Ate at a really good Mexican restaurant in Newport Beach called Taco Rosa. M, MA, K and B were there. B and I split a huge Arizona burrito – was delish. We asked for the whole thing to be green sauce, B told me it tastes better than the red sauce so I went with it. I also had a margarita with salt – much better margarita than the one I had at El Cholo’s. They were all surprised that I had a bad margarita there, they said the drinks are usually really good. Not so for me – that was the nastiest margarita I’ve ever had. I couldn’t even finish it. Anyway, the best part of Taco Rosa’s though was the dessert – best flan I’ve ever had bar none.

Funny story B told: She brought her son (7 years old) to temple for the first time. Her son looks around and he whispers to his mom, “There sure are a lot of Indians around here.” She looks at him agape and tells him, “You know right, that you’re Indian?” His shocked reaction: “What??????????!” He denies it at first, “But I only speak English, oh and a little Spanish. None of that Gujarati. ” “Hey, wait, come to think of it, are you Indian? You speak Gujarati.” He was in denial for a bit. Hilarious. She told us that a week later he finally came to terms with it in his head and and said to her ” So I’m American with Indian blood right?” Score.

K also told her own story about her daughter. They had gone to Cabo two years in a row and K speaks spanish fluently. So in class when they talked about their own cultural heritage, her daughter K proudly told her teacher, “I’m American with a little Spanish heritage.” They’re caucasian. Kids are too funny.

There was a time when B didn’t really get the cultural differences between people. It was great. He would just say “That kid is a little brown” when I asked what were they. He didn’t really understand what I was asking. We eventually explained to him that people came from different countries and such. Since then he’s been obsessed with Asian culture, especially China and Japan. Japan I think because of anime. While it’s a good thing that he’s so interested, it makes me nervous that he will be one of those kids that only hang out with Asians. I’m not cool with that. It’s hard though because where we live, a large part of the population is Asian. However, I kind of like it because there’s no racial bullying whatsoever, something I hated while I was growing up. I was only one of three Asians in my whole elementary school (Grades 1-6). The other two were a Philippino boy and the other I think was a Japanese girl with a huge mole the size of a half dollar on her nose. So what is the lesser of two evils? To know that racial tension exists in the world, to learn those hard lessons early on and to be able to deal with it? Or to have a worry free childhood but be conditioned to hang out with Asians? I’m not sure.