Several years ago, I published a blog that sought to explain what it was like to grow up in a multi-ethnic environment. At that time, I was still teaching. Both environments - my childhood on Bell Avenue in North Braddock and my work in higher education - taught me not only to tolerate, but to celebrate and even to consider as the norm, diversity. From the five languages other than English I regularly heard as a child, through exposure to and immersion in African-American popular music as an adolescent, to students and co-workers from all over the world who were so important a part of my professional life, I learned not to be afraid of something or someone simply because it or they were different.
The Allegheny County of my youth was heavily Democratic. That contributed to my politics. My dad, with his saavy campaign activities, did the same. My students and co-workers, from Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Korea, Morocco, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia, because of the courtesy they showed me and the respect they demonstrated for learning, solidified my belief that progressive politics are the best response to the changing demographics of the United States.
There was a time, not too long ago, when people like my grandparents were subjected to the same level of bigotry that Latinos and African-Americans still experience today. My mom told me how the Ku Klux Klan burned crosses on the hilltops in Munhall, in an effort to intimidate Ruthenian steel workers who lived there. Sadly, Donald Trump has chosen not only to support but to encourage similarly reprehensible beliefs and actions. That helps explain why, to this day, a neighbor of mine in Concord Township still displays a lawn sign that reads I want my country back.
Trump won't disabuse folks of the idea that it is, or ever was exclusively, their country. We must. Vote on November 6.
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