Illustration by Eunice Choi
It’s now known as the Purple Tunnel of Doom.
A covered passage below the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where on January 20, at least a thousand people waited for hours to be granted entry into the inaugural ceremony of Barack Hussein Obama.
Out of the estimated two million who swarmed into the nation’s capital to witness the historic swearing-in, those in the tunnel were considered the fortunate ones. They had tickets to the event — coded by the color purple to indicate a large standing section on the Capitol grounds.
I was there, too. Nearby in Virginia, I’d woken up at 5 a.m. and after contorting my body to fit into a stuffed subway car, I was spit out near the U.S. Capitol building right after daybreak. It was 20 degrees. At every turn, a sea of heads stretched for blocks, and everyone — from babies in slings to grandmothers in wheelchairs — was bundled up in blankets or puffy coats.
My purple ticket in hand, I frantically searched for my line on Constitution Avenue, only to discover that it wasn’t a line at all. Instead, an amorphous throng of ticket holders filled the entire street and adjoining sidewalks outside the checkpoint. Several had been waiting since 3 a.m.
For the next six hours, I was crushed among the masses. Teenagers climbed trees for air. A woman next to me fainted during a panic attack. And as the disgruntled crowd became increasingly aware that their tickets were nothing more than glorified bookmarks, they grumbled and screamed: “Let us in! Let us in!”
I never made it in.
The irony is obvious: After a campaign and election largely successful for its philosophy of inclusiveness, an estimated 4,000 ticket holders — who included congressional staff, hardcore fans and some of Obama’s most diligent volunteers — were shut out. The sense of disappointment was palpable. “This is absolute horse crap!” one woman shrieked.
Surely, a logistical bungle of this magnitude is likely when millions converge on the same plot of land for an 18-minute speech. It was an unanticipated nightmare, truly it was.
And, yet, a heavy inaugural crowd was always expected — for good reason. Because after eight years of watching — in horror — as wars unfurled, as the economy collapsed, and as elders died on the streets of New Orleans, Americans no longer had the desire or option to remain disengaged.
Which is why the country chose a new type of American to inhabit the Oval Office. Why youth, ethnic minorities, progressives, and new immigrants cloaked themselves in stars-and-stripes for the very first time.
And why on January 20, a tunnel in downtown D.C. was teeming with Americans, all desperately facing the Capitol to see what would happen next.
***
From the moment I arrived in Washington, D.C. with my reporting colleague, Angela Chung, it was as if I’d ventured onto Barack country. It was January 17, and already, tourists were roaming the streets in bejeweled Obama beanies, clutching subway passes emblazoned with his beaming mug.
The last time I’d visited D.C. was for the swearing-in of George W. Bush. In 2001, the streets were lined with outraged protestors, voicing their belief that the G.O.P. had stolen the election. It was the first time I’d witnessed such citywide urgency in the United States, an uprising of sorts that felt simultaneously unifying and hostile.
Eight years later, another inauguration. It’s been said that the one thing more powerful than the new president’s inaugural speech was the silence among the millions who stood peacefully on the grassy miles between the Capitol and Lincoln Memorial. Equally moving were the spontaneous, congratulatory conversations between strangers over this new day in our nation, with the word change frequently summoned.
The speech, however, often felt somber, as Obama noted “that the challenges we face are real. They are serious, and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time.” As if deliberately attempting to terminate his honeymoon phase or messiah status, the president reminded us of our most gripping
anxieties: Iraq, Guantánamo, global warming, the recession, the crumbling of public schools.
Yet January 20, 2009 signified hope. And other than the crowds and cold, the moment couldn’t be any more different than when his predecessor took oath. When cannons were fired, signaling that Obama was now the 44th president of the United States, people cheered and wiped away tears. They passed out hot cocoa. Strangers hugged — and sang on the streets.
A celebration of this scale isn’t just pleasantly alarming and unusual. It’s groundbreaking.
On January 18, tens of thousands spilled onto the National Mall for the inaugural kick-off “We Are One” concert, scrambling on top of port-o-potties to catch a view of the president-elect, as well as Denzel Washington, Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé. I was stunned by the unveiling phenomenon of POTUS-with-rock-star- status. The revelers were young people, old. Black, brown and the not-so-mellow yellow. And when Obama appeared on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he was met with their joyous, collective roar.
It was hip to unabashedly support the American president, so much that scores ordered “Obama-tinis” at sultry nightclubs, chanting his name under flashing disco balls.
It felt surreal, but hasn’t it all since November 4? For many, Obama’s victory signified the proudest cultural moment of their lives, and so the optimism and euphoria he symbolizes is hard even to articulate.
But the most common emotion among those I met in D.C. was excitement. And it was because they identified so strongly with Obama’s American experience.
