Backdated 4/3

4/3/11 It Gets Better Bitter

Some time in the near future,

A little Korean-American boy with his Scandinavian-American mom

(either Swedish or Norwegian, depending on the year)

will look in the mirror, both in their new red turtlenecks and say

“We look just the same!”

Later, he might ask her what she said

when other kids on the playground

called her mean names like

chink or slant

she’ll smile sadly, and answer as best she can.

Some time between puberty and

becoming a man,

he’s going to sit in his basement

working up the courage to slice into his

wrists with his dad’s scalpel--

endure the pain like a Samurai

(he doesn’t know what the Korean equivalent is),

let the lowest common denominator color

drain out sorrow he can’t understand.

He’ll never work up the courage.

Some time in college, he’ll tell a pretty German-Irish-French-American girl

“I’m basically white, when it comes down to it”

in a misguided attempt to get in her pants.

This will fail both immediately and

more profoundly, years later, when an Asian-American Studies class

shows him history is more than dates and dead white people.

New friends who look like him will

help him develop a pride of being, hope for a future.

He’ll make friends, influence people,

grasp a new American Dream of achievement,

walk tall until an ignorant old woman asks

loudly and slowly:

“DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?”