Let America’s Big Heart Greet Little Gracie Anne

Years ago I came to doubt an old journalistic fairy tale. The one that said if you wrote about a thing you were sure to make it better. I learned differently. Sometimes you make things worse.

Race relations, for instance.

Journalists write about our differences in culture and color and ancestry because these are hot wires that run through the nation. We cannot ignore racial tensions, racial awareness, racial injustice. We tell ourselves that by explaining how people feel and behave toward each other, society will inch in the direction of understanding. Exposing wrongs leads to right, in the same way that infection is cleansed by fresh air and sunshine.

That’s the noble part of this work.

We also have come to understand, regrettably, that writing about intolerance can fan intolerance. It can legitimize undeserving people and ideas. It can cause pain in the same way that picking at a wound slows its healing.

That’s the lousy part of the job.

A new public opinion poll has opened a wound in me. It presumes to catalog our collective suspicions about Asian Americans, in particular those of Chinese ancestry. I know this survey was undertaken for the right reasons. But it was misguided. As a result, news accounts stirred up yet another bout of national anxiety.

To me, it’s personal. My wife and I have applied to adopt a girl from a Chinese orphanage. We dream ahead to this time next year when Gracie Anne Balzar is rolling around in the crib.

So watch out. We’re looking for a new house to accommodate her. We might move into your neighborhood. In 15 years, she might catch your son’s fancy and end up going to the junior prom with him.

Maybe you’re one of the 24% of Americans in this new poll who say they will disapprove of their son marrying Gracie Anne because of where she was born. Or is it the shape of her eyelids? The poll didn’t say. Maybe you’re one of the 17% who say they don’t want us next door. Maybe you’re one of the 32% who say they believe that her U.S. passport will be only a piece paper, and in her heart, she’ll always be a loyal to the People’s Republic. Maybe you’re one of the 6% who wouldn’t want to work for her when she grows up.

A group of civic-minded Chinese Americans commissioned this poll. They asked the wrong questions. They perpetuated the notion that we must view ourselves as a collection of groups and discuss our differences in the tired group-think of prejudice.

Folks, if you ask about stereotypes, you’re going to get stereotypes for answers.

There are more sophisticated, more telling and, yes, more productive questions to ask if you want to gauge the heart of Americans: Would you judge your new neighbors foremost by the integrity of their values or the angle of their eyelids? Which is more important: where someone is born or what they contribute? Have you had personal experience in which someone, a neighbor or a co-worker perhaps, proved different than you expected?

These are stereotypes, too. But they speak to our hopes.

As Gracie Anne grows up, I’ll try to explain this country to her. I’ll have to tell her about the time I was dispatched, as a cub reporter, to cover the discovery of a mass grave. My editor suspected it was the work of a California serial killer who was then making headlines. At the office of the investigating sheriff, I ask about the bodies.

“Oh, you mean the bones,” the rural sheriff replied casually. “They’re in the basement.”

There they were on the jailhouse floor: not the fresh victims of killer Juan Corona but a heap of disinterred bones of forgotten Chinese laborers murdered a century ago. That’s what happened on paydays back then in America, I learned. Have your Chinese workers dig a pit. Then shoot them. Bullets were cheaper than meeting the payroll. Then get a new crew of Chinese laborers.

I hope, also, to show Gracie Anne this country’s breathtaking progress in the century since. I will tell her that the neighbors were a bit reserved when we moved in next door. But they warmed up when we invited them over for a taste of my barbecued salmon.

She’ll remember her fifth birthday party when all the families came and we had pinatas. She’ll remember the woman down the street who baby-sat and read her Dr. Seuss. She’ll remember getting bigger and baby-sitting the bratty twins across the street. She’ll remember being teased at school because she was skinny and left-handed. She’ll remember the teacher who inspired her to draw, or write, or dance.

She’ll remember sitting on the patio with that boy down the block, hoping that her mom wouldn’t see them holding hands. She’ll remember that junior prom and getting a run in her nylons.

Then she’ll write me a letter from a foreign country. She and her husband, the boy down the block, now work in the Peace Corps. What they learned growing up in America was about having a big heart and hope for the world. She’ll tell me how much she misses the good people at home.

Some fairy tales are worth believing in.