david haldane

David Haldane: The words hit me like a punch in the jaw. “White supremacy and hate are haunting Asian Americans,” the CNN headline screamed, leaving an almost unbearable ringing in my ears. As the husband of an immigrant Filipino American and father of two beloved biracial children, I couldn’t ignore the message. And so I read more.

David Haldane: I recently passed a milestone. The strange thing, though, was that I didn’t even know it. I realized, of course, that the day would eventually come. And yet it whisked right by without my batting an eye.

David Haldane writes: Brent Slavik had mixed feelings when basketball great Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash last year.

David Haldane writes: Seeing his name took me back decades. Lawrence Ferlinghetti beat poet and free speech advocate, dead at 101. I closed my eyes and rowed back in time. Back to the day in San Francisco when I’d attended one of his readings. It was probably in the late 1960s, most likely at City Lights, his North Beach bookstore that became the center of the city’s–and ultimately the nation’s—bohemian culture. I don’t recall the words he spoke or the poems he read. What I remember is feeling deeply affected. And spending the next decade emersed in the then-still-developing counterculture the legendary poet had helped inspire.

David Haldane writes: A few months ago, I got an astounding call. “Hi Dad,” my 34-year-old son said, “why don’t you come down for a visit and bring me some food?” The cause of my astonishment was that I hadn’t heard from him in over two years. The reason: while I’ve been in the Philippines, he’s been confined to a locked mental health facility in San Diego County, USA.

David Haldane writes: An old friend, a Filipino journalist named Effe Barker now living in the UK, wanted to interview me for her YouTube podcast called Effe Barker Human Interest. The subject: comparing former U.S. President Donald J. Trump to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

David Haldane writes: It was a typical day. My 10-year-old son slept until 11 a.m. Then he got up, played games on his X-box, chatted with a friend, brushed his teeth and showered, watched a movie on Netflix and rode his bike down the street.

David Haldane writes: The boards are everywhere. Driving along the nighttime streets, you see them on the storefront windows. Some stand nailed to public buildings guarding smashed glass panels. And many bear graffiti’s deep scars; angry, black-scrawled slogans giving downtown a ghostlike air.