+
Family

I made my daughter cry by sharing the history of a local landmark. She needed to hear it.

I made my daughter cry by sharing the history of a local landmark. She needed to hear it.

I made my 11-year old daughter cry yesterday.

We were driving to the beach, and we passed the Portland Expo Center. It's not the usual way we go, but the traffic was bad and this would let us avoid downtown.

I asked her if she knew anything about World War 2, and she knew a little… she remembered, for instance, that in that war the US was fighting against Germany and Japan.

So I pointed out the Expo building to her, and I told her, "During the war, the US government was afraid that Americans with Japanese heritage might be spies or might side with Japan, so they gathered them all up in that building. It was a livestock building. They moved all the cattle out and moved all the people in, and they kept them there for almost a year."

"Did they kill them?" she asked.

"No," I said. "But they all lost their jobs. Many of them lost their businesses, their houses, and most of their possessions."

She didn't say anything after that, but she's a sensitive kid and I looked over to see that she was softly crying, wiping the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

Why would I do that to my kid?

Well it's not because of "CRT" or because I hate white people, or because I want her to. It's not because I'm cruel or overly fixated on race. It's not because of political correctness or politics.

It's because things like this still happen today and they'll happen again in the future and when that day comes I don't want her to stick her head in the sand and say, "Well that could never happen in the Land of the Free," but instead be one of the people standing up to say, "Not this again, this is wrong, how dare you."


It's because she has Asian-American friends, and when they are in danger or the victims of Anti-Asian racism or violence I don't want her to be confused or surprised, I want her to be able to stand in the gap to protect, support, and comfort her friends.

It's because she has Latina friends who have been deported. It's because she has Asian-American friends who have family members who have been spit on or harassed. And just because she's 11 and white doesn't mean she should be shielded from that… her friends of color aren't. She's old enough to know that the world her friends live in is the same world she's in.

And yes, she needs to know that these things happened in living memory. That right now there's a kind older woman who volunteers at the Japanese American Museum of Oregon who will tell you the story of when her family packed their bags and met at the Expo Center. She'll tell you about how they stayed in a cattle stall with a sheet for a door, and how the flypaper hung over her, heavy with flies, while her family tried to figure out what was going to happen to them all, what their own government was going to do to them (the answer being, send them to a camp in California and then transfer them to a camp in Idaho where they would live one family to a room, sleeping on cots, the guards outside the camp with their rifles, barbed wire on the fences. The answer being that some of their fathers and brothers got out early if they volunteered to fight, but the families remained in the camps, imprisoned by their own government, not "innocent until proven guilty" but "presumed guilty because of their ethnicity.").

She needs to know that if every story she ever hears about the USA is "we are the good guys" that she's listening to liars. We have done some incredible, beautiful things in the world (and still are), and we have done some horrific, evil things in the world (and still are).

Because we're not raising her to be a good American, we're raising her to be a good person.

And because when we're driving through the streets of our cities, the history matters. We should be able to point out, "This church belonged to Black people until the city decided it was time to revitalize downtown and they forced all the African Americans north, out of downtown." We should be able to say, "This is Fort Vancouver" and also know that the coming of that fort meant that in a span of barely thirty years entire cultures of Native people were nearly wiped out by smallpox and other diseases… and many of the remaining peoples were forced onto the worst pieces of land at the threat of death so that the great American empire could continue to expand.

I tell my daughter all of this not because of some political agenda. I tell her because it's true.

I tell her this because if she's going to be a good citizen she needs to know what to fight against. She needs to know who we've been to recognize who we are.

I tell her this because I love America and I want us to be better.

I tell her this because I love her and I don't want her to grow up closing her eyes to injustice.

I tell her this because she needs to know that when we talk about camps built for racist reasons in World War 2 we call them "concentration camps" in Germany and we call them "internment camps" in California or Idaho. She needs to know that we try to hide it, to soften it, to make it somehow something understandable rather than something evil.

