All About Family

By Rachel Garlinghouse

The decision to adopt was a major step. My husband and I willingly subjected ourselves to mountains of paperwork and questions about everything from our childhood to our finances. They fingerprinted us twice, interviewed three times— both as a couple and individually—, and inspected our home. We attended required educational classes to prove our worthiness as future parents. 

By Sascha Zuger

I disagreed with the director at my son’s preschool. As a progressive and politically correct institution, she used Black History month to teach what she believed to be age appropriate lessons about the injustices of American history in regards to African-Americans.

My son is one-quarter Mayan, one-quarter Caribbean, so cultural diversity is high on my list of priorities, but my child is three. He lacks the ‘political’ half of political correctness. He judges by color, such as the color of a person’s clothes.

By Jason B. Johnson

When Blessing Chimwanda used to walk across the campus of St. Johns University, some saw an African-American, others saw an African. He is both.

Chimwanda is part of a growing number of African and Afro-Caribbean U.S. immigrants, a group that now stands at more than one million. With different cultural backgrounds, and no ancestral links to America’s slave history, this new group of African-Americans brings a new perspective to the nation’s perception of what it means to be black in America.

By Vivian J. Malauulu

“Agua”, the Spanish word for water sounds very much like the Samoan word “aua” which is an order to stop — especially if spoken by a toothless 2-year-old. Imagine my native Spanish-speaking mother’s reaction when our oldest daughter, Chloe, repeatedly said “aua” to her one morning while having her masses of wavy hair combed. My mom offered her water, pointed to the water cooler, and even ran the faucet in the sink in an effort to decipher what Chloe was trying to say. However, all Chloe wanted was for her to stop.

A couple of weeks after this incident, Chloe spent some time with my in-laws and the innocent near homonym reared its mischievous little head again. Chloe pointed in the direction of the kitchen and said “agua” but try as they might, her native-Samoan speaking grandparents could not figure out what she wanted stopped.