Como se dice 'get your nails did' en español

A conversation with my six-year-old niece on the subject of Spanish grammar:

"Mi mama pinta mis uñas."

"Mi mama me pinta las uñas."

"...I don't even know what you're saying right now."

Home of the free

My friends have planned a trip to Vegas this weekend, which I was going to attend but last week decided not to because of my chronic* illness over winter break. I thought it best to take it easy.

So even though I told my grandmother, like, a week ago, that I wasn't going to Vegas anymore, she asked me if I was going again when she called today. Um, nope, still not going. Was it because I didn't like the people I'd be going with?, she asked. Um, what the fuck? I don't know where she gets ideas like these.

Anyway, all her talk of Vegas gets her started on the times she's been to Vegas. And she mentions she does like how when you come in to Vegas, you see a replica of the Statue of Liberty. And of course, she's explaining this to me like I don't know that it's there. Which I do. Because I have been to Vegas before.** And she doesn't like this fake Lady Liberty because she thinks it's insulting because the real statue is so important and symbolized such hope for people.

"Yes, Bubie," I rolled my eyes because, whatever, she can't see me anyway. "The hope to make a long, arduous ocean voyage only to be sent back if you had a cold. Or the hope to get in and be forced to live in a slum and endure hardship and racial oppression."

She didn't really seem to take notice of what I was saying. "Let me tell you, when I saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time..."

My grandmother arrived in the US in 1956, two years after Ellis Island had closed. "You did not see the Statue of Liberty as you were coming into New York," I reply. "You were on a plane."

My mother, who is sitting next to me eating dinner, is trying hard but failing not to laugh as I inform her in a whisper to what her mother is saying that she can't hear. My grandmother continues to insist that a Vegas replica is an insult to the special embodiment of American values that the statue holds for immigrants.

I think this is the fundamental difference between me and my grandmother: even after over 60 years in this country, she still believes in that immigrant dream of the Land of Opportunity, and I suppose she should, because that dream has been true for her. After all the shit she went through in pre-war Poland and then the Holocaust, a country where (almost) no one has stigmatized her for being Jewish and where her family was economically successful with only one breadwinner (my grandfather) must seem like a bloody miracle. But for me, even though I am a middle-class white person, that dream is not what I study or see. I see a world where my LGBT client from Mexico can't get political asylum because he saw a lawyer about the process in 2009 and now it's been over his 1-year time limit. I see a country, both past and present, so mired with racism and xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric that it makes me want to cry. I grew up in a household with two working parents because my mother could not not work. I don't know if she simply refuses to see this, but I doubt it. This country, after all, gave her pretty much everything the Statue of Liberty promised. Why should she believe me? I'm just some pretentious, spoiled, 20-something, not-even-college-graduated kid who has never even been to New York City, much less battled her way through anti-Semitic Poland and Hitler's Germany to finally make it to the promised land*** and see that green woman holding the flame of liberty and the book of freedom**** and finally felt sure that everything was going to be okay.

"You know what Bubie? I think you're wrong. I think taking an overinflated and arguably false symbol of the supposed freedom and opportunity of America and making a sized-down, less impressive replica for a greedy commercial exploitation is the definition of the American Dream."



*not really chronic, just like, lightly persistent?
**I was 10, but believe me, the fake Statue of Liberty was one of the few things I could enjoy, so I fucking remember it.
***Actually, my grandmother moved to Israel first, which is technically the "Promised Land", but whatever, I'm going to stop mixing my metaphors here.
****Sorry

Friends without benefits

Taking my grandmother and her friend to lunch is like babysitting two petulant children.

They are both 90 years old, but for some reason they bicker like 12-year-olds. They have known each other their whole lives, which is no fucking joke. They are from the same town in Poland. They were both in Auschwitz then Berlin then Sweden together. They now live 5 blocks away from each other in West LA, where all little old Jewish ladies live. Essentially, they are more friends out of obligation and habit than anything else.

