Below is a serious email I have been working on, I hope you find it interesting. I really enjoy what you do, and hope you keep it up a long time.

A while back a dropped a link in your comments to an African DNA testing company that included the following lines of testimonial from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a well known academic personality specializing in topics related to African Americans.

“I have yearned ever since to trace my own roots, to identify where in Africa my own ancestors came from, what tribe they were part of. Why is it important to do this? Two reasons. First, almost as soon as an African-American steps off a plane in Africa, he can't help but realize how "African" our people still are. Despite the horrors of the slave trade, African slaves brought their culture with them: their music, dances, religious beliefs, the way they cooked food, the way they walked, the way they lived—and loved—even the way they buried their dead. And many of these customs and traditions have been preserved, or subtly transformed, by our African- American ancestors. Indeed, if you go to a dance club in Africa, attend church, or eat a meal with an African family, you will be surprised at how much you can feel right at home, as if you have just met long lost relatives. The feeling is uncanny-and intensely pleasurable.”

These words struck me because I have experienced this myself. In 2003, at the age of 23, my husband (then boyfriend) and I traveled to Columbia to visit my extended family. I had not been there since I was a toddler, and have virtually no memory of anything from that time.

“Uncanny and intensely pleasurable...”

This describes the entire visit. First and second cousins I had never met showed facial expressions or physical traits that were literally familiar. It was a place where everyone talked like my family, ate the dishes I grew up with, hugged and kissed each other almost every time they left the room, and more, more actions, subtle or not, that were an unnoticed part of the landscape there, but completely absent at home.

I grew up in, and still live in California. There is no shortage of Spanish speakers, but they are overwhelmingly Mexican or other Central Americans. There are elements that are quite similar, some foods, but it is all at least a little bit different, just like Canadians and Americans don't speak quite alike, nevermind Australians or Scots.

My parents came to the US in the 1970s. When I was born, they spoke no English. My older brother and I were not exposed to English in any meaningful way until we entered kindergarten, one year apart. I was four years old. Today I speak English like a native, I think in English, and have a much larger vocabulary in English, read almost exclusively English language literature, etc. My Spanish is still very good, I often speak Spanish with my mother, and as needed in daily life with the local Central Americans. Immersing myself in my true native language was nothing like chatting in Spanish with a Mexican grandma at the park. When the electricity in your home gets cut, you might notice the absence of the hums and whirs of the refrigerator, computer, heating or cooling, or other appliances, but really it is even more than that. The electricity itself cycles at 60 Hertz, providing a background vibration in the walls and floors, that we unconsciously learn to filter away. I find the silence of a power outage intensely pleasurable. I found speaking with relatives and strangers in my mother's home town intensely pleasurable, sharing not just the basics of grammar, but the slang and intonation unique to that city, it was like a filter was suddenly stripped away, and I could hear and speak with new clarity.

I try not to get caught up on people I don't know and circumstances I cannot change, but what if an African in an Anglo Saxon society is 1,000 times more foreign than I am, with the corresponding nameless discomfort? And what about you (and I do know you, at least a little), as a paleface in the midst of a colony of intensely uncomfortable Africans? It is enough to make us all crazy without ever being able to put a finger on what is really wrong.

Thanks again, James, I pray for your health and safety, and that you may continue to do what you do.