A Conversation from Six Years Ago:Â âGood Enoughâ
Last night, I read on the Guardian and heard on the BBCâs Wales website that a Welsh-born teacher, who coincidentally also happens to be Muslim, was barred from entering the United States. This teacher was going to the US as part of a school trip with fellow colleagues and students. Seeing their teacher being escorted off the plane for a ârandom inspectionâ led to confusion. The British teacher felt powerless against authorities and embarrassment.Â
In light of the recent Muslim ban that barred citizens from specific countries, one of them wasnât the U.K. (unless they had dual-citizenship). This teacher, of Bangladeshi descent, isnât a dual-citizen. He is a British citizen.
This story unsettled me. Yet another one of the many, many stories and reports from the U.S. that have been unsettling me for weeks now.
This morning, I woke up with the recollection of a conversation I had six years ago.Â
Six years ago, I was living in Dijon, France. I invited two of my fellow Americans to come to my place so we could bake the most quintessential of American cookies: the chocolate chip cookie.Â
(Petit info pour mes amis français: ce que vous appelez âle cookieâ est connu comme âchocolate chip cookieâ aux States, car le mot âcookieâ est le terme global pour parler sur tous types de gĂąteaux/biscuits.)
Oh, I was so excited to bake chocolate chip cookies! I got the Nestle Tollhouse recipe, bought all of the necessary ingredients, and made the conversions from ounces to grams and mL.Â
The two Americans, a Californian and a North Carolinian, came over. We mixed all of the ingredients, evenly spaced out the dough on the baking sheet, and baked the first batch. As the cozy aroma of melting chocolate and crystallized sugar enveloped the kitchen, anticipation for when we could burn our tongues made the twelve-minute wait unbearable.Â
The oven went âding.â Out came the baking tray. Our fingers jolted at the cookiesâ heat.Â
Before we ate our first cookies, the North Carolinian asked me if I had any cold milk.
Me:Â âYeah, Iâve got some in the fridge. What for?â
North Carolinian: âUh, so we can eat cookies with milk, duh.â
For most Americans, the reflex of pairing cookies with milk comes as naturally as seeing carrots and peas together. For me, it was a habit I never embraced because of my taste preferences of wishing to have non-soggy cookies. (I typically donât like soggy foods, ugh.) As a consequence, my disgust for spoiled, mushy cookies automatically meant that I had not thought to accommodate to othersâs likes.Â
Still, it was a minor thing. I could adapt.
I got up, open the fridge, and took out the 1-liter carton of milk. I also furnished two glasses wide enough for dipping the cookies in. I decided to voice my differences about eating cookies, albeit not as eloquently as I would have liked.
Me:Â âIâve never eaten chocolate chip cookies with milk before.â (I had tried a similar experiement with Oreos; never again.)
North Carolinian: *scoffs*Â âUh, are you sure youâre American?â
Even though she asked this in a jovial tone, I was nevertheless taken aback by such a question. For NO ONE had ever asked me that before. It wasnât something that was never up for debate.
Me:Â âWell, yes. I mean, I was born in the United Statesââ
North Carolinian: *smiling* âThatâs not good enough!âÂ
Thatâs not good enough?
What may have seemed minor to this North Carolinian wasnât for me. Being a first-generation American of Cuban and Colombian descent, the idea of cultural identity is one that comes with a delicate circus-show balancing act. Iâm not âColombianâ enough. Iâm not âCubanâ enough. Iâm TOO Cuban. Iâm TOO Hispanic/Latina. Iâm not Hispanic/Latina enough.
But Iâm not âAmericanâ enough? My damn birth certificate, passport, upbringing, education, and cultural notions disagree. Iâve stated the Pledge of Allegiance and sung the National Anthem every damn day at school. So sorry if my dislike of disintegrated sludge cookies automatically disqualifies me as being âAmericanâ enough.Â
To this day, I regret not having voiced my dissatisfaction at such a flippantly-stated comment, but in that moment, I was honestly too stunned to react accordingly. I brushed it off and tried to be a good hostess despite my seething discontent.
That was six years ago. I now live in a different part of France. I feel relatively safe and at ease with my heritage as my French friends fully recognize me as being an American who just so happens to be of Cuban and Colombian descent.Â
And not only do I still make chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and flan de queso crema, I can also make brioche from scratch. (My croissants still need more practiceâŠ)
Now, in 2017, my country is being run by a racist, xenophobic, crack-down government that targets minorities. For now, they are using the excuse of  only going after so-called âillegal immigrants.â
Iâm afraid of waking up and hearing a story about how an American who just so happens to be of Mexican-descent faced expulsion from their birth country. Itâs already happened in the past, anyway.
Whatâs to stop one zealous idiot from arguing that being born in the U.S. is no longer âgood enoughâ for feeling at home? Let alone people like me? Both my Colombian grandmother and mother are naturalized U.S. Citizens. I fear that soon may not be âgood enoughâ for them. They thankfully live in Miami where Latinos and Hispanics of all cultures mix and mingle with relative ease and safety. When will that no longer be a guarantee that is âgood enough?â When will the distinctions be forgotten?Â
Even now, six years later, this memory makes me sad. I may make some chocolate chip cookies to make me feel better.
More cookies, less racism.