Letter: Bigotry and the spy balloon hysteria

While walking my dog in the quiet of my neighborhood, an unfamiliar voice shouted "take your balloon back!" It was the first time ages since a stranger felt emboldened enough to hurl xenophobic comments my way.

The last time was right around Trump's election, when I was removing my daughter from her car seat and someone shouted, "Go back to where you came from." I reassured my child with a smile and shielded her from what I thought was a long-forgotten and defunct bigotry.

But in an instant, with social media posts and suspicions of spy balloons out of Montana, our hysteria as Americans was as potent and reminiscent of 1950s Red Scare. Even SNL made a skit with Bowen Yang playing a spy balloon.

But the more sobering and less popular news of a missing amateur balloon this week from Illinois hobbyists (NIBBB) has made me realize our xenophobic tendencies are alive and well.

As a father, I struggle with if or when I should have that conversation with my children about racism and bigotry. I've been holding out in hopes of that the world I grew up in has changed for the better. But if something as ludicrous as a balloon can plunge our senses into panic and causing us to lose our grace as Americans, I won't be able to let it go.

Freedom Nguyen

Buffalo Grove