 I'm going to read a little bit of a piece about the first person I checked on on 9-11 Because I'm Japanese-American. I was born right after the camps closed and You know, I do what I do because I think good, you know, if people had only stuck up from my parents and my grandparents So, you know when I see another Black person murdered when I see another Chicano or Central America and deported when I see another Middle East headline You know, I go never again never again. When is this going to stop? so on 9-11 the first person I went to check on once I got over the shock of planes flying into buildings and Buildings crumpling was my corner grocer Bob Chattara Palestinian Christian moved to the US when he was five His family went from this place from Palestine to Lebanon to Michigan to San Francisco And I found out much later that a lot of corner grocers and a lot of sandwich shops Are run by Middle Easterners and we just take him for granted, you know So I made I made a point of putting some photos of our friendly neighborhood terrorists in the book You know good frickin chicken Lobo M You know, we don't think about these things that So unless we point them out so Bob has never seen his ancestral home on the West Bank His neighborly but his neighborliness was part of his DNA His father's barbershop had been a social center in his old Ramallah neighborhood and Bob's freezer case was the urban equivalent of a cracker barrel a place to hang out and hash over the day's events until the news got too depressing to talk about but Anyway, so I went over to Bob's after 9-11 to make sure he was alright And I told him I'd come every day to check on him a Month later after the US began began bombing Afghanistan. I Put on a he bought he job in Support of Muslim women I Noticed I was sighed as I laid the scarf across my forehead Folded it down over my temples and under my chin with my heavy jaw and no forehead. I looked like an ape But I couldn't cheat and expose my bangs like Audrey Hepburn in the 60s To Muslims a woman's hair symbolizes a private Spiritual connection with Allah so every strand had to be completely hidden the soft Cotton fabric refused to hold crisp folds along my temples. I needed bobby pins But I didn't own any when I was a kid mom Imposed despicable torture instruments on my body But now I had wash and wear hair and girdles and garter belts and hard pink rollers had been banished from my universe long ago I had the freedom to choose what I wore and how I looked and damn it every Muslim woman deserved the same So I finished fiddling with a scarf headed out the door and I noticed my steps were dragging my Stomach fluttered my head thickened. I had the urge to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head Suddenly an old memory surfaced. It was 1952. I was six years old walking home from school in Baltimore Head down enjoying the lacy weeds growing up through the cracked sidewalk Suddenly I heard It's a jab playing going in at 12 o'clock Two big eight-year-old boys barreled down on me arms outstretched like wings. I froze Sure, they were gonna knock me over Instead they veed their arms ahead of them like torpedoes and whizz narrowly passed on either side of me screaming Gotcha you yellow bastard Boom They imitated the screaming whistle of a smoking plane spiraling into the sea and then erupted into mocking laughter My ears burned in shame and rage as I walked home in the springtime sun Get a grip. I told myself as I Smoothed my hijab that was almost 50 years ago