Made in America

I am...

...made in America, where the extent of our culture is backyard barbeque burgers on the Fourth of July, and the paint-coated picket fence shines so white underneath the blue sky;

...made in America, where history as it is written suffers splashes and spills of white-out, but no worries as all that is still readable is beyond doubt;

...made in America, where politicians always act in the best interest of the people, where police uphold laws to the protect the people, and where government hears the voices of the people;

...made in America, where “the people” means “some people,” “no people,” or “themselves”;

...made in America, a post-racial society so proudly represented by a giant melting pot—just make sure you use white pepper, white onions, and no variety, because keeping the porridge white is our number one priority;

...made in America, born and raised, proud and ignorant, patriotic and silent.



Trung and I were on our way back up to NorCal. I drove as always, while he sat in the passenger seat, and Sang slept in the backseat. Trung and I casually talked about the last few months of our second year in college.

“Nothing new is really going on with UCI,” I said. “I think the biggest thing that happened was stuff with the Irvine 11 that happened like four months ago in February. Have you heard about them?”

“No, what’s that?”

“The Irvine 11 are these people from our school’s Muslim Student Union, and they got busted for speaking out during this one speech from some Israeli ambassador, who was invited to speak at UCI by the law school and political science department and some other sponsors. While he was talking, one person would stand up in the audience, shout out some shit, and when that person was escorted out, another one would stand up and yell out some more shit. That continued in succession, eleven times, so that the ambassador guy wouldn’t get to speak. Now there’s controversy because the Irvine 11 are getting arrested. What’s stupid though is there are actually people standing up for the Irvine 11.”

“You don’t support what the Irvine 11 did?”

“No, why would I?”

Trung raised his eyebrow at me. “Brian, do you understand anything about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?”

“I thought I was talking about Israel and Muslims.”

Trung grunted. “Brian, Israelis practice Judaism, making them Jewish in case you didn’t know, and Palestinians practice Islam, making them Muslim. And that’s just a general blanket statement, but I’m telling you this because you’ll probably hear stuff about Jews versus Muslims too when talking about the conflict.”

“Okay, this is too many names, and either way, my understanding of the Israelian-Palestinny Conflict doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“It’s clear who’s at fault here, isn’t it, Trung? The First Amendment, the right that the Irvine 11 and their supporters are claiming to be violated, doesn’t allow you to go into a meeting at a ballroom, sit in the audience, and shout over the speaker at the front. The First Amendment has regulations so shit like this wouldn’t happen, so that no one can yell ‘fire’ for kicks in a crowded room or walk into a lecture hall and start yelling obscenities over the professor. Even though the Irvine 11 disagreed with the ambassador, they could’ve voiced their opinions in a less annoying and less unlawful way. Hell, what happen to common courtesy and respect?”

“See Brian, this is where knowing something about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict comes into use. Do you know about the Gaza Massacre? No, I know you don’t. There were close to one thousand Palestinian civilian casualties, and well over one thousand total if you include those who fought, all thanks to Israel, who suffered around ten casualties total. If I was in their situation, the students of the Muslim Student Union, I’d protest too because I’d be outraged to hear that my own school would be sponsoring a visit from the Israeli ambassador, a representative of terrible war crimes against my homeland. That would be a huge inconsiderate ‘fuck you’ to me.”

“Well, we’re not talking about emotions here.”

“And that’s exactly the problem, because the rules and laws, Brian, don’t understand emotions. The Irvine 11, I can agree that they weren’t justified by the law, but they were justified by their emotions. It’s too bad that our fucked up system prefers only to look at the law, which is in and of itself imperfect.”

At this point, I was checking my rearview mirror to see if Sang was awake to watch me, for the millionth time, get owned by Trung in a car ride between NorCal and SoCal. Fortunately, he was sleeping, or at least he was pretending to be sleeping.



The first to-do item on the agenda after arriving back in NorCal was always to go downtown and get authentic Mexican food, specifically for me, a Super Burrito with chorizo. Trung and I picked up our orders along with a bottle of sauce and sat down at a table inside, watching the line stretch out the door with sobering students just getting back from the club. We ate in silence for our first few bites, but then I brought up something that had been on my mind for a while.

2010 was ending explosively with protests over fee increases and budget cuts, which erupted all over California in the last few months of November and December, and one of the controversies that stemmed from the protests was an incident where an officer, Jared Kemper, pulled out and aimed a gun at unarmed protesters at UCSF. When this story initially spread, I naturally reacted by thinking, whatever the protestors did, it must have been deserving enough to provoke Kemper’s response.

I discussed with Trung, over burritos and quesadillas, what the rebuttal for my reaction would be, because I wanted to instead be able to believe the rebuttal. He reminded me, first of all, that police officers weren’t robots that operated one hundred percent by the law; they were human too, capable of making mistakes, and that’s what Kemper did. It was something human within Kemper, a kind of fear or frustration, exacerbated by a realization that he had no training in handling the type of situation he was in, that made him desperately reach for his gun. In this case, however, his reaction was still inappropriate and inexcusable, Trung concluded, because it unnecessarily endangered lives, and under no circumstances would a police officer have a lawful reason to draw his gun on unarmed student protestors. Simple as that.

I nodded. Trung remarked that it was nice to see me trying to see things in a different light, because even if it was just half a year ago, I still would’ve been rolling my eyes at students playing victim and whining about having a gun pulled on them. And if it had been high school, he added, I still would’ve been parading racial colorblindness.

“Remember in high school when all your friends were taking that Asian American summer leadership program at DeAnza? You’d very openly accuse them of wasting their time because all they did was, and I quote you, ‘get together with other fob Asians and whine about racism.’ ‘Maybe if they integrated better and got over their race and other people’s races they could actually accomplish something blah blah blah only one race—the human race!—blah blah blah and I’m insensitive to race and ethnic issues.’ You’ve come a long way since then, Brian, and I know I don’t deserve all the credit, I’m sure, but I still like to say you changed all thanks to me.”

I shrugged. Trung might’ve been right. Something that I didn’t wanna tell him but had also been on my mind was the DREAM act, a bill that would’ve provided illegal “aliens” an opportunity for permanent residence if they satisfied certain conditions, one of which was getting into a four-year college and finishing at least two years. The bill was defeated in Senate one day prior, and how I felt about the news shocked me—I actually felt angry, upset. I don’t know if it was because I knew that Trung, who had been posting a bunch of stuff about the DREAM act on his Facebook and Tumblr, really hoped it would pass; or because throughout my last three years of teaching and tutoring, I’ve taught one or two outstanding students who weren’t legal residents in the United States. Whether or not I changed because of Trung or something else, however, there was at least the one important thing I learned to fully understand: Fuck the system.