Election Day

Today was the first day I asked myself a very specific question:

Was Grandma allowed to vote?

Specifically, I wondered whether Grandma was allowed to vote while interned in Rohwer.

For those of you who don’t know, my maternal grandparents and all of my mom’s older siblings were interned during World War II. (My father’s side was not -- they lived in Maui, and most of the Hawaiian Japanese-Americans were not interned. Some fought, including my grandpa’s brother, who died in a corner of France.)

Wikipedia didn’t have anything. But PRI’s The World did a characteristically excellent story on the matter.

The gist is that there was voting, but it was difficult, and the combination of ballot challenges, state laws, and logistics meant that voting rights were pretty much eliminated.

I try to avoid thinking too much about my racial or cultural identity. But otherness has been a feature of this election in a way that it hasn’t been, at least in the memory of my political life. And so it was perhaps inevitable that I’d come back to that memory, and think about what was, and what might have been, and of course, what may yet be.

It is with a renewed intensity that I gaze upon efforts to make voting harder, not easier. It is with renewed anger that I consider the efforts to change election laws, under the pretense of reducing fraud, to disenfranchise segments of the population. Because it was not so long ago that my family lost those rights, through no fault of their own.

And it’s with some amazement that I consider that, after that experience, my grandparents rebuilt, had sons and son-in-laws serve in uniform overseas, and voted. I wish I had the “I LIKE IKE” button that my grandpa had hanging near his desk for decades. I wonder if he ever knew that Milton Eisenhower led the War Relocation Authority. As a farmer/small businessman, he probably was a registered Republican.

I’m grateful he didn’t get bitter. I’m grateful he didn’t give up. And I’m grateful that he was permitted -- not easily, but permitted -- to rebuild his life. It’s a sobering lesson for me. I’ve experienced nothing remotely close to that level of dislocation, humiliation, and -- I don’t think this is an exaggeration -- state-sanctioned theft. I laugh at my friends who worry about big government taking away their rights or seizing their property. But then I feel shame -- every family has stories of civic failure and grievance, whether governmental or private. It does no good to dismiss their concerns and pain out of hand.

That’s going to be the hard part after today. How do we work together? How will the victors frame their victory in a way that at least reduces the chances that we will spend the next two or four years or decades as two armed camps, unable to do much because we begrudge each other the smallest things?

Because I do think a lot of people are terrible. I do think that support of Trump flies in the face of everything I know and love about this country. I do think that it shows a marked historical ignorance, a lack of empathy to those who would most be hurt by a Trump presidency that borders on callousness and selfishness. I do think that plenty of people, even people more or less on the same page as me, have become stark raving mad.

And I believe I have been one of those madmen.

I've embraced the toxicity that I criticize in others. I've become the partisan that sees winning as essential, even existential. And in my saner moments I feel shame at being part of the problem.

So I’m trying, hard, to remember certain things. I remember that my love for this country is not the naive love I had as a young child. It’s a love that is more aware (though still partially blind) to the real historical truths, and the present truths, experienced by those different from me. I see those flaws, and that pain, and the wars and the cruelty and the short-sightedness.

But I’m finding the strength to not just criticize or willfully ignore it. I’m finding the love that demands I reach out, and do things that are uncomfortable and hard, and pride-crushing, because I know that it makes my tiny corner of the world better.

Not enough. Never enough. But some. And maybe, after today, some more.

I love this country because of its history, too, and not just in spite of it. I marvel at how some individuals and communities discovered, in their pain, in their oppression, in their privilege, something greater, something beyond the limitations of I or tribe.

That all heroes wilt under the scrutiny of history and hindsight is necessary, and even desirable. If America depended on perfect women and men to achieve greatness, we would have no hope to maintain, much less advance, this experiment. I have looked into the mirror, and learned to appreciate the flaws, the dark shadows, without sentiment or excuse. Our scars are our story, though one hopes, not our future.

So this I pray -- and I say that sincerely as a man who has struggled to bend his knees and bow his head, but does so now, at a time of acute need. I pray for a peaceful election day.

I pray for good judgment on the part of the people.

I pray not for an easy life, but to be a stronger man.
I pray for powers equal to my tasks. (Phillip Brooks)

I pray that I remember that the spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not too certain that it is right. (Learned Hand)

I pray I learn how to borrow from those who came before, from those who know more, and love more -- that my pride does not prevent me from leaning too much on my own understanding, but that my honor demands that I develop my understanding to ensure I am not a weak reed.

Today, I will cast my ballot, thinking about my family that, within living memory, was denied that right. I will vote mindful of the past, with an eye toward the future, our future.

I cast it knowing that this is but a piece of citizenship -- that I will judge my worthiness of that vote based on what I do between elections to better advance this nation and the world, and the extent to which I have opened my heart to those across the fissures and chasms of discord and fear.

Today will be the expression of our will. But every day is the expression of our character.

To you good men and women: I pray you vote wisely, live well, and love openly. For you are why I vote, why I live, and why I love. Thank you.