History and Joy:

January 20, 2009: The day after the Martin Luther King Holiday, over 40 years after Martin Luther King suggested that within 25 years there would be a black president, 147 years after the declaration of the emancipation of slaves, 232 years after the creation of a nation that promised equality for all, but in fact denied this right to women, people of African descent, Native Americans, and others who did not belong to or bore the fabric of the “founding fathers.”

There was redemption on January 20 for all Americans, but in particular for European Americans and African Americans. Barack H. Obama was elected president of the United States of America—the land which is now my home. Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein, two accomplished women, flanked President Obama. We have the most multi-ethnic cabinet ever–eleven whites, four African-Americans, a Hispanic and two Asians. The “Si Se Puede” movement became Obama’s “Yes We Can” movement.

This country–is a changin!

Irony and Sadness:

Yet, after a morning of no E-mail as all eyes were on Washington, I got the first post inauguration message sobering my ecstatic state: “ People of Color need your support-help keep the legal profession desegregated”—an urgent message from the Equal Justice Society. In California, there is a continuing effort to dismantle what remains of affirmative action by using social science research to show how affirmative action has been detrimental to people of color in the legal profession.

As a low-income, Latina immigrant who was often told (not by my family) that the best that I could hope for would be to be a secretary (not disparaging the occupation), affirmative action offered the only hope. It allowed me to show that despite the language barriers, the discrimination and challenges I faced based on my ethnicity and gender, I could reach my childhood dream of joining the ranks of attorneys who had used this venerable profession to seek justice and equality. It also provided me with a doorway out of poverty. Although I look forward to the day where affirmative action will no longer be necessary, we are not there yet. Despite President Obama’s victory and the promise that it represents, children of low-income families and children of color do not yet have equal opportunity. Our schools, neighborhoods, housing, health care are not equal.

During the last few weeks, Gaza was sacked and rendered a modern day Dresden; all an effort to beat the swearing in of President Obama. As we celebrated, more than 1,300 Palestinians had died; with their homes and schools destroyed. Without electricity, Palestinians were unable to watch the transition of power that is, disturbingly, unlikely to solve this intractable humanitarian crisis.

My happiness was also dampened by a realization— were have I been? — that capitalism has truly triumphed. On January 20, I was reminded of another equally joyous time –the election of Salvador Allende to the Chilean presidency. I remembered the hope that I had as a youth that at long last the world would be moving to a more just and equal society that would provide the economic security that is key to our basic humanity. We will be coming out of eight years of one of the worst incarnations and moving forward to what I hope will be perhaps a more benign and humane form of capitalism.

Hope:

President Obama is almost 100% right. We have the “responsibility” to ourselves and to the world to keep moving the arc of history.

We need to vanquish the crime of torture from our land and ensure that we not trade “safety” for our “values.” Gunatanamo will close. Unjustified surveillance of our citizens must end. We must ensure that the imperial presidency will not return.

We must keep our pledge “[t]o the people of poor nations, […] to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.” American and international corporations’ depletion of the world’s resources for our benefit must end. We must return some of what we have taken.

We need to communicate to the “Muslim world, [that] we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” Immoral, religious and or plundering wars must end and new ones not started. Gaza, without the destruction of Israel, must be rebuilt and be set free from the tyranny of walls, barbed wires, and bombs.

To Americans who have been battered by an “… economy [that] is badly weakened, a consequence of greed”… and are facing a “raging storm,” let’s restore our government’s capacity to “help[s] families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified,” housing that is affordable, neighborhoods that are healthy and safe, and provide an education to ensure prosperity to future generations.

“This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.” Let’s make equality a reality—and make sure it extends to our gay/lesbian/transgender sisters and brothers.

Let’s help President Obama fulfill his oath—our oath. Let’s not be afraid of finding our “common humanity.” We must be vigilant and persistent in our drive to maintain freedom and to continue to move towards the social and economic justice waiting for us at the end of that arc of history, that rainbow arc.