Racism: alive, well

"Two happy parents and their sleeping daughter"

or

"Two happy white parents and their adopted Asian daughter"

Racism is definitely alive and well in Germany. Germans...racist? Don't be shocked! You see on the news that Obama has so much support overseas, but we often hear "how could the US elect a black man?" from people on the street. I was in tears the other night and uttered words I never thought I would hear myself say "I miss New Jersey". It's not the strip malls, the shore, good bagels and pizza that leave me longing for the Garden State, it's our ability to blend in with other multicultural families without being subject to stares and inappropriate questions when we go out in public. I've stopped taking Gianna to the playground because of bullies small and large. The pasty white German kids won't let Gianna play on the equipment with them and the pasty white German mothers keep asking me if I'm the nanny. When I explain that I am Gianna's mother, they insist that's impossible unless I have a Vietnamese husband at home, which would still be wrong in their book because I'm white. I can't imagine how it makes Gianna feel when she hears me defend our mother-daughter relationship to German busy-bodies at the playground, on the street, in the train station, at the grocery store, you get the picture. And lately Gianna's been getting picked on by some German girls at school, in the hallway and in the bathroom. I can't say for sure that it's racially motivated, but Gianna is Asian, small for her age, and shy, three reasons to pick on a kid. Now she is afraid to go to the bathroom if other kids are around; she grips onto my legs and hides. Just want to give those little German brats a good ol' fashioned American Arschtritt. I need to have a good plan in mind for the next time I see it happen.

Being a multicultural family and living in another country are awesome experiences that teach you a lot about life. Gianna still speaks plenty of Vietnamese, but we are hearing more and more English every day. Sometimes she will repeat German words, but is not consistently speaking any German. Today we were looking at her Vietnamese "My First Animal Book" các loài vật. She kept saying the word "gián", paging through the book, and stopping on the insect page. Turns out, gián means cockroach. Now how does she know that word so well? I can just imagine the orphanage workers chasing away the gián, "gián không! gián không!" Another mystery I have solved with my Vietnamese lessons is Gianna's Curly (as in Three Stooges) impression. She often says "nuk! nuk! nuk!" and I thought she was mispronouncing milk. Turns out, the Vietnamese word for water, nước, sounds just like nuk. In the future, I will be more sensitive to her request for water :-) And I am also going to speak to the school director about the bully situation.