Inauguration Day filled with hope

Hundreds of people gathered at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C., Friday night for the fifth annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Shabbat Service to celebrate the friendship of Dr. Martin Luther King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. I nodded my head in agreement as Cantor Larry Paul said that, by being there, we were paying tribute to the life and dreams of King and Heschel. I said "Amen" after Pastor Darryl Walker, of Turner Memorial AME Church, reminded us that God has been good to us. "God's still in the blessing business," he told the crowd. "Amen," the crowd responded with new enthusiasm. It is an amazing time. America would swear in its first mixed-race president in 4 days. King would have been 80 this year. It is for that reason that the inauguration gives me hope. Most mixed-race people will share stories about the first time they were faced with a standardized form - entry into the military, student loan application - and forced to deny significant parts of their heritage and ethnic identity. In 2000, for the first time, the federal government allowed multiracial people to select more than one race box during the U.S. Census. As a result, more than 7 million people identified themselves as mixed race, including 1.6 million Californians, the state with the largest mixed-race population. The realization encouraged state legislation. According to the California State Bill 1615, The Ethnic Heritage Respect and Recognition Act, roughly 1 in 4 births to native-born mothers are multiracial/ ethnic. The bill was proposed by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, in 2005, and passed the Senate on April 28. I believe the election of Barack Obama means that these children no longer will be forced to live between worlds, and that this under-reported community will no longer be invisible, and their diverse set of needs will begin to be addressed. President Obama is not only black and white, his mother was a Christian, his father was a Muslim, and his stepfather was Indonesian. He lived in Indonesia and speaks Indonesian. I hope the election of a multiracial, ethnically and religiously diverse American as president means that these children can decide for themselves who they want to be. At least, that is what I hope. I am mixed culturally, religiously and ethnically. The valleys these mixtures have etched into my skin, claimed only by memory and their place in my evolution, have become a world onto themselves. And I have lived between these worlds my entire life. Neither living here nor there, afraid to choose one, because by choosing I would be saying one is better than the other. As a child I asked myself, How can a child choose between her parents? How can a child choose between her parents' faiths? Especially when those people and those faiths are in conflict. I hope these are questions that will not plague future generations. Sitting in the synagogue, I truly believed the swearing in of Barack Obama also means the leadership in this country has continued to move toward mirroring this country's population, bringing King's dream to fruition. I believe it means that mixed-race children - my children, perhaps your children - will not have to live between worlds - that they will be able to stand in the integrity of who they are with no apology or compromise. The inauguration gives me hope that America as a world leader will once again take its place as a shining example to the world that differences are not to be feared, that we all have more in common then we realize, and that together, we can build a better tomorrow. Note to readers - Olivia Cobiskey, a reporter for Sauk Valley Newspapers, is on active duty with the U.S. Army Reserves. She is assigned to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., where she filed this column.