Tears of Joy, Cheers of Hope
November 19, 2008
The last time we had an earthquake in Northern California, it took the campus police telling me that the whole school was closed to get me out of my classroom. But on Tuesday, November 4, I voluntarily sent the students home at 8 p.m. when the polls closed in California and Barack Hussein Obama was declared by the networks to have won the White House.
By the time the president-elect and his family stepped up to the stage at Grant’s Park in Chicago, I found myself with a small group of Vietnamese-Americans in San Jose, toasting the historic event and eagerly waiting to hear what he had to say.
In everyone’s life, there are moments that stay with us. They can be as predictable as the first kiss, first love, first child born, first million made… or they can be as personal as the time one escapes certain death, a deep betrayal, or the regret of letting a special opportunity slip by. But these are generally of a private nature; other than the affected people, it has almost no import to the collective society.
Yet in our lifetime, a few events can galvanize a society, even gathering the world together. In the United States, I can think of a few such events: Pearl Harbor, the assassinations of King, X, and the Kennedy brothers, the moon landing, the 2000 election, and of course September 11. Around the world, several landmarks dot our history: Little Boy and Fat Man, the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tianmen Square, the freedom of Nelson Mandela, and now, we can add the election of Barack Obama.
In Chicago and throughout the world that night, the feelings were uplifting, the tears joyous, and the message hopeful. Just as it brought tears to Oprah Winfrey and Jesse Jackson, the occasion must have comforted some dalits (or untouchables) in India, given hope to many women in Saudi Arabia, or lifted the spirit of the monks in Tibet and Burma. Because Obama is the 44th president of the United States, everything is possible. Maybe not now, but it’s possible.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 60’s in the United States spawned a litany of similar movements that lifted disadvantaged people out of their traditional predicaments: the elderly, disabled, any number of ethnic groups, gays and lesbians, and of course, women. Harvey Milk, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton can trace their political lineage back to Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, and Mahatma Gandhi. In the same vein, last week, students at a Beijing university got to vote for their student government for the first time; they found it exhilarating. How long will it take for the descendants of Incas, Aztecs, Maoris, Uighurs to claim their place under the sun?
Watching the speech with my fellow Vietnamese-Americans, I can’t help thinking of the boat people in the 1980’s and of another event in Hanoi 63 years ago. Even though 52% of Viet-Am voters casted their ballots for John McCain, I’m certain that they, and especially their children, appreciated their move to the U.S. On November 4, this country lived up to its ideals, and all of us who sought refuge or opportunity, or both, in this land must have felt that our faith was not misplaced.
It also reminded me of a similar speech on September 2nd, 1945 when a man stepped up to a microphone, amid a sea of joyous people, and taking advantage of the world events of the moment, declared independence for Vietnam. That man was Ho Chi Minh, who some 30 years earlier had observed and shared the circumstances of black people in Harlem. I’m pretty sure that President Ho would have smiled broadly at President Obama. And maybe even shed a tear.
Vu-Duc Vuong is a teacher and writer in the Bay Area. Contact him at vuduc.vuong@gmail.com
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2 Responses to “Tears of Joy, Cheers of Hope”
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I agree with Mr. Vu that Ho Chi Minh always smiles when he thinks about millions of victims in the ocean included my love ones.
JC
Dear John Cheng:
I commiserate YOUR “loved ones,” but, then, so I do for the “lovwd ones” of “others.”
ALL “loved ones” deserve better than what is usually doled out.
That said, “your” loved ones” are no more and no less misserved by ANY oligarchy of rulers, past, present, and future.
No human “right” justifies the killing of another.
And no huamn self-righteousness trumps anyone else’s clzaim to same.
Cry the beloved country.
And cry the benighted peoples.
We akk DIShonor the memory and service of the Gandhis and the Mandelas and those who revere their joined humanity rather thsan their singular, narrow claims to same.
I am but a single drop in that ocean of drop[lets that constitute both humanity AND existence, such as it is.
So, those who “rake” advantage of others are the dregs of the species,
And the meek, at the very least, do NOT. Take advantazge, that is.