Birthright
The Wednesday after North left to go back to school, Beth and I went to a rally outside the Supreme Court while the justices were hearing a case about birthright citizenship. The President was inside listening, too, and according to the Post, when he left in the middle of proceedings, passersby “offered a range of gestures.” We didn’t see him, as he left from another side of the building, but Beth said she would have liked to offer a range of gestures if she’d had the chance.
What we did see was several hundred people with signs. Ours were pre-printed ones we picked up there that said, “It’s literally in the Constitution.” But there were plenty of hand-lettered ones that said, “Citizenship is a Birthright,” “ICE Out” (held by a man in a blue bunny hat), “Keep Your Hands Off the 14th,” “Immigrants Pay Taxes Billionaires Won’t. Deport Billionaires,” “Together, We Are America,” and “Born Here, Belong Here.” The Rapid Response Choir was singing and people played drums.
Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” Beyoncé’s “Freedom,” Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” and other thematically appropriate songs played before the speakers got started. Honestly, none of them were particularly memorable (partly because some were hard to hear) but it was notable that a descendent of Wong Kim Ark spoke. And that turned out to be important because there were some hecklers arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment only applied to nineteenth-century freedman, so it served as a reminder that applying the amendment to immigrants is long-established precedent.
I was wearing my “I Stand with Immigrants” t-shirt and someone approached me wanting a picture because she was part of the organization that designed the shirts. I said I’d had it since the first Trump administration (when they were handed out at a rally for the Dreamers), and she said, “I guess it’s a timeless message” and I agreed, it’s evergreen. Later I saw someone else in the crowd with the same shirt, which has never happened before, though I’ve worn it to many protests in the past fourteen months, a lot more often than in the first administration.
We left before the event was over because it was a workday for me, but I was glad to have gone. It feels as if a lot about our country’s identity is riding on how we decide to treat the children of our newcomers.
Re-Birth
Noah worked from Monday through Thursday that week, but he was off Friday, and I didn’t have much work either, and Beth was free after her ICE watch shift, so it seemed like a good day to dye eggs. We had a kit Beth had picked up for sale just after Easter last year, that claimed to produce neon eggs, but the colors turned out like those from a regular kit. The enclosed stickers were in the shapes of neon tubes, however, so maybe that’s what it meant. There was also a glitter packet. Beth tried it out, but it didn’t stick very well. Noah created a batik effect by dyeing an egg yellow, drawing stars on it with white crayon and then re-dyeing the egg blue. It came out nicely. I made two two-toned eggs and used the stickers to spell out “Resist” surrounded by rainbows on the yellow/green one and “No” on top of a crown on the pink/purple one. And of course, we also used the face stickers and the little felt hats we’ve had for ages.
Saturday, I made a batch of almond flour banana chocolate chip walnut muffins because we had a lot of little baggies with frozen overripe bananas in the freezer—I found seven separate bags, some with tiny little stubs of frozen banana. By the time I’d combined them all and mashed them I had 1 ¾ cups, which was enough for my purposes. Beth had asked if we could donate half the batch to the immigrant aid bake sale that’s at the farmers’ market every week. I was glad to be contributing to a good cause, so when we found out the sale was cancelled that week, due to people being away for the public schools’ spring break, we decided to freeze them for the following week.
We’re not religious, so our Easter observation consists of dyeing eggs and eating candy. Sunday morning, I gave Noah his Easter basket with little ceremony shortly after he got up. We’d just we discovered the cats intently watching a wasp on the living room window and to save them from getting stung we removed them to another room while the wasp was caught and released outside. I came out of the room where I’d shut them up carrying the basket and handed to him after he let the wasp go. I’d been resisting the Easter candy (mostly) for weeks, so I had a Reese’s egg after lunch and before my daily walk in hopes the exercise would prevent a spike. It did blunt the rise.
On the walk, I took pictures of flowers, purple ones because it was Easter. I had a lot to choose from: lilacs, redbud, wisteria, grape hyacinth, and a budding iris right outside our fence. I do appreciate all the symbols of rebirth you see this time of year in the form of chocolate bunnies and eggs as well as the real rebirth of the natural world, so reliable and beautiful, no matter what else is happening around us.
Happy Passover and Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate. Whether you do or not, I hope you feel at least a glimmer of hope and renewal in these lovely spring days.