Photo: Rich Kacmar
Actually, there wasn’t much fear
By Anna Daniels
Our national zeitgeist certainly has turned nasty and fearful since the last Republican debate. World War III! Armageddon! Terror at home! I never imagined myself ever saying this, but I am grateful that the pressures of last minute holiday shopping have partially restored our national sanity–short-lived as it will no doubt be.
My Beloved and I recently joined thousands of our like minded neighbors making their way to Mission Valley. We left our home unarmed, optimistic that a good guy and good woman with cash and charge cards would be capable of handling whatever came our way.
Our first stop was the post office in Mission Valley. While I love our City Heights post office, a trip there for stamps or to mail a package can become a lengthy experience, albeit a memorable and illuminating one.
This scene didn’t stay in my memory simply because the wheels of social interaction had been greased by common courtesy in that busy post office. Rather, it was the fact that the young woman was wearing hijab.
The Mission Valley post office was packed, but it conformed to a space-time continuum that I could handle– the line advanced with an encouraging regularity. One Filipina clerk and a guy who looked like ZZ Top calmly and capably moved a diverse assortment of San Diegans along the service counter and out the door.
It wasn’t until we returned to the car that I remembered the young woman in front of us who was addressing a package on the customer island that we were all inching along. She would occasionally look up, smile and wave ahead the person behind her.
This scene didn’t stay in my memory simply because the wheels of social interaction had been greased by common courtesy in that busy post office. Rather, it was the fact that the young woman was wearing hijab.
Of all the existential threats that Republican presidential candidates have served up to the public, Muslims are at the top of the list, at least for this news cycle. The threat is not limited to Muslims abroad or Muslims in their home lands. It includes all of the Muslims currently living in this country. That threat by extension must include the young woman and the man she was with in the Mission Valley post office.
No one in that post office was freaked out by the Muslim woman and man in our midst. There was no pointing, no head wagging, no whispering. It was difficult to square the actual lived experience in this multi-ethnic, multi-racial city with the conservative’s Big Fear that seems to resonate with a segment of our nation.
For a few moments I tried to imagine Republican Valhalla in which some armed representative of the state would be lurking in the post office to detain that couple, check them against a national registry and return them to their country of origin. If they were born here in the United States, things might get more complicated. Or not.
These thoughts were too repugnant, too horrifying, to entertain. And they simply had no relevance in the public streets and gathering places on that busy shopping day.
As the hours sped by, the main roads in Mission Valley became more clotted with cars. As we waited for a light to change, a young woman with a little boy who were standing in the median approached the stopped cars.
The woman was holding a sign that said “Homeless and Hungry. Please Help. God Bless.” The child sang out “Merry Christmas” to those who handed his mother money through their car windows.
Night had fallen and the slow moving rush hour traffic was reduced to festive ribbons of white and red lights. We returned home, our small car packed with groceries and bags of holiday cheer. The house was warm and comforting, all thoughts of existential threats were banished.
Not far away, an anonymous Mary on a Mission Valley traffic median was searching for shelter, a safe place, for herself and for her boy child.
Anna Daniels
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Nothing like a little Christmas cheer to ease our fears.
Real people are better than the ones media displays.
If only everyone could make that connection. This celebration of a homeless family, a mother giving birth in a place meant for animals, because there was no room for them anywhere else. No one tell the Christmas story and says that the father should have planned for this, got a better job, etc. etc… No one blames the Baby Jesus and his parents for their plight.
I noticed the words to a popular Christmas Carole today, playing in the background while I was cooking lasagna and pies for tomorrow: “Says the shepherd boy to the little lamb, ‘Listen to what I hear.’ A child, a child shivers in the cold, let us bring him silver and gold.” And I wondered where a shepherd boy would get silver and gold, and wouldn’t it be better to offer the family a safe, warm place to sleep? So much about this holiday seems so in-congruent.
Today I learned that one of our Amikas clients, who has been looking for housing for herself and her 3 children for almost a year, is still homeless. Like the woman and her son whom you saw today with the sign, we have Mary’s all around us. But here in San Diego, the police will confiscate even a tiny shed built for a homeless man to sleep in. The police are praised for collecting Toys for Tots? How about Homes for Humans first?
Anna, leave it to you to point out something I had not noticed. I was in several places this past week where women were wearing a hijab and your right people were not in a panic. Your article was so positive as far as seeing the good things happening. I went back in my mind and thought about several things that stood out after reading your article.