Hope for the next generation

As I was telling people at Saturday's Oregon State Delegate Convention, my daughter Abby watched MSNBC with me the night that U.S. Senator Barack Obama clinched the nomination. She watched with me for hours as they counted down how many delegates Obama still needed.

She'd get very excited every time his number went down, jumping up and down and saying "Mommy! Mommy! Obama only needs 6 more!"

When he hit 0, she bounced all over the room yelling "Obama won! Obama won!" Even funnier, when McCain came on to do his speech, she turns to me (hands on her hips) and says "Mommy! Why does he get to speak - he didn't win?"

I'd imagine some people would think this is just my political activism rubbing off on Abby. But actually, it's more than that.

My daugher is a first generation American. She's also bi-racial. My husband was born in Vietnam and adopted by an American family when he was 7. Andy became a citizen when he turned 18.

Abby may be young, but we've explained all of this to Abby the best we can. We've shown her maps that show where we live, where mommy was born and grew up (Texas), and where daddy was born. We've shown her pictures of Vietnam - wome of which are hanging up around our apartment - as well as taken her to eat traditional Vietnamese food at our favorite restaurant. She understands that her daddy is Asian and her mommy is "white" (she can't quite say Caucasian), and that the shape of her eyes, the color of her skin, and some of the color in her hair comes from the Asian side of her family. We'll add to her education on these topics as she gets older, such as how her biological grandfather was an officer in the U.S. military and was forced to leave his family behind in Saigon. Or that as a child, her daddy grew up in the middle of a war zone before being adopted - which is why he has so may scars on him.

She grasps much better than I thought a six year-old would that she comes from two different races and that she is one of a growing population of kids whose parent(s) wasn't born in the United States.

And it excites her that someone just like her may be our next President. And it definitely helps give me hope for the future.