When racism dictates what to name your kids.

I want to have children someday. They’ll be mixed Jewish-Chinese. Carolyn and I wanted to name our kids something really Jewish to go with their Chinese last names. We were thinking “Anoch” and “Esther”. Reading about the Kaifeng Jews in China, I thought it would be really neat to give our first child the gender neutral (?) middle name “Kaifeng” as a tribute to both of our roots and the synthesis thereof.

However, in Trump’s America, with the rising anger against China, it might be advisable to name them something Anglo as hell, and give them her last name – “John Light” “Andrea Light” – to avoid bureaucratic scrutiny. The alt-right is anti-Semitic as hell and the Republican hatred of China is well documented.

My normal stance on these issues are “Fuck racists, I do what I want.” but this is not a choice I’m making for myself. This is a choice I’m making for my children, for people who will have to deal with that choice for the rest of their lives.

This is the kind of shit I have to fucking think about – how racism will impact what I name my kids. This is a awful violation. Small in the grand scheme of things, but disgusting nonetheless. Think about that in the voting booth this November.

A Prayer For My Son

Let my first son
be named Anoch
for his mother’s grandfather.
Let me be Chinese and burn incense
so that this old Jewish man’s spirit
may rise lightly from Shamayim
and find his way
to Buddhist reincarnation
in the body of my boy
so I can learn
what he did not live
to teach me.

May he recall
his grandfather’s stomach
stripped Great Depression bare
so he will always appreciate
the food on his plate.
May he savor every bite.

May he inherit
his grandfather’s free spirit;
may he slurp spaghetti
exactly when the uptight
would resent it the most.
May he never fear
the opinions of others.
May he be an old soul
in a young body.

May he spend every Passover
living in a world without slaves
without immigrants defined as illegal
without wanderers or refugees.
May he visit a peaceful Israel.
May he flirt with Palestinian girls in Gaza.
May he speak truth in Tianamen Square.
May he walk the streets of Tehran without fear.

May he carry his Jewish-Chinese blood
in a straight spined body,
may he wear a yarmulke
and eat lo mein on Christmas,
may he call his mixed heritage
his parents’ greatest gift.

May he be bar mitvahed.
May he get straight As,
but never be as arrogant
as his poet father.
May he rebel.
May he tell me
to go fuck myself
when I’m wrong.

Let him be named Anoch
for the eldest son of Cain;
may he outlive all his father’s mistakes,
rearranging the errors
of previous generations
into a righteous order.
May he complete everything I could not.