Everyday Dismantling #5 – Voting

Six years ago I became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. I left my green card, which wasn’t green, on a stack of other “identification of legal status” cards and walked in to my swearing-in ceremony.

I immigrated to the U.S. as an eight-month-old baby, so when people tell me I should go back to where I came from if I don’t like it here I like to point out that I actually didn’t choose to come here any more than “they” did AND that their response to my dissatisfaction is just plain ignorant.

But that type of ignorant response along with years of reminders from Dad, especially after 9/11, got me thinking: I actually had the privilege and “right” to pursue naturalization and then to vote as well as serve on a jury.

Now, I haven’t had my name come up for jury duty, and I know it’s not all “Making of a Murderer” or the OJ trial. (How do I really know? I was a journalist before I was a campus minister/mom/blogger/Instagrammer, and I covered a murder-for-hire trial that may be made into a bad tv movie, which I refused to be a part of much to the dismay of my family.) I often see tweets and FB posts from folks about dreading jury selection, asking for advice on how to be relieved of jury duty, etc. And until this year have stood at arms-length in the political poop-slinging also known as the presidential primaries.

But here’s the thing. I can write, speak, advocate, make space, elevate, etc. all the things in my piece of the platform, but there is this other space where things get changed, voted into law, funded, etc. and many of you, dear readers, can do that without having to go through the fingerprinting, money-shelling, time-off-of-work-thing I did to follow my path to citizenship.

You were born into the privilege. You were born into citizenship with the birthright of voting in an imperfect system, yes, that has the potential to shape and change policies, vote candidates and politicians in or out, show support in a non-binding referendum, etc.

You were born into the system with the privilege to have a teeny, tiny say in how to build or dismantle the system, and it didn’t cost you a second or a penny. Giving up that privilege, that power, doesn’t give anyone else your vote.

I grew up in the Church where we can incorrectly talk a lot about our citizenship in heaven as if being here on earth was a waste of time. Salvation and following Jesus was all about making sure I got to heaven and feel really bad for friends and family who were headed to hell. I accepted Jesus into my heart at every retreat and revival meeting just in case. But, now that I’m finally in my sometimes-wiser, slightly more theologically grounded 40s, it’s not about hedging my bets for a seat in heaven. My take follows Jesus’ prayer: May Your Kingdom, Your will be done on EARTH as it is in heaven. It’s not about waiting until death and resurrection. It is living embodied, not souls floating around like sunbeams and snowflakes, and that also means what we do to our bodies, with our bodies, through our bodies are part of bringing God’s kingdom come on earth. Not just on Sundays. Especially not just on Sundays.

So, back to the voting thing. There are too many people who cannot vote because the paths are not available, have been taken away, or have been shut down. I’m not here to argue whether that’s all right or wrong, but if you’re a long-time reader, you probably can figure out what I think. 😉 I’m writing to ask you, dear readers, to consider how your vote can either support the systems that need supporting or dismantle the systems that need to be done with. Your one vote may not count, but what if it is the small step to helping you think about what it means to live into the fullness of your values every single day? How do you decide what voting “pro-life” look like and how will you do it at the ballot and in your daily life? How do you decide what voting “like a Christian” looks like and how will you live into that when you don’t agree with the laws or the politicians?

Maybe I am just too new of a citizen and, if it’s even possible, not jaded enough by political pundits and the media. So be it. I don’t believe God will be angry or disappointed if you don’t vote. I do believe it is a strange privilege I have, and I don’t want to treat it like it’s become an entitlement.

 

Sa-I-Gu. April 29.

It’s been 20 years since the LA riots.

For me it was one of those “I will remember exactly where I was” moments – sitting in a hotel in Indiana after interviewing at a newspaper. I was a graduating senior, still waiting to get a job offer, collecting rejection letters (editing them in red and hanging them on the apartment refrigerator), and hopeful. For those of you old enough to have seen the riots unfold live, do you remember where you were and what you were feeling?

I watched footage of the verdict. The crowd’s response. I watched the footage of the beating and the rescue. I watched as a broken system cowered away from the angry protesters and left entire communities without “protection”. I watched the footage of looters begin to tear apart Koreatown, and I listened to news commentators talk about race relations in terms of Black and White.

And when I got back to campus a few of us from the Asian American Christian Ministry got together to pray and sit. There was one underclassman whose family owned one of those stores in Koreatown. We prayed with him as he wondered whether or not he should fly home, and whether or not there would be a store or community left by the time he landed.

And while Koreatown burned, so few of our voices and faces were included in the images, the public discourse, the whole picture. Perhaps the coverage was different in CA, but in the Midwest we were at the mercy of national news distributors and so much of the coverage focused on Black and White. Yellow was expendable, and not part of the problem nor the solution. We seemed expendable. And I felt ignored, and then I realized I wasn’t just sad and scared. I was angry.

It solidified my desire to be a journalist, and to be a different voice in some newsroom somewhere. It’s why I’m still so committed to challenging college and university students to consider how living out the Gospel in their everyday lives will help bring about God’s kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is heaven.

Because April 29, 1992, was far from heaven.