WHY WE MUST ALL SPEAK OUT

“This is where people make a mistake. People think that dictatorships and authoritarian regimes are built overnight, but they’re not. It doesn’t happen that way.  If you read history and if you’ve lived in those countries, you know it’s a very gradual creep.”

                                                      ~ Trevor Noah

Shortly after the 2016 election, I deleted my original Facebook account because I wanted to shield my nervous system from all the hostile rhetoric cropping up all over social media platforms. I got into the happy habit of living without it. I could not fathom the idea of resuming that unbearable obsession of doom scrolling through my day, especially once the pandemic hit. People’s anxieties seemed to vomit anywhere there was a platform to unload. I was relieved to be spared from the lies and misinformation. Then, after my first novel (HIGH WATER) was published and I had created my website, I decided I would once again generate a (limited) social media presence with the stipulation that it would be strictly “professional,” highlighting and advertising my creative/artistic pursuits with an occasional op-ed style piece of writing on my website blog. HOWEVER, the home page on my website introduces me as an Actor/Author/ACTIVIST/Adventurer and in light of the high-level stakes in the upcoming election, I am doing something I wouldn’t normally do and I will use my one and only social media platform to state my firm political opinion.

“Cabaret” is one of my favorite musicals and I have had the opportunity of performing in two productions. Several years ago, in the most recent production, I had the wonderful fortune of working with a talented actress who played our Sally. She is also an experienced narrator of audiobooks and is now helping me produce the audiobook version of HIGH WATER. The scene in “Cabaret” when Fräulein Schneider breaks off her engagement with Herr Schulz due to her growing fear of the Nazis and the fact that he is Jewish - always breaks my heart because he insists nothing will happen, saying, “But I am a German citizen.”

As we have been working on my audiobook, I am taken back to how I felt as I was writing HIGH WATER during the summer of 2020, leading up to the previous Presidential election, when my stress and anxiety was at such a high level I actually broke out in hives. I am a United States Citizen, but I was not born here. And although my husband is Caucasian, our son looks more like me. To anyone first seeing our son, he is simply a young male with brown skin. And I worry about him. Every time he leaves the house – I. Am. Scared. Herr Schulz is a fictional character. Nevertheless, countless German Jews were exterminated. It did not matter that they were German citizens, that they were born in Germany, or that they could trace their German ancestors for many generations. They were the ones targeted and nothing else mattered. As you exercise your incredible privilege next Tuesday and vote in our still FREE AND FAIR election, please consider how important it is to elect a president who will respect the rights, dignity, and SAFETY of ALL.

The following are a few excerpts from my novel, HIGH WATER. It is a work of fiction, but is semi-autobiographical, loosely based on my young, fresh out of college self and my experience living in this country as a woman and as an immigrant from a Latin American country. Because my activism takes shape through my writing, I thank you for taking the time to read. And if you know someone whom you think might benefit from reading my message, please share.

HIGH WATER

By

Patty Flores Reinhart

PROLOGUE

Los Angeles, California

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

. . . I felt fortunate to have migrated into the U.S. during a window of time when the country still embodied the ideals represented by the Statue of Liberty, welcoming the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But perhaps that was only the ideal and never the reality. Certainly, during this horror show that is the current Presidential administration, my adopted country often feels unrecognizable.

I entered this country legally, and with my Green Card I was awarded the privilege of permanent residency. When I finally became a United States citizen and obtained my first U.S. passport I was filled with tremendous pride. The great irony is that today, with that bigoted tyrant in our White House, I have never felt more vulnerable and fearful of being uprooted from my life and deported back to a country I no longer have any memory of or a connection to. I cannot begin to imagine how scary it must feel to be an undocumented immigrant at this time. I don’t get why it’s so hard for political leaders to understand and appreciate the utter desperation it takes to summon the courage to leave your entire world behind for the prospect of a better life. Many of those undocumented immigrants who make the treacherous journey into the U.S. are aware that life may not be automatically easier for them. They often toil at jobs that require extreme physical labor at very low wages, the likes of which most Americans will never experience, but those hard-working immigrants are motivated and thrive on the hope that someday it will be better for their children and all the generations to follow.

. . . “I can’t imagine how much worse it will be if he gets re-elected. Not to mention that I don’t feel safe in my brown skin even though I am a full-fledged American citizen. . . Because he is a blatant, unapologetic racist! And his supporters just cheer him on. . .  Right now, he is attacking undocumented immigrants, but I know it is just a stepping stone to what he’s really after, which is to rid the entire country of anyone who isn’t white.”

“To those accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

~ R.B.G.