Thoughts on Race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeLjkoLzyBE

A lot of the legislature discussed herein affected my great grandfather, Nobuzo Yamane, who was a first-generation Japanese American who arrived in San Francisco Bay in 1918. He spoke fluent English, was well-educated, and served as an active member of his community (bridging European American and Japanese and Chinese American commerce outside of Sacramento) but was not allowed to own property via the Alien Land Law passed in 1913. By the time 1923 came around, even American-born children (my grandmother and grand aunt, now 93, bless her soul) could not have land put in their name. Naturalization laws only extended to a binary at that time: “free white people of good moral character” and “aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.” As a result, only those two groups could effectively own property. When internment began in 1942, they left all property behind, including a successful supply store, and began de novo, a fancy way of saying starting from square one.

The case discussed here of Takeo Ozawa is an important counterpoint to that of George Shishim, a Lebanese policeman, who in 1909 was granted naturalized citizenship by the DC Superior Court and set a precedent for Middle Eastern immigrants as being classified as “white.” Predictably, Ozawa was not granted that status despite assimilating fully into dominant culture (really he out-whited the whites in all but his non European-origin).

I went to a talk recently where an Asian-American Studies professor mentioned that in his experience most fourth or fifth-generation Japanese Americans (that’s me) seemed to bear little of the “historical trauma” or “scars” of other minority groups. There is this notion that internment only lasted 2 or 3 years and doesn’t hold a candle to the long shadows still cast by African American slavery and present issues of Latino Americans, particularly coupled with vast and longstanding disparities in income, education, and opportunity. In fact, a friend’s brother said he couldn’t really bring himself to care about Asian American racial issues: on an everyday basis, the worst that could happen is that his feelings might be hurt every now and again. It’s nowhere near the same as fearing being gunned down, dealing with drugs, or finding it hard to get out of a negatively-reinforcing feedback loop. You know what? That’s probably more than true.

But the fact is, this country still operates on a binary system: white and black, the same as it did when naturalization was extended to those of African descent in 1870. It’s as if there is only space for one marginal group in the media and public eye.

Don’t get me wrong. I do believe that it makes sense that mainstream conversation skews toward those groups with greater socioeconomic needs: but there needs to be an underlying principle of inclusion from the get-go. Our mental framework shouldn’t be white, black, and other. It should envision an entire world converging equally and with the same rights upon America, that can then zoom in on relevant subpopulations. That bird’s eye context should be ingrained within every American and not be forgotten.

So in light of all this, there are at least two issues worth mentioning.

One is of underlying terminology. While we can and stand to learn from the origins and development of a black-white binary, what we should really do is reinforce the fact that we all are American: more accurately, European, African, Latino, and/or Asian American.

You know what the common denominator is within this nomenclature? 
American. Modified by a continent of origin. If you’re Native American, well you’re an OG American. 
It’s high time we used symmetric terminology and cast off a binary system. This is a land of immigrants, a land of a global peoples converging upon one land (we can talk about how those people are distributed in another thread).

Second, is the fact that the history we are taught in our schools must reflect a perspective of global origin. Isn’t the point of history to inform the present with the past? Yet somehow these books expect students to follow and interpret a heavily skewed sequence of events through hundreds of years and then somehow miraculously draw conclusions to the present. Frankly, I think a lot of people finish history books with a bit of a disconnect, finding mostly dead white men and a token number of black men/women to revere. Someone should really write a US history book that briefly snapshots the present as an inclusive picture (all groups referenced) and then weaves an intertwining tale of those groups leading up to the present. Some groups may not show up until the last quarter of that book, but hey even 6% (the current population) of a US history book discussing Asian American history would be a watershed act. It’d be like watching little previews of Master of None, Scandal, Empire, Friends, and Jane the Virgin and then see how they came to light. Why not begin think in a manner such as that (you know like the world we actually live in) and begin to create positive feedback loops that promote inclusivity and equality?