Ben with White Coats at the White House

Ben was at the White House with colleagues who are working on gun violence prevention on June 7th, National Gun Violence Prevention Day.

Teri reappears

Teri reappeared, fleetingly on film and in print last week, I believe to say ‘hi, remember me?’.

She was ‘captured’ on film at a protest in NYC in 1971 by Corky Lee, the photojournalist. Lois, Becky, Teri, and Corky were active and frequented Chinatown-focused protests. Becky alerted me to the documentary (Photographic Justice) on Corky’s life showing on PBS during May, Asian American heritage month. After recognizing Becky in one frame, I began to look fastidiously whether Teri might be also be pictured … and lo and behold, there she was barely visible a few frames later. Wow! Serendipity interceded as her face in the left side could easily have been missed in the few seconds the photo flashed by. It was meant to B.

Teri and family were first-generation immigrants, she born in Chongqing, the wartime (WWII) capital of China. At 10 months of age, the family (four sibs and one cousin) escaped to Macao, then moved to Hong Kong, then to Taipei, finally at age 7 to NYC, with the ‘uniting family’ help of her eldest half-sister Eleanor. She started public school without a word of English to her name. They lived on the 5th floor (no elevator) on Madison St in Chinatown, the bathtub in the middle of the kitchen serving as kitchen counter when not in use. Besides the repeated moves, comedown from a servant-run household, now reliant on her mother piecework jewelry, they survived, and even temporarily housed other friends in similar need.

Their family’s border crossing from China to Macao in 1950 was harrowing. Her father had left separately to avoid raising suspicion of their intended escape. On the pretext of visiting a relative, her mother took her five children (Teri the infant) and one cousin by herself. Taking cash was illegal, so her mother sewed American bills into the children’s padded jackets. At THE critical moment, the border guard opened Teri’s can of powdered milk where her mother had stashed a large roll of cash underneath. She then told the guard that her husband knew a senior officer in the Chinese customs bureau. The guard then closed the can and let them cross over to freedom. She never knew whether he actually saw the money or not, but assumed that he was dissuaded from taking action by her ‘connections’. Thus, catastrophic life-changing consequences were avoided by her mother's quick thinking.

Teri was raised as a Catholic and received a scholarship to attend Cathedral High School in NYC. Her main extracurricular activities were centered around Church and volunteering with developmentally-delayed kids. At age 18, she wanted to become a nun fully committed to the Church, and, after her penultimate interviews, she was rejected. No reason given. In my view, she was too independent and rebellious for the cloistered life. I thank the interviewers for their wisdom! Her parents forbade her to date or marry ‘outside’ the ethnicity with the threat of disownment. She would simply … quietly date whomever she pleased. In college, she began to participate in social action and protests related to Chinatown and the Vietnam War. From early on, she had a strong sense of mission, of greater purpose, and proactively supporting causes she believed in.

Teri worked two jobs to support me through medical school allowing us to become financially fully independent of our parents, and, I ended up with a mere 2K of educational debt. She completed two Montessori certifications, ushered Rachel and Ben in live, molded her work schedule to accommodate their needs, whether teaching or working at a children’s bookstore.

As they became more independent, she joined the Columbus International Program, we hosted participants from China, Japan, Russia, Ghana, Cameroon, Mexico, Germany, Norway one month at a time – eventually elected president. Since she missed her progressive Asian American friends from NYC, she began the Asian Womyn’s Book Club. Note the spelling – she didn’t want to be an ‘appendage’ of men. I asked her once if she was a ‘feminist’, which she clearly was, she said simply, I’m a ‘humanist’. She took the kids on Meals-on-Wheels, Christmas gifting and food pantries forays – continuing by herself. She served on the ministerial search committee (Unitarian), volunteered for Barack, put Planned Parenthood stickers on our bumper … you get the full picture.

This brings us back to the glimpse of Teri, in a photograph I’ve never seen, at a protest as 21-year-old on the cusp of our future life together. The same spirit of being involved and standing up for what she felt was right never left her. Yet where the spirit originated, from her immigrant experiences, the Church, her core self, I'm not certain ... The image reminds me of who she was always was, before me and after me.