She told me she saw swastikas every time she passed by an American flag. The conversation then bounced around the greatness of Stalin, sexism being the foundation of all evils, and the envy of her sisters. By the time day bled into moonlight, she whispered that she just wanted someone to hold her at night.

He said that Hitler was one of his heroes. Nothing about him fit the description of a white supremacist. Brown skin Mexican with immigrant parents. His teenage years consisted of violence and drugs. And his coming of age was enlisting in the army. When asked about his fascination with the Fuhrer, he said that Hitler was a powerful leader. He was able to bring order out of the rubble of a post WW1 Germany.

They would read books by Mao in the bedroom together. He would bring up the horrors of America in the Vietnam war while skipping over the subject of Tienanmen Square. She hated racism and invited me to parties where the culture was all middle class White America plus one family of refugees for all to see. They would say in their own ways, “I want to be a good person.”

Tokyo’s Odaiba.