In my last column, I mentioned that we need all the light we can get
this holiday season. This is the topic
of my Claremont Courier column out today and which follows.
(I’ll be doing some traveling and resting in the next weeks. I may or may not post in the next 3 or 4
weeks. Here’s hoping for a new year full
of light.)
SEEING
THE LIGHTS IN CLAREMONT
She said she had to buy more lights.
Her family had gotten their Christmas tree, and it turned out that one
of their strands of lights was not working. So she had to go out and buy a new
string of lights to put on the tree.
That’s what we always do. Every
year, it seems, we get out the Christmas lights and plug them in, excited to
see them glow and sparkle, and at least one strand or part of a strand doesn’t
go on. It was working last year, but
now, suddenly, for some reason that nobody knows, no glow, no sparkle, nothing. There is usually a quick trip to the store to
get more lights.
Because we can’t not have lights.
Because we need all the lights we can get.
We need all the lights we can get when it has gotten dark and cold and
when everything out there is not so far away.
We need all the lights we can get when Claremont is in the headlines and
live on the 11:00 news because of unrest. The University of Missouri and Yale
University and other colleges, most far away in other states, aren’t the only
schools with student protests and furor over a lack of diversity on
campus. Racial strife isn’t just an
issue in other cities and other states, out there, far away. Not when students at Claremont McKenna
College protest, with one going on a hunger strike, saying that black and other
minority students don’t feel welcome and included on the campus and the dean of
students resigns. And not when the
protesting students subsequently received threats and felt compelled to stay
off campus, missing classes.
When the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11 and the
deadliest mass shooting since the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Connecticut, three years ago, has taken place, leaving 14 dead and 21
injured, half an hour away in San Bernardino, we certainly need all the lights
we can get. That the December 2 attack
took place at a training and holiday potluck for county health workers in a
rented room at a services center for the developmentally disabled and that the Muslim
married couple who carried it out were part of the community – the husband was
a county health worker - and were inspired by radical Islamic State extremists and
turned out to have an arsenal of high-power gun, ammunition and bombs in their Redlands
house and rented sports utility vehicle is the stuff of dark, chilling
nightmares.
This was a most deadly attack that could have happened anywhere – not
just in iconic or resonant big-city places like New York City and Paris – and it
happened a short drive away, a dozen or two exits, down the freeway. (Who knew that San Bernardino and Paris, not
Perris, would constantly be mentioned in the same sentence – and for this
reason!)
As story after story comes out, revealing horrific details and also
plenty of injustices and outrage, amid all the bright red and green and silver
and gold ads for holiday gifts and accessories, we sure do all the lights we
can get.
In Claremont, there are lights, lights that we can see, shining in the
dark and providing some warmth in the chill now closing in on us.
We see the lights shining in the way Claremont is taking in and
embracing the Kanjou and the Wawieh families, who recently fled after their
homes and lives were destroyed in war-ravaged Syria. Both families have been enrolled in ESL
classes at the Claremont Adult School, and the Wawieh children are attending
Claremont High School and Mountain View Elementary School. Fouad Wawieh and his family have been living
at a motel in Pomona, as seen in a recent front-page feature in the Los
Angeles Times, but will soon receive housing through the Claremont
Interfaith Council (CIC).
“This is really something we cherish a lot, as part of this community,
to have the support and level of encouragement from all faiths in support of
these families,” said CIC President Bassam Badwan at a meeting at the Islamic
Center of Claremont in Pomona. This
sentiment was echoed by Congresswoman Norma Torres, noting that she was a “little
girl that came to the U.S [who] would have never imagined herself as a member
of the U.S House of Representatives.” As she said at the meeting, “This is...a
community that embraces people when they want to come to the U.S. They want to participate in our culture, and
they want to live in peace like the rest of us.”
The lights shine bright here when LaVerne Cox, speaks at C.M.C, closing
out the Fall series of talks at the Athenaeum.
The actress, best known for her role on Orange is the New Black,
spoke about the challenges of being black and a transgender woman. There have been plenty of hardships in her
life, being an outsider in her black community and in terms of gender, yes, but
her confidence and flair made it clear that she is more than a survivor.
Ms. Cox’s appearance two weeks ago was no doubt scheduled months in
advance, but her message that anyone and everyone can thrive and be their true
selves in community was all the more appropriate as the semester was
ending.
The lights shining here were also seen as the fearless Krista Carson
Elhai and her fearless Claremont High School theater students put on The
Laramie Project this month. The play
by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project is based on
interviews with the citizens of Laramie, Wyoming, where, in October, 1998, Mathew
Shepard, an openly gay college student, was beaten and left for dead, tied up
on a fence in the cold, isolated rural area.
No, this wasn’t a cheery holiday show, and it dealt with mature topics
with mature language, but it showed the importance of understanding and
compassion, of everyone being heard, of the notion of “live and let live” that
the Laramie citizens take pride in. The students brought much feeling to this
message, perhaps more so than in other productions I’ve seen of the play. Even more remarkable is that this wasn’t the
first time Ms. Elhai directed the play
at the high school; I saw it there not too long after it was first produced.
We certainly see the lights in teachers like Ms. Elhai, who have brought
out the best in us – teachers like Rosemary Adam, who taught English and
creative writing at the high school and who died last month. There has been a remarkable amount of
remembrance of “Madam Adam” – she delighted in pointing out that this was a palindrome
– in these pages, and I’ll just say they’re all true.
I knew I was in for a treat even before I was had her for both
Manuscript Writing for Publication and Short Story and Poetry when I first went
to the high school. My sister talked
about her standing in front of the class and declaring in that husky, boom-boom
voice, “You will write!” I loved the way she trusted and pushed me, even though
I was a mystery in my wheelchair and with my difficult speech, and I went on to
take other classes from her, including creative writing through the adult
school after graduating from college. Still later, she encouraged me to keep
trying when I was in a rough patch.
That’s still good teaching today, as we keep our lights, all the lights
we can get, shining in the dark.