I tell her this because once upon a time on May 2nd, 1942, three thousand six hundred and seventy-six Japanese Americans showed up at the Expo center carrying their bags – they could only bring what they could carry -- or carrying their infants and toddlers, and were moved into cattle stalls. They lived there, in our city, for five months until we could get our camps built, get the barbed wire installed, get the guard posts filled, get the trains ready to pack with our own citizens.

I tell her because their story – OUR story – matters. She needs to know.

I tell her all this because if she's never cried about something America has done, she doesn't know America.

This post was first published on the author's Facebook page. Find more writing from Matt Mikolatos on his website.

@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pets

Ricky the kitten spent 2 weeks at Gramma and Grampa's and the photobook is everything

Gramma's adorably over-the-top book documenting Ricky's visit has people clamoring for more.

Ricky had many exciting adventures at Gramma and Grampa's house.

There are kitten lovers…and then there are Ricky's grandparents.

When Izzie Grass left her kitten, Ricky, with her parents for two weeks, she had no idea what was in store for her after she got him back. Not only had RIcky been well taken care of, but his adventures with his human grandparents were fully documented in a photobook created by Grass' mother, which she titled "Ricky Goes to Gramma's and Grampa's."

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Guy shares the reason viral gym videos need to end, and it's so spot on

"If you can’t respect other people in a shared space, you don’t belong filming at all.”

“This sense of entitlement has gotten out of hand."

Gyms are communal spaces where people can come to improve their health, fitness and/or overall well-being.

However, it’s no secret that many gyms have also become a production studio of sorts where influencers can set up a tripod to demonstrate the most cutting-edge squatting technique or where the average Joe can take that obligatory gym selfie to prove that the workout did, in fact, happen.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with either of these activities. However, they have sparked a new kind of behavior in gymgoers where they feign extreme frustration if folks walk from one machine to the next or grab a piece of equipment and, heaven forbid, enter the frame.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

A group of vacationing young friends expose their buddy's secret: He's an 'airport dad'

Every friend group has at least one friend that winds up parenting the group.

A group of vacationing friends show an "airport dad" in action.

If you've ever traveled or gone out to a party or bar with a group of friends, then you've probably experienced the phenomenon of the "friend-parent." Now, this is a term I totally just made up, but I bet you recognize it. The friend-parent is the one that takes on the responsibility of corralling any stragglers, tossing out drinks that have been left unattended and generally making sure everyone stays safe.

A friend-parent was recently caught on video being an "airport dad" to his group of friends. Usually, you hear about women looking out for other women in a mother-hen sort of way, but this guy group just proved the friend-parent knows no gender. In a TikTok video from Johannes2o that currently has over 8.4 million views, a small group of guys are standing near each other with "POV: our friend is an airport dad" in text on the screen.

Keep ReadingShow less

Delivering packages AND safety.

Amazon delivery drivers don’t have the easiest job in the world. Sitting through traffic, working in extreme temperatures, hauling boxes … not exactly a fun time. So when a driver goes out of their way to be extra considerate—people notice.

One delivery driver has gone viral for the way she delivered a little bit of safety education, along with some lighthearted advice. The TikTok video of the encounter, which now has more than 4 million views, was shared by Jessica Huseman, who had only recently moved into her new house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

A major UCLA study says that at least 65 species of animals laugh

If you've never seen a fox giggle, you're in for a treat.

Foxes giggle like children on helium.

Laughter is one of the most natural impulses in humans. Most babies start to laugh out loud at around 3 to 4 months, far earlier than they are able to speak or walk. Expressing enjoyment or delight comes naturally to us, but we're not the only creatures who communicate with giggles.

Researchers at UCLA have identified 65 species of animals who make "play vocalizations," or what we would consider laughter. Some of those vocalizations were already well documented—we've known for a while that apes and rats laugh—but others may come as a surprise. Along with a long list of primate species, domestic cows and dogs, foxes, seals, mongooses and three bird species are prone to laughter as well. (Many bird species can mimic human laughter, but that's not the same as making their own play vocalizations.)

Primatologist and UCLA anthropology graduate student Sasha Winkler and UCLA professor of communication Greg Bryant shared their findings in an article in the journal Bioacoustics.

Keep ReadingShow less