Whenever I take them to lunch, especially if my parents aren't around, all they do is passively aggressively snipe at each other, which eventually turns into yelling at each other in Polish. (I don't actually know Polish, but I'm assuming once it gets to that stage they have stopped being passive aggressive and are just letting it rip.) The minute I drop her friend off, my grandmother just goes off on her, how she pretends to be more sick than she is, how she thinks she's better than everyone else, etc. She rants off how she will purposely not invited her out to lunch, only comes to events at Cafe Europa if it's free tickets for the opera, whatever. I don't know. The same laundry list of things she is constantly complaining about this fried.

So I say, "Well then, why are you still friends with her? You don't actually owe her anything. She's not really family."

"You wouldn't understand," my bubie tells me.

Of course not.

Indecison 2011

I called my mom yesterday to get her opinion on whether or not I should go to Mexico City over winter break to do research. I wanted her to tell me no, that I should stay at home because it would be safer and my grandmother would worry less, stuff like that, because I don't really want to go anymore. The whole thing is just too nerve-wracking: I am convinced I won't get the documents or information I'll need and I will have wasted the scholarship money I got and they will make me return it or something equally awful and embarrassing.

But no, instead my mother just tells me, "You know I'd always like to see you more, but it's really up to you."

Oh, the perils of your parents actually trusting your judgement! I just want her to make my difficult decisions for me so I don't have to! Instead, she has done such a good job raising me that she actually thinks that I am a responsible adult and should be allowed to do what I think is best. What the fuck is that? I am 21 years old! I don't know anything! I don't even trust my own judgement! Why do you allow me to make decisions?

Growing up is scary.

All I want for Christmas

Last night I drove to Hana's new house in Valencia, because we have a tradition of seeing a movie together on Christmas Eve. Only it turns out Valencia is the worst and all the movie theaters close super early so we just drove over to Pyramid Lake for a bit of stargazing. Her eight-year-old brother Michael didn't want me to stay over because "Christmas should just be family".

"Arielle is family. I've known her longer than I've known you," Hana retorted. "Does that mean that you shouldn't be here?"



Michael woke us up at 7:30 this morning, yelling WAKE UP WAKE UP IT'S CHRISTMAS IT'S CHRISTMAS SANTA BROUGHT PRESENTS.

"But he only brought me two presents this year," he added in a more normal tone of voice. "Last year he brought five!"

"Yeah, okay, whatever, Dudley Dursley," Hana and I respond in unison.

I wish I had a clever pun about Italy

Florence is really beautiful, but my mother has sort of been driving me up the wall. She can be quite controlling and condescending, which is funny because she would always tell me that I can be very bossy and rude to people. I've never said that it's probably because I learned from the best, and I don't think vacation is the most opportune moment to bring it up.

Anyway, Florence. Really pretty. Very touristy though. I like the quieter parts of towns, especially little parks. And I'm already getting sick of churches, which is bad news as it's only Day 2 and there are 14 days total. But today we did this cooking lesson at someone's house in the countryside and we made pasta by hand and everything was delicious. I want to be in a small town, like I was last time I came to Italy. But I think some of the other towns on our itinerary are quite small, like the towns in Cinque Terre. I'm super excited for that.

Um, I have nothing else to add and I'm really disappointed that I have no cohesive structure to this entry, so, uh..... gelato!

Family matters

I have to move all my stuff up to Berkeley over Christmas weekend because my parents can't take any time off in January, so my dad's family had a Christmas shindig yesterday. My dad's family is very different from my mom's; her family is Jewish and are quasi-intellectuals, his is from Iowa and likes fishing, NASCAR, and country music. Of course, even as I wrote that, trying not to sound like an asshole, you can tell which of my parents had a bigger influence on my personality and worldview.

But my dad's family is really nice and it's fun to spend time with them, even if my uncle does roll his eyes a lot when I started talking about the theoretical possibility of time travel.