What's the opposite of xenophobia?

Plus a maniacal leap to book news, because why the hell not

What’s the opposite of xenophobia?

I wonder this to myself Wednesday morning as I drive my daughter to elementary school. I wonder it as I see a blonde woman jogging happily down the street. As an older white couple watch their butter-colored doodle sniff the base of a royal palm tree. I wonder it as traffic slows to a crawl, when I come upon two white men walking jubilantly down the sidewalk, stopping to talk to a brown man who is whacking weeds in front of a church. I see the brown man turn off his weed whacker and pull down the neck gaiter protecting his nose and mouth. I see him bow his head to these men and wipe his free hand on his khaki cargo pants. I wonder if I should pull over, start recording.

I don’t hear what the men say, but I see the lawn guy nod. I see the two men walk away from him as he watches them, how he looks left and right, as if checking for more jubilant white men, before pulling up his gaiter and returning to his work. This likely was nothing. But I feel my skin prickle, the way it did when I was a kid and white folks — salesmen, teachers, neighbors — tilted their heads at my Filipina mom in their own sense of wonder.

“Your English is so good!” they’d say to her, eyes wide with the remarkability of it all.

Later this same morning, I open my phone. I quickly swipe shut Instagram and The New York Times. Those apps have shown me plenty for the day. I Google “opposite of xenophobia” and see “xenophilia” — but that’s not right. It’s not that I love foreign people and customs, although I do, it’s that I am fearful of my neighbors. More fearful of my neighbors. Perhaps, now, you are too. Perhaps not.

This phobia has lived in me in various forms for as long as I can remember. I am highly attuned to it. It stems from a lifetime of brownness in this very white hometown of mine. It’s grown with each Lock Her Up yard sign and Fuck Biden banner, with every Let’s Go Brandon bumper sticker and Trump flag billowing from the bed of a six-figure pickup truck.

When you are outnumbered, you become a great listener. Certain key words and phrases pique my attention: guns and gay and global warming, abortion and bans and climate change. I will pick these words from loudly crowded rooms. I’ll hone in on them, ignoring my current conversation to focus on what the keyword-people are saying, on who they are, on if, perchance, they might be a safe space, too.

I used to say that we Floridians were on the front lines. These MAGA-hatters are my neighbors. They helped me and mine through hurricanes, and we helped them. When we had power and they didn’t, we invited them into our home, offered them hot showers and hot meals, space in our freezer for their steaks and shrimp. I thought our kindness might alter them, might show them — and me — not to be afraid.

I was foolish.

I stayed foolish.

Since July 21st, I’ve luxuriated in the mirrored halls of social media, allowing the algorithm to feed me precisely what I wanted to eat. Kamala was Brat. Kamala was Swift. Kamala was on flags billowing from five-figure golf carts in The Villages, one of the reddest parts of this bloody state. That felt like hope. It was artifice.

The reels and memes placated me. They allowed me to ignore the many, many people — people at my gym, along my street, at my kids’ schools — who have moved to Florida for its politics. These newcomers felt smothered in California and Colorado and Washington. There, they were outnumbered, forced to listen for the spaces they considered safe. Here in the deep-red heat is where they feel like they belong.

But they’re not just here. They are in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan and New York City. They are 51% of the electorate. Seventy-two million people. At least. They are my neighbors. They are also yours.

Back on Google, a few links down from “xenophilia,” I see a Quora thread about “oikophobia,” which it says means “irrational antipathy, fear or hatred for your own home or nation.” Closer. But that’s not quite it, either. As much as I want to hate this birthplace of mine, as much as I sometimes do, that’s not a feeling I can get to stick. Nor is it irrational.

My actual phobia is perhaps closer to claustrophobia. The walls are closing in — around all of us. This is not because the walls are growing. This is because the mechanisms that control the walls are turning faster than ever, propelled by hate, ignorance and an incredible amount of fear. The people on the other sides of these walls aren’t my neighbors or your neighbors. They are billionaires who grow all the more billionairish when collectively we are afraid. They want us fighting over basic human rights (and wow, how easily we do), because then we’re not watching them suck up yet more wealth, because then we’re not revolting when they tell us to eat cake.

They are wildly outnumbered. They should be afraid. Instead, we shoulder that burden. It turns us against ourselves. It moves us across the country to perceived safety. It propels us to vote for a horrifying person who has done horrifying things and who promises more of them.

What I am truly afraid of is fear. I am afraid of being afraid, of the leaps I’m willing to take because of fear, the judgments I’m willing to make. I’m afraid that I will always have to be afraid, that not being afraid is being complacent, and I don’t know which is worse.

I am afraid of those who are also afraid. Fear unfocuses us. It shifts us. It makes us do things that cannot be taken back, that suck us backwards. To where we were. To where we are again. More scared than ever.

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3 bits of book news (I told you it would be maniacal)

Despite (gestures wildly) everything, I’m still here for book promotion! Eeeeee!!!!

1. I need your vote. “The Mango Tree” is a finalist for The Southern Book Prize, and I am honored and stunned to be alongside so many incredible writers. This is one of the few hopeful glimmers getting me by this week. The beauty of this contest is that the nominees were selected by indie booksellers throughout the South. And winners are chosen by YOU, the readers. It takes two minutes to vote, and it’s such an all-around happier vote than the ones we cast Tuesday. Here’s the link.

2. I will be in Miami for the Miami Book Fair at 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 24. I get to join NYT bestselling author Firoozeh Dumas and author Stephen Bruno for a panel aptly titled “Life’s a B**** and then You Laugh.” Learn more here.

3. On January 13, you can find me at the Sidney & Berne Davis Famous Author Lecture Series in downtown Fort Myers. A $45 ticket gets you lunch, a talk and Q&A with yours truly, and the opportunity to have books signed. Secure your tickets here.