Today: Where I Come From
R. Benedito Ferrao
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On a day following my first return to Los Angeles from London
where I have lived the last few years, I was asked by a
Caucasian man, whom it so happened was English, which bus he
would need to take to get to Downtown LA. I advised him. He
thanked me and, with the affinity of the traveler for
anything familiar in a foreign place, he said
sympathetically: "You're a long way from home."
The question of where (or what) home is for me has
long been a source of consternation to others. And,
often, myself. Today, November 4, 2008, it is a
question I ask myself with new meaning, and I come
no closer to an answer. Yet, on this day, the first
time I have ever voted in a country-wide general
election, the reasons for my ambiguity are
amplified by the person I voted for and that
ambiguity is, in fact, reassuring.
On the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a
Dream" speech, August 28, 2008, I became an American citizen.
It was a strange experience, one I had avoided for the
fifteen years I have lived in this country until necessity
broke down my resolve. That I could chose to become the
citizen of a country is still an alien concept to me.
My parents did not have that choice, being born in the
colonies of Goa and Kenya. And for my sister and I, the first
members of my family in several generations to be born free
people, we were not allowed to be citizens of Kuwait, where
our parents had us; instead, we were given the citizenship of
India -- a country into which Goa, the land of our origins,
though not our birth, had been enfolded.
When we emigrated to the United States it was under
an African quota, though we were Indian citizens. I
come from everywhere and belong nowhere, muses a
mixed race character of part-Goan origin in one of
the books I am currently researching.
Similarly, I find it hard to have a sense of nationalist
belonging as echoed in King's utopic but heartfelt speech.
Always being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it was
also why until today, I had never been able to vote. So, my
decision to become a citizen on the eve of, and to be able to
vote in, what will perhaps be the most important election of
my lifetime, was not to support a country or a person, but to
support an idea.
Obama is not someone whose politics I fully accept. His
stance on Islam, Middle Eastern Americans, Palestine, and
Zionism is wayward and evasive; particularly troubling given
his familial, historical and personal connections.
Yet, I also find it compelling that he embodies and
challenges so many of the rifts in this country: Of Color and
White; Foreign and Homegrown: ambiguous... Clearly, the sense
of affinity I feel is because of the overlap in our
identities -- our Kenyan connection, implied Semitic
identities, the color of our skin, and our foreignness.
It has even been said that he carries with him a small
replica of the Hindu God, Ganesh -- the remover of obstacles.
Though a religious icon, it is an image I have clung to as a
fond reminder of my own childhood and is mirrored in my own
collection of little elephant-headed idols. These are the
things that make Obama as not/American as me. These are
sentiments I share with my family and so many others in
Kenya, India, the US, UK, Kuwait, and elsewhere.
After years of living under the administrations of two
countries that have contributed to the desolateness in so
many parts of the world, it is a strange feeling to be
hopeful again.
The hope I hope for is that this country will embrace the
idea of ambiguity, the not knowing where someone comes from
without being suspicious, the knowing that people do come
from elsewhere, the belief that it is not too late to correct
the wrongs that have been committed, the belief that history
is change, the belief that the future can change.Today, this
is where I come from. -- the nightchild
