MLK

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

I spent most of the day looking at all these Facebook quotes from MLK Jr. They were super inspiring and it made me happy that people actually acknowledged him on his day. I feel like the emphasis on "calendar holidays" aren't made enough. How many of us shake the hands and thank the veterans on their day? Or realize there's more than just a reason to set off fireworks and throw back beers on Independence Day? I'll never understand birthdays. Don't even get me started. They're nice and everything but really, shouldn't our parents get the credit that day---because after all without them we would cease to exist!

All of this history has really made my gears start turning. It makes me think about my generation and how we don't have that one significant political icon that hits the nails right on their heads...do we? What I like most about MLK, is that he was a civil rights activist for all. Most of you who know me, know I'm not a very religious person. I'm not atheist by any stretch but I don't go out of my way to go to church. I don't mind the fact that people need to believe in something; whether it may be a higher power, the universe or the bottom of a coffee cup. 

It's interesting to hear other people's views on things. Everyone speaks about the Vietnam war as such a tragedy, which it was. Many tell me how much they disagreed and how the entire was was a mind fuck. First of all, aren't all wars? As for those who believe that it was an entire loss and there was no point--I'd like you to take my version and think. I am first generation Vietnamese American. If those soldiers never came to help, I wouldn't be here today so that you could all enjoy my ridiculous entries. I wouldn't be standing as the person I am today, my parents would have probably died and I would have never existed. To those refugees that were rescued, we owe our lives to the American soldiers that came to rescue. 

I was lucky enough to be brought up in a mixed racial home. My grandparents were German/Native American and Irish. They volunteered to take refugees in from the war, and my father was lucky enough to have been taken in by them. They took in many many families by they took my father personally in as one of their own. I grew up with mixed cousins from all kinds of backgrounds, and was taught that we were all the same. No better than the person down the street from us, no different from each other. Love is love, no matter the details. 

It's days like these when I don't feel so guilty I'm not a super MLK buff...because I already feel like I have a part of what his dream was.