I just finished watching To Be Takei, a documentary on George Takei that includes his internment as a young boy in the US camps during World War II, the subsequent struggles after the camps were dissolved but Japanese were still seen as the enemy, and of course his coming out and activism for the gay community.  I came away with even more respect for the man since he faced every struggle honestly and gracefully.

In some ways it reminds me of conversations from the Italian side of my family, and occasionally from the Irish side, considering that my aunt and uncle are both around Takei's age. As children, both remember the Great Depression when everyone was striving to hold down jobs in a hostile environment.  My aunt's father failed to keep open a shoe store and a paint store until finally landing a job at Roche.  My uncle's father taught himself to be an electrician despite only finishing 4th grade, and was instrumental in forming a union despite literally being beaten by the company opposing it.

My aunt and uncle remember the incredible poverty and families struggling just to get food on the table.  In so many ways, there were a stunning amount of sacrifices made to ensure the next generation didn't have to suffer the way that my grandparents did.  The Great Depression's generation just worked as hard as they could at every opportunity offered, trusting that they would manage to achieve a better life for them and their children.

I should remember this more.  I've never gone to bed hungry.  I've never been unemployed, nor had my parents or sister unemployed.  In so many ways my life is leaps and bounds better than what our grandparents had to endure, and even better then what my parents dealt with growing up in the post-WWII era. I need to remind myself I should  be grateful, and that as screwed up as things are sometimes, it's all relative. I hope I can hold on to that viewpoint. It does help to have outside perspectives, even from famous figures, to bring that fact home.