Opinion: Three children told me and my son to 'go ...
Kurima is a member of the Union-Tribune Community Advisory Board and serves as president of the board of directors of the San Diego chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. He lives in Carlsbad.
My Carlsbad neighborhood bubble had been dealing stoically with the pandemic for eight months. We needed a break and decided to take a road trip to the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa — we were sold on the lazy river and water slides. We drove up on a peaceful Sunday afternoon.
In the morning, my son Noah and I grabbed breakfast and were walking back to our “spot” near the lazy river. As we passed the winding stairs up to the slides, I saw my daughter Eva climbing with her friends. I yelled out to her, and then I heard someone yell back at me and my son ... “Go back to China!”
As the leader of a social justice nonprofit organization, I had heard community stories and watched videos of this type of thing. But I had not experienced firsthand such open racism since my days growing up in Dallas. The questions came. How to react? No, how to respond? And how would my actions impact my kids ... not just on this vacation but for the rest of their lives?
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I looked up and saw three giggling boys who looked to be of middle school age. I am sure they assumed I would just ignore them or wave my fist and shout back in anger. Instead, I handed my coffee to my son and started running up the stairs. When I reached them, they were frantically proclaiming their innocence.
I took a picture, told them I would see them later, and headed straight to the front desk. There, I explained to the manager what had happened and shared the photo. He was exactly the type of ally you need in this situation: calmly listening, empathizing and promising he would take care of the situation.
As I sat down with my family to finally eat my breakfast, an extremely large, muscular man with inked-up arms approached. Yes, he was their father.
He wasn’t confrontational, but he was definitely terse. He asked me what was going on with his kids, and I walked him away from my family and neighbors and explained. He quietly nodded, said he understood and left.
Ten minutes later he returned with three bawling kids in tow. I walked them away from everyone and listened to their apologies. I felt bad for them but tried to describe why what they said was wrong, describing how it made me feel. We shared a productive five-minute conversation, and each apologized once more. As they slunk away following their father, I feared what further punishment awaited them.
I must give praise and gratitude to their father. I mistakenly assumed the hotel staff had talked with him. They later told me they were observing the interaction and were ready to jump in if a confrontation occurred, but the man came to me on his own volition. So what were my takeaways from this encounter?
Words matter! Words matter! Your words matter! It is impossible for me to believe these three kids naturally hold hate in their hearts. I believe they were simply digesting and regurgitating what they had heard on social media or on TV, from their family or from friends at school, from community leaders or from national figures.
Some people wonder why we are so sensitive to hateful, thoughtless speech. They say these are just words; we should have thicker skin. My response is look at what happened this month in the Atlanta area. I have no reservations in stating that the current anti-Asian atmosphere in this country culminated in these horrific killings. But we must ask ourselves, who is responsible for fostering such an atmosphere? Who has enabled, facilitated and diffused it? And is this really the culmination — or have we not yet seen the worst?
I ask that you consider the power of the words that you use, especially on social media and especially in front of your kids. I ask that you understand and acknowledge the direct connection between hate speech and the hateful violence it conceives. I ask that you hold accountable those with a public voice who continue to perpetuate an atmosphere and culture of malice and distrust.
I have returned to my bubble where I don’t have to worry about overt racism. In this bubble, I am comfortable once again, surrounded by friends, family, neighbors and colleagues who think the way I do. But there is a gnawing guilt that haunts me — it is the guilt of knowing that many of my fellow Asians and Asian Americans have no such bubble to return to.