Immigrants Inlandia: a refugee story

In today’s supercharged political atmosphere, we seem to have forgotten that many of us arrived as refugees from war and turmoil. Revolutions in Cuba, in Europe, in the Middle East, China and Viet Nam were preceded by the Mexican Revolution and World War II. Refugees from these upheavals and their children have become part of the melting pot that produces political leaders, entrepreneurs, artists and scholars: they became our neighbors.

Ray and Sue Lopez have lived in Southern California for over 65 years. Despite her hispanic surname, Sumiko Lopez was a refugee from post-war Japan. She had survived the horrors of World War II, the bombing, the food shortages, the militarism in the streets but then she lost her family in the postwar period and was fending for herself in Tokyo when she met Ray.

Because she had been educated and raised in a westernized family, Sue survived the postwar occupation of Japan by working as a translator for the U.S. Army. As such, she stepped out of the traditional role of young Japanese daughter when her parents succumbed to stress, malnutrition and illness. Women would soon be gaining new roles and responsibilities in Japan, but Sue was ahead of the wave, forced to support herself in Tokyo.

Her husband Ray was born and raised in the Inland Valley. His family had fled from the chaos and warfare of Mexico’s ten year revolution, a war said to have cost 2 million lives. His parents settled in La Verne, at the eastern end of the San Gabriel mountain range.

Ray was a slender, light complexioned hispanic, who could sometimes be mistaken for northern Chinese or Japanese. During his military service in Japan, he took advantage of that fact. A light complexion, however, did not mitigate the injustices he and his family encountered in prewar America.

When he was young, or as he put it, “In the kid days, we had to go to the Mexican school south of Arrow Highway. Our parents wanted the schools integrated because the white school on Bonita had so much more. We didn’t care that much, but you know what? What was important to us was the swimming pool!”

“In the summer, they wouldn’t let Mexican kids swim unless it was Friday. They called Friday ‘Mexican Day.’ My little friend Pete would say, ‘Isn’t it nice they have day just for us?’ Little dude didn’t realize it was because that night they drained and refilled the pool for the weekend…didn’t want us contaminating the clean water…”

“I used to sneak in because I was light skinned and the lifeguards couldn’t tell who was Mexican just by looking at me! Boy did the other kids get mad…but they never told on me until little Pete went and asked the lifeguard, ‘How come that Mexican kid gets to swim and we can’t?’ Then the chase was on! My friends shushed Pete so he couldn’t point to me and the lifeguards went on the hunt…we swam underwater; we swam in the shallow side crowded with little kids and finally managed to slip out before we got caught!”

Ray’s parents did succeed in integrating the schools in La Verne in l947, allowing the children to attend the same high school. Bias prevailed, however, and Mexican children were not encouraged to continue on to college. Ray joined the army and during the Korean War, found himself stationed in Japan where he went native.

When he donned Japanese garb, a kimono and wooden slippers, Ray looked like any young Japanese male strutting down the Tokyo streets. He met and courted a beautiful young translator, who invited him to meet her friends. To his surprise, there was no prejudice exhibited by his new Japanese acquaintances. Instead he was introduced to brand new tastes, courtesies and culture by natives who seemed eager to show him their world. Marveling at the royal treatment they received, Ray and his friends decided to live off base and dove into the Far East. Then they tried to bring their sweethearts home to California.

At the time, Ray was a non-commissioned officer in the occupying army in Japan. And as such, he had to toe a very careful line in his relationship with Sumiko. He had to report to this commanding officer that he wanted to date her. When they decided to marry, Ray could not simply propose and plan the wedding. He had to get the permission of his commanding officer. Who refused. Who wondered why Ray didn’t just shack up with this woman? Marriage was not allowed. Ray appealed. Sue went in for interviews and had to endure a physical examination. Still no dice. Ray was advised to resign from the army, return to California via military transport and then return to Japan on his own dime. Then he could get married and arrange for Sue to follow him back to La Verne.

It was an expensive proposition for a young sergeant. What to do? What else? He did what any red-blooded American would do: he wrote to his Congressman back home. Letters to commanding officers followed, permissions were granted and a brief civil ceremony followed. Still, it seemed like a good time to get out and return to California; an army career did not seem too promising after all of this. Sue thought, “This marriage had better succeed, considering all we had to go through.”

Sue told everyone that she had been glad to come to America because when she married Ray, she had no one left to care about in Japan. She was not an American-oenophile but said she had few friends and no immediate family left. Her father had raised her to be untypical in Japanese society, had told her never to bow her head to anyone, never follow behind anyone. He had told her to be herself, to speak up for herself, be independent. And so, Sue concluded, “I became so different that nobody in Japan could like me.” That made her American friends scratch their heads in puzzlement: Sue is bright, warm and the soul of kindliness. Who could dislike anyone as nice as Sue?

If one can believe the movies, Japanese ways developed in their medieval past, a time that was mean, savage and brutal for the vast numbers of peasants. The military class, the samurai, had no compunctions about