Black History Week

I attended a Black History Month event at my daughter, Mona’s school. Yes, We live in Harlem and our kids are growing up in Harlem and they go to school in Harlem. I don’t think about this everyday but today I was sitting in the audience and looking around: clearly I was one of the only two Asians among all the parents. And Mona is the only Asian-white kid. The kids and teachers put on a great show and It truly touched my heart. Mona takes very seriously everything she has learned about black history and race issues-she keeps telling/teaching me about what she learned in school: about slavery or MLK's "I have a dream “ speech, or Sojourner Truth, or Malcolm X, or Obama and many more... And her best friend, Victoria and Noa ‘s best friend, Micha, and their wonderful parents, our neighbor downstairs, Ms.Audry, Mona’s teacher Mr. Marcus etc... are all black people. Again, I don’t think about this normally. But I was feeling so proud of my kids and how this is so different from how I grew up on the islands of Japan. New York is such a great place for meeting the world, and we found our apartment in Harlem about 8 years ago because it was a place we could afford and it became our home.