Can Obama Fix It?

No, I'm not talking about the economy, the nonexistent job market, or the War in Iraq. I'm talking about Health Care.

I have been dealing with all the bills related to my mom's cancer. It has been overwhelming! I heard on NPR that there is a business on health care advocacy. It just seems wrong that while a person is dealing with a potentially terminal illness, s/he has to deal with all the run around you get from the insurance company, the doctor's office, etc. I think it is ridiculous that doctors charge a premium for cash patients to make up for the shortfall in payments received by insurance companies and the government. I hate that I have to call people multiple times and still not get my questions answered.

It makes me think about all the people who can't speak English well or don't put up a fight. What happens to them? Taking care of these things can take up a good part of my free time (aka Sam's nap time). What do people do when they work jobs like my Pottery Barn job in which you don't have the luxury of making personal phone calls during business hours? These are the people working close to, if not at, minimum wage, uninsured or under-insured...it just makes me think. I wonder if there is something I can do in the future when I, hypothetically, will have more free time. Maybe one day, it won't be this difficult.

To inject some humor into my gripe session...guess what my brother and I bought my mom for Christmas? A boob. Her prosthetic boob wasn't going to be covered by insurance so my mom didn't want it. I talked to my brother and we split the cost. My mom called me today and said thanks again. She sounded so happy to finally be even again. Worth every penny...

Here's Hoping for Five Generations of Turkey with Kimchi for Thanksgiving.

I was reading Hawaii5-ohana's blog and Nina's post on Kimchi Mamas it got me thinking...

I grew up in a community that was fairly diverse. When I became a member of the student government in high school, I was asked by the advisor if I thought there was anyway to get the different groups to interact more with one another. We talked about the layout of the lunch area and found it somewhat amusing that the predominantly white cheerleaders/jocks sat in this section, the band members sat in another, african-american students sat here while the hispanics sat there. There was very little intermingling between the different races. It was very much like that scene in "Mean Girls." Asian-american students sat on the end of the lunch area, not on tables, but on the concrete planters. There were maybe a handful of students that were multi-ethnic--my BFF being one of them. We hardly talked to each other during school since I was in all the honor classes and she was the head cheerleader.

Maybe it is because we were young and we had issues outside of our race to deal with like her mother passing away, my parents divorcing, her on-again, off-again relationship with the captain of the football team, and my inability to date one guy for longer than three weeks. I never saw her struggle with her identity as someone of both Japanese and European descent.

As I meet more people with multi-ethnic backgrounds and read interesting posts on Kimchi Mamas, I feel embarrassed that I was so unaware of the complex struggle of identity that some people of multiple ethnicities experience. Now with Obama as president, he has become a symbol of hope, change, the future. And as much as african-americans shed joyous tears at his election (as if his election is the fruition of all their struggles here in the US, from past to present), those of multi-ethnic backgrounds share in the victory just as much.

I voted for McCain. The biggest reason is because I don't like any one party having so much control. I know my vote for president was moot being here in California, but I still voted for McCain in defiance, despite my extremely strong misgivings for Palin. However, when it was clear that Obama would be our next president. I cried. Uniting with everyone who has experienced bigotry, in one form or another, I cried. Regardless of how I feel about politics, his election was awe-inspiring and did make me feel like we have entered a new era, uncharted territory, a vast unknown of possibilities that have opened up for my children.

I really believe that the likelihood of my children marrying korean-american is very unlikely. Maybe because of this, all this talk about race, being multi-ethnic and the inherent struggles of being half is really interesting to me. Additionally, I want our children to retain as much of our korean heritage as possible--it is a losing battle for me now as a 2nd generation korean-american. I can only imagine what it is going to be like for my children's children. My only hope is that five generations from now, kimchi will be one of the sides served during Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!