I don’t really give a shit

First off if you were looking for a Legacy piece here…

This one probably isn’t it. And I advise you to stop reading now.

But this is something that frustrated me the other day, so I figured my sons should hear their frustrated father’s voice too.

So the other day I watched this video about a politician and a scandal in California.

Just because the YouTube algorithm recommended it to me.

But somehow I decided to take a peek at the comments.

And YES.

I should have known better, but I am human, so of course I will go to the comments.

Who doesn’t?

So for context, the video was a news clip about the former mayor of Oakland and her scandal.

I honestly don’t know much about this because I live in Oregon, and the only time I was anywhere close to Oakland, some friends and relatives told me to “be careful” and don’t stop.

So I never really visited it.

But this piece isn’t about the scandal because I am not going to put you guys through a five-minute rant about some politician I don’t know anything about.

This piece is about… something else.

BUT if you think a politician is fucked up, criticize the politician.
Criticize the corruption. The incompetence. Or whatever.

Or even how much coffee she doesn’t drink.

I don’t care.

Talk about that.

I really don’t give a shit because I don’t live in Oakland.

I don’t know her.
I never voted for her.
So I am not here to defend her.

The Asians.
The immigrants. The foreigners.
The perfect minority. Yeah okay.

And people who supposedly shouldn’t be here.

Then I saw this.

What the hell does that even mean… because I thought we were talking about her.

The one politician who happened to be Asian and was at the center of the scandal.

But apparently now in America it seems like when someone does something wrong there is some kind of group assignment involved. Like the rest of the ethnicity needs to apologize for one bad apple dropping from a tree?

Do I need to apologize for her? I am Vietnamese and she’s Hmong. (Yes it’s spelled with a H.)

I didn’t know about this woman till I watched the video.
But apparently now I am part of the conversation.

Oh btw… the Asian attorney standing next to her is also his own person too. And we Asians don’t all magically have one big group chat and report to the same headquarters on some Asian council meeting every Sunday.

At least I haven’t gotten the invitation yet. lol

So then I kept scrolling. Which I realized later was another mistake.

Chinese mayor?

She’s Hmong dude. It’s a totally different ethnicity and culture.

So now we are just spinning the Asian wheel?

Asian woman. Chinese. Chinese? CCP? Commie? Communist?

And suddenly we are in the Cold War, and I am related to Mao.

All I want to say is Asia is huge. So many cultures. So many languages.

Someone sees an Asian face and apparently all of us look the same lol.

I mean I don’t mind if the face I look similar to has a cool beard I can’t grow.

So of course I kept reading, because apparently I still hadn’t learned my lesson. And this is where it stopped being funny.

Now we are deporting people. Why did this fiasco turn into the immigrant punching bag?

I thought this was about a politician.

Like if someone commits a crime, investigate them… If there is enough evidence, put them on trial, and if they are guilty punish them with the “laws.”

That seems pretty simple to me, but I guess that’s why I don’t make laws.

Strip people of legal status and deport? Sending someone back where?

And yes that word “back” gets me.

Because that is the word that people love using when they somehow decided already that someone doesn’t really belong here. Like some “Americans” are permanent Americans and everyone else is just on the sideline staying here until some dude gets bored or annoyed, or both, and revokes the invitation.

And at this point this comment section is irritating me way more than it should have, because now I am not thinking about the mayor hundreds of miles away anymore.

I came to America when I was five. A beautiful country. I saw. I felt. I did pretty much my first everything here. And now I am a father raising my own sons here.

So let me ask you.

When exactly does somebody stop being foreign?

Five. Ten. Twenty. Thirty years?

One generation. Two?

Or is it no matter what happens, someone somewhere will always look at our faces and ask us, “Where are you from?”

And you tell them Oregon.

“No. Where are you really from?”