Maxine Kong Kingston hopes for peace, not war. In honor of Armistice (now, Veterans Day)

MKK is hopeful because of. " peace babies"; she lives in the Ashby living for seniors, and the boys from the school next door have two tasks to complete:  teach old folks to use cell phones, and hold babies in their arms...she says that has to change their character...she thinks if there is going to be less violence in our culture, it somehow has to fundamentally change...she has just become a grandmother, and the baby is Japanese. It was making the peace sign almost when it was just born, and when at 11 months, it hears Arigato(thank you), the infant bows...peacefully. 

After she lost her house in the Berkeley fires, as well as her manuscripts, she became  active with veterans of the wars....and still is....she tells us stories.  She wanted to learn from them as she wrote.   The counterpoise is to create.  She knew about war, because her mother reminded her of 5000 years of history in which her ancestors participated in wars.   She reads from the Fifth Book of Peace, a section on the reunion of a now Vietnamese woman and an American soldier twenty years later... and how they realized they were now at peace with one another.  She reads from her book about the recalling of their peace march against the Viet Nam War.  Terry Tempest Williams was with her, and Alice Walker, and they were all arrested, and they all felt a pink glow, of love, during that Peace March, because they marched in love. She reminds us that Peace and Love start with oneself and are within.