1968

My ISTORIA Series

1968 was an important year in history. There was a worldwide pandemic, the first of a landing on the moon, and my parents were married, immigrating to the US. Little did they hear about the Hong Kong flu and that one million people died. It was not televised, nor did the medical profession talk about it in the media. When I asked my mother if she remembered a pandemic the year she flew on a plane and arrived in a major metropolitan city (Minneapolis, MN), she told me she had no idea this occurred.

I wonder what else occurs that we do not hear about. Why do we hear about certain events and not others? Over the years during my travels, I have noticed the news is biased in many ways depending who is telling it to whom, and where they are. My own posts have been 'shadow- banned,' for being a Christian. When I posted about this, the posts began getting views. On one social media platform, there is a faith based group that does not give me metrics. All the other groups I am an admin in, give metrics. We are expected to think in conformity, and yet this shifts depending where we are.

When George Floyd was murdered, and there were riots in Minneapolis, my mother was dismayed. She told me she never experienced racism until she moved to the South. She reminisced about a story in the 1970's of when we were driving through Georgia to Florida for a vacation. My family had evolved from the original green Oldsmobile clunker to a shiny new hatchback Pinto. Our childhood concluded with my father selling the Pinto bringing us into our teen years. Little did we know the car would have blown up if someone had rear ended us. Safety tests were not the same back then.

The sirens and lights went of with the police officers approaching the Pinto in Georgia. My mother was driving, with my father in the passenger seat and my brother and I sat in the back seats. Both my parents had heavy, thick 'foreign' accents, and this is all it took for my father to be put in handcuffs when he made an off handed remark. I remember the scenario. We were taken to a local grocery store where the police proceeded to arrest and 'book' my father. My mother cried, she wept, while my brother and I played. I remember this. My brother was three years younger and had no recollection of the event. I must have been seven years old, meaning my brother was four and my family had not yet become naturalized citizens.

The police told my parents they had to pay money and my father would be released. They paid the 'ransom' and went on their way to a beach vacation. Recently, my mother and I took a trip driving from Knoxville, TN to the Tampa, FL area for a beach vacation. As we entered Georgia, we began seeing police cars littering the highway, one after another. I remarked that we should have counted. When we drove through Tennessee and Florida, there were no police officers that day.

We were very aware of the culture and our surroundings. The local health department on the application to vaccinate residents, asked 'what country were you born in.' Why does this need to be stated? I am afraid. I fear for the safety of those who do not conform in thought, or are labeled as 'foreign,' or different. In Columbia, prisoners have been taken for being independent thinkers and studying psychology. Are we all headed in that direction?