Oba-ma-gic! Oba-mania! Barack 'n Roll! You name it, the tacky cliché name mangle, is out there. Honestly, what is it about this political B'Rock Star that entices so many people, young and old alike to join the ranks? Maybe it is his inspiring oratory, his charming, disarming tenor, his fan club or his audacity to hope? Time and time again I face the query: why am I, like so many others, so magnetically drawn to Obama like the gravity that encompasses Oba-Mama Earth.
Despite living in Manhattan for the last three years, the cradle of progressive liberalism, I still check the square indicating GOP when I step into the ballot box. Of course, I know that encroaches blaspheme in many JACL circles, but let me qualify that claim by stating for the record, that I am not "one of those" Republicans.
Like many children, I was raised as a political half-breed. Staunch Republicans on one side of the family and equally decided Democrats on the other side. I do not present my political pedigree to defend or defame either party; rather I want to highlight the irony that while I feel more Republicanly inclined, I cannot help but love Barack Obama and pray that his path to the White House will be paved with success. What is it about Barack Obama?
My conclusion: Barack Obama is America.
I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood in a very white state. Yes, I was half Japanese, but mostly, I was white. My friends were all white; my schoolteachers, neighbors, church leaders were basically all white. I felt normal. Of course, I had the token Japanese middle name. My family ate mochi and sashimi on New Year's Day, but I did not feel any different from my white friends. Their lives were normal; my life was normal, so why should I have felt any different? And yet, I was different. My life as a halfie was different.
While I came to understand my halfie status throughout the awkward coming of age years, nothing was more potent than my experience living in Japan. I had the opportunity to live in Japan for a couple of years doing missionary service for my church and was able to truly immerse myself into Japanese culture. Early on during my time in Japan, I was very quick to claim either: Japanese roots and also American citizenship, as needed per occasion. Other times I skillfully distanced myself from either as I saw fit. In the end, I found the most comfortable position was to claim both, wholly, with all the intricacies, shortcomings, and strengths included in the total package.
Back to America. I do not exclude other nations/cultures claim to the same, but I believe the ability to simultaneously embrace seemingly irreconcilable ideas/opinions is very American. This ability runs throughout our country's history, even before we were a nation. Take the Declaration of Independence's proclamation that all men are created equal, penned by a slave owner; or the U.S. government's selection of the brave soldiers of the 442nd out of internment camps.
We have a history rife with co-existing realities. Now, I do not for an instant promote embracing sanctimonious hypocrisy. Rather, I simply assert that we Americans have a unique ability to embrace supposedly contrasting or even conflicting ideas simultaneously without selling out to either side.
Back to Barack. Yes, Barack Obama is mixed. A man with a black father and white mother, a certifiable halfie. Welcome to the club. But is halfie club membership enough to warrant my vote for president? Probably not. He can, however, claim or deny either or both races, as he deems necessary. Yet, Barack wholeheartedly embraces both with all the inherent tugs and shoves each brings with the not-so-tidy baggage.
So, is this why I stump for Barack Obama? Possibly. There are too many factors concerning presidential qualifications to squeeze and simplify a decision down to one characteristic. The point is: we as Americans are all halfies. While America is one giant inter-racial, inter-cultural, inter-everything marriage, we are its progeny. We are all half-breeds. We can either continue to claim only the half of our country that momentarily plays to our advantages or we can recognize the goods with the bads of our co-existing realities as we avow our citizenship as American halfies.
We have both the ability and the need to embrace our past and present with all that it entails or we will never powerfully assert ourselves into the future, our future.
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