the interview meme

So my friend Susan put up this “Interview Meme” on her blog. Unlike memes where you get tagged, this one you volunteer for. Susan posted her answers to five questions about herself that another blogger devised for her. She got those questions by asking for them, in the comments on the post by that other blogger, in which she answered five questions, written for her by another blogger.... So basically, I asked for this. And after you see the questions Susan came up with for me, and my answers, you can ask to be “interviewed” by writing “I too am an egomaniac” in the comments to this post. I’ll then post your specially-devised-just-for-you questions in the comments. Okay, here goes.

1. You were a stay at home dad for a long time. What do you miss most about those days? What do you miss least? (I know, I’m cheating, those are really 2 questions)

I miss all the little, cumulative things—being able to watch her grow and learn and play

all day, being able to hold her as I put her down for her nap. And then, time-wise, I just

took for granted/was used to being able to do chores/errands whenever—grocery

shopping, laundry. I don’t know if that’s something I miss or miss least, but it’s just

more of a challenge for us to get some stuff done. But the time we do have, I try to savor

and appreciate more, just soak her all in. That’s not to say that I don’t fail and get

annoyed or mad or tired or burnt out, but I try to consciously not take it for granted. And

another thing—I will never be able to really understand what it was like for my wife to

have to leave her newborn baby at home and go “back” to work, but I hope that I know a

bit more, now. And I know how lucky I was to have the privilege to be able to stay home

with The Pumpkin for her first two years of life.

2. If you didn’t live in A Strange Land, where would you want to live and why?

When we finally do get outta here, it will be back to LA. That’s LA-LA, not the

the suburbs that think they’re LA. Family, culture, diversity, food, the “native

Angeleno”-ness in me, all draw me/us back. If I want to fantasize, though—Hawaii, San

Francisco, Boston and Providence. Hawaii cuz, well, duh! In the words of a song about

being a hapa going to Hawaii that a friend wrote in college, “I want to see faces like

mine.” SF and Boston are just great, real cities, with neighborhoods you can walk and

public transportation, amazing food, culture, diversity.... And Providence—if you’d told

me when I started college that I’d wanna go back there, I would called you nuts. But I

think about it, sometimes—the intellectual environment, the fervor for social justice and

community activism. And yeah, the food, the culture, the diversity. Okay, so anyplace

other than here has probably got one up on this “strange land” of homogenizing

conservatism we’re in now. But as our unofficial city motto goes, “It’s not that bad.”

3. When did you start blogging and why? What is the most unexpected result of your blogging?

I started reading blogs before The Pumpkin was born, looking for voices of dads,

especially stay-at-home-dads. I started writing my own because I wanted to add my

own voice to this community I was finding myself wanting to be a part of. I wanted to

write again, to express myself and my experiences, to document my babygirl’s childhood.

And then I found other parents of color writing about their own experiences at the

intersection of race, culture, family, identity and parenthood, and I wanted to be a part

of that, to connect. That’s been the most amazing, unexpected reward, to find these far-

flung people and, by sharing experiences, become friends, to become, really, a

community. [Oh, and now the little added bonus that sometimes folks are willing and

wanting to give me free stuff just b/c I write a blog! Heh.] Oh yeah, and the fact that,

after a short-lived education career, my blogging got me a gig in “online community

management.” Never saw that one coming. Heh.

4. How has being hapa figured into fatherhood—has being hapa affected being a father to your child? –what do you teach her about her culture and how?

I don’t think it’s entirely coincidental that, throughout my adult life, I’ve surrounded

myself with friends who are people of color and Asian Americans, and I can’t think that

it’s entirely by chance that I fell in love with and married a Filipina American. Part of the

journey of “the hapa” is that search for home, for family, for interior and exterior

identities that reflect, complement and confirm one another. Having a “multiethnic

Asian American” daughter, raising a girl of color in this society, these are things we

consciously think about—about things like identity and naming, about the fluidity and

social constructedness of categories and cultures and communities, or the intersection of

racial and gender role stereotypes and the impact of popular cultural images, about how

to pass down an awareness of both her familial and communal histories, a sense of who

and what she comes from, on whose shoulders she stands, give her a sense of community

belonging and political responsibility, not as a burden but as something she owns.

5. If you could have any car in the world, what would it be?

Heh. I am so not a “car person.” Okay, I guess, if I have to have a “fantasy” car, it’s

probably (and this is gonna be really boring and parent-y) that Audi station wagon, what’s

it called? The A6? “Avant”? See, I don’t even know. God, I’m boring. Form + function, I

guess—it looks cool and it works (and fits stuff). Aren’t you sorry you asked?

So, wanna get interviewed? Here’s what you do:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “I too am an egomaniac.”
2. I respond by asking you five question. You will answer them, because you like talking about yourself.
3. You will update your blog.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

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