by mail, marginalized populations come up against barriers.  Most people who rent move frequently, making mail ballots hard to keep up with, and voter ID laws in other states where the address has to match where you vote can be cumbersome. 

How many ways can you count a vote, let me tell you the ways, absentee ballot, provisional ballot, at the ballot booth and more. Ballots found here and there, counting by machine, counting by hand.  Law suites filed on both sides.  It’s exhausting.  Are we living in a banana republic, in some country in Africa like the Ivory Coast, where votes are suppressed and incumbents never concede hanging on to the country for months after they have lost an election while people demonstrate in the streets?

Is this how elections are going to go in the future?  Every since Gore ran for President elections have been fought over, ending up in the legal system. Our election system for the average voter is exhausting, and discouraging.  How do we turn this around and make elections respectful without a big cash price at the end? Lately it’s been reported that elected officials spend two thirds of their time campaigning for their next election while spending one third doing their job.  No wonder elections get ugly and congress is dysfunctional.

All I can give you are questions; the ultimate answers seem a complicated road to a true democracy.  I must apologize for complaining but I feel helpless in these elections and have for a while.  If you have positive comments please leave them to bring some hope into the discussion, I would really like to hear from you.

Citizenship and the Vote

Citizenship is not just a political issue, citizenship is also a moral issue. When Trump tries to undo the central criteria for citizenship, birthright, to something more restrictive you may find somewhere in your past you could be denied citizenship.  Your future children, grandchildren and generations to come will never be citizens. Where will Trump draw the line on citizenship requirements? Will the new requirements reflect past history on citizenship?

As an example of potential citizenship policies, let’s take Bhutan’s Citizen Act of 1985.  This law requires both parents must proof citizenship before citizenship is granted to the child.  Single women who have had a child out of wedlock where the father refuses to claim the child as his cannot get citizenship for that child.  Providing proof of citizenship of both parents to get citizenship for your children is a burden.  The Bhutanese citizenship law creates a disparity in Bhutanese society with a moral dilemma.  What would this type of citizenship policy look like in your family’s background.

I looked into my past and started with my father who was born in Havana Cuba.  His mother a US citizen, his father a German citizen.  At a young age I have been told my Dad held German citizenship when he and his mother moved to Miami after she divorced his father.  Shortly after this because his mother, a US citizen, acquired US citizenship for my Dad.  This could not have happened in Bhutan because of the citizenship criteria.  Meaning if the US followed Bhutanese citizenship law I would not qualify for US citizenship even though I was born here in the United States and my mom was a US citizen.  If the US enacted a similar Bhutan Citizen Act here in the US it would set off a domino effect in my family.  Me and none of my two siblings would qualify for citizenship just because we were born on US soil.

My daughter wouldn’t qualify for citizenship because I wouldn’t be a citizen.  My sister’s two children wouldn’t qualify for citizenship and their two children wouldn’t qualify for citizenship.  You see where this is going. But what would be the impact?  This type of citizenship policy creates a stateless population.  No one with a stateless status can get a passport, they live in limbo with nowhere to go and become outcast.  Look into your families’ past and see how this type of policy would affect you.

The media keeps hounding that we are protected by the 14^th Amendment of 1868 that legalized citizenship for all persons born or naturalized in the United States. But wait a minute after 1868 some of the Supreme Court rulings have not 100% upheld this idea of birthright citizenship.  In 1876 the Supreme Court rules that Native Americans are not citizens as defined by the 14th Amendment and, thus, cannot vote.  In 1922 the Supreme Court ruled that people of Japanese heritage are ineligible to become naturalized citizens.  In the next year, the Court finds that Asian Indians are also not eligible to become naturalized citizens.  Unfortunately, the US has a long history of denying citizenship along racial lines even with the protections of the14^th Amendment leaving Trump wide open to change the definition of what constitutes citizenship.

When Trump changes birthright citizenship we can just add this to the list of law suits against Trump and the Federal Government.  The Washington State Attorney General, Bob Ferguson, has filled 33 law suits with a coalition of other State Attorney Generals all across the country for similar reasons. Since the beginning of the Trump presidency US policies have been tied up in the Judicial system starting with the Muslim Ban.  No wonder Trump and conservatives in these last two years have stacked the deck with conservative Federal Judges.

The only way to turn the tide on this conservative movement and preserve what we consider equal citizenship is to get out and vote a Democratic ticket this coming Tuesday.  Read up on the candidates and initiatives make an educated decision don’t just mark a box.  May I suggest not deciding on the voter pamphlet information alone but google the candidates and the initiatives find out what the debate is on all issues.  As Joy Reid from Am Joy said “Voting is not just a political decision it is a moral decision.” This has never been truer than in Tuesday’s election.  Exercise your citizenship privilege and responsibility, vote, not just for you, but for your family, your neighbors, and your community.  Vote as if your life depends on it.