My mother, Cherie Clark, grew up in the cornfields of Indiana. She moved to Vietnam during the war to do humanitarian work, adopted 4 children, 3 of whom are half black ("war babies"). She had to leave Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon in 1975. Heartbroken and lost, she moved to India. There, she met my father, founded the International Mission of Hope, worked with Mother Theresa, and saved countless lives in the 12 years she lived there. In 1988 she was finally able to move back to Vietnam to continue her work, and I was lucky to have been able to move there with her. I grew up in Hanoi but now live in Colorado and work as a high school English teacher. Since 2000, my mother has worked extensively in the middle east, mostly in Palestinian refugee camps, and she even, against our wishes, traveled to Iraq at a most dangerous time.
My mother called me from Vietnam tonight distraught.
The comments she left on my blog post about Hillary Clinton's remarks today left me in tears. I realized how amazing my mother is and how remarkable her life has been. I thought I'd share them with you; I warn you: there is a lot of anger in her words (but also a lot of hope):
Hi Preya, It was so right to call you. I so desperately needed to hear your voice. I read your emails this morning before seeing any news and I could not stop crying or posting! Then I read a Huff Po post that said this was a “New York Liberal” story… afraid not, it is a lead story and on the ticker on BBC here in Viet Nam right now. This is the gist of what I wrote on Huff Po, trying to put all those memories from the sixties into the limited number of words that they allow you to post I chopped this up and added/ subtracted and posted about twenty times!
I am an American and I live in Viet Nam and it will forever be part of my life and my being because of Bobby Kennedy and his inspiring quest to be our President in the 60’s, a time of emotional turmoil with the 2nd most evil President of my life time and by far the 2nd craziest war. I worked as a volunteer for his campaign and a bright light shines for me when I remember his words when he spoke from the back of a train in Indiana. He spoke of ending the war in Viet Nam and for me he was a beacon of hope.
For me Bobby Kennedy is not up for grabs, not someone you get to use as a political foot ball. I will forever remember working as a volunteer on his campaign and going to Indiana when he did his cross state tour and lifting my two young sons high in my arms and his smile as his eyes met mine and he reached out to them.
I was in Minnesota the night he was shot and sat alone all night long keeping my silent vigil with the radio going beside me outside on the steps on that hot evening while the boys slept. It wasn’t the days of non stop 24 hour TV coverage. The loss that night was like the death of a family member and I was still bruised with the deaths of JFK and MLK.
That night for me the loss of Bobby was the death of a dream for my country. I knew that I would not work for or care for another candidate in my life time. It felt like my hope for all my country could be was also dying.
This was all before the funeral when the young and graceful Teddy came up to speak about his brother which was some of what was broadcast of the funeral. He reminded us of a “good and simple man who saw a war and tried to stop it." That speech was the most touching and beautiful eulogy that I have heard, and it inspired me to stay on track and to work for my country and to do what I could to help people in Viet Nam and around the world.
The Kennedy family, in part, helped me to become something more, to go to college, to study about the war and to bring my family to Viet Nam in the middle of that war and to live and work here with the orphaned children of this tragic war that Bobby so brilliantly predicted would divide us and bring about more death for our soldiers and millions of Vietnamese. I adopted four children from Viet Nam, three who are half African American.
I fear for Obama because the Clinton’s have turned this into a a more racial campaign than it ever needed to be because they are greedy and like Bush they feel entitled to claim the White House as their place not ours.
Obama has brought a light to my life again and I believe in my country and see the foolish consequences of yet one more crazy American war that has wrecked the lives of so many of my Iraqi friends. A war that we started, a country that we invaded and a war that we just cannot leave. I hear the words that Bobby spoke about Viet Nam long before it was politically sensible to talk of leaving Viet Nam.
I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton believes that the last card up her pant suit is for Obama to be shot so she can tear up, say how sad she is and move back into the power, glory and money while we lose our country, bomb Iran and cozy up with God knows who else that has power in the Bush/Clinton/Bush merry go round our country is on. Doesn’t she get the idea that ours is a democracy and we get the chance to count votes fairly and that we as Democrats proudly play fair.
I don’t dislike her because she is a ‘woman’… It is far deeper than that. I don’t like the greed nor the lies and she needs to know that there are plenty of us who came of age in the 60’s who cannot tolerate using racism or sexism.
So that was a bit what was on my mind. So happy I got to speak to you. I get on the plane soon and hopefully will reach our purple state (Colorado) about the same time as Barack! I am so proud of you Preya and I love you dearly, Mom
(It took me many years to realize that I am very, very lucky to call this woman my mother, my hero. If you want to learn more about her life and work, you can read her book, After Sorrow Comes Joy.)