“I don’t see Barack Obama [solely] as an African American president,” said Sukhee Kang, the newly elected (and first non-white) mayor of Irvine, Calif., while visiting the capital for the Korean Democratic Committee’s inaugural gathering. “He is one of us.”
The pleasure and awe surrounding Obama’s election was always partially defined by the color of his skin. Obama is the nation’s first black chief executive, but the multicultural bliss that he’s inspired is rooted in his radically unconventional background (for presidents, at least). A narrative that is both international and domestic, majority and minority — in short, American as defined by Asian Americans. Obama’s Hawaiian/Indonesian upbringing and foreigner father resonates with us. For the first time, the American president has a sister and brother-in-law cut from our cloth.
At the Asia Society’s inaugural reception on January 17, Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, active in mobilizing Asian Americans during her brother’s campaign, took the stage. “We’re seeing unprecedented levels of participation, cooperation and involvement,” she said to a packed ballroom of hundreds at the St. Regis Hotel that included more than a dozen dignitaries from Asia. “Thank you for the important work that you’re about to do, so that our country and our world is more gentle and kind and beautiful.”
Like their minority counterparts, Asian Americans rallied on inauguration week. According to exit polls, 61 percent of Asian Americans voted for the Democratic candidate. Several Asian Americans have already been tapped to join Obama’s team in the White House and now hold some of the administration’s most significant posts. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu is our Energy Secretary. General Eric Shinseki heads Veterans Affairs. And 24-year-old Eugene Kang, as special assistant to the prez, is being groomed as one of our generation’s future leaders. For an ethnic American minority that has long been pegged as quiet or invisible, Asian Americans couldn’t help but relish in such appointments.
At a briefing themed “Moving the Dream Forward” at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, sponsored by Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote, even registered Republicans couldn’t help but get swept away by Obama’s promise of change.
“Just as the civil rights movement really impacted and opened doors for minorities and for all Americans, this historic occasion is a great opportunity for us to represent our community,” said Hyepin Im, president of Korean Churches for Community Development. “He’s really been able to organize and mobilize the young folks and that will also bring about exciting changes in the years to come. I believe that.”
For panelist Gary Locke, the former Governor of Washington and the first Asian American to lead a mainland state, change has already come. “Barack Obama truly signifies that in America, glass ceilings are being shattered,” he said. “Asian Americans have given their blood, sweat and tears for this country. Now, we’re seeing that America really is that land of opportunity for people of immigrant backgrounds. That offers tremendous hope.”
It’s also especially gratifying for Asian Americans to know that trailblazers, such as General Shinseki, will now have the president’s ear. “I am deeply honored to have been nominated by President-elect Obama to help him create a veterans affairs department for the 21st century,” the general said at the Pearl Presidential Gala, an Asian American-hosted fête, on the eve of the inauguration. “This is a great opportunity for me to give back to those youngsters, some of whom I went to war with, some of whom I sent to war, and others whose shoulders I stood on, who are the great veterans of World War II and Korea.”
Illustration by Noah Dempewolf
That night, after Charice Pempengco belted out a soulful rendition of “God Bless America,” many couldn’t help but marvel how it made sense, for perhaps the very first time, that a songstress hailing from the Philippines could so perfectly pay homage to a country that wasn’t necessarily her own.
The next day, Barack Obama would make history.
Now, a fair number of those who voted for him and those who did not remain cautiously skeptical about whether “change you can believe in” will happen. But there are promising signs: In his first days, Obama signed an order to close the Guantánamo prison within a year, directed the Environmental Protection Agency to consider allowing states to pass their own stricter auto emissions laws, and granted an interview with Al Arabiya, an Arabic-language TV news channel, to send a message to Arabs and Muslims everywhere: We are not your enemy.
But, as of the final week in January, all Republican members of the House of Representatives voted against the $819 billion, Obama-backed economic stimulus package that Democrats still managed to pass, recalling the partisan business-as-usual model of years past. Heavy questions hang in the air: Even if passed, as expected with Democrats dominating both houses of Congress, can the package shore up a nose-diving economy? Will the campaign promise of affordable health care be forgotten? Will Obama quickly end the war in Iraq?
Only time will tell.
As Sam Yoon, Boston city councilor-at-large currently running for mayor, said to a group of politically-engaged Korean Americans in D.C., “The work has yet to be done. If Barack Obama’s election means anything to us, it has to be that more of us are involved in this country’s future.”
The ways in which Obama may reshape our government are profound yet still difficult to envision. But a new sense of patriotism — inclusive, globally-friendly and motivated by hope, not fear — has taken shape. And perhaps, a governing body that looks nothing like we’ve seen before, because somehow, it’ll look a little more like us. The Census calculates that minorities, now about a third of the U.S. population, are expected to outnumber whites by 2042. Will our political culture transform to sustain this new majority? It already has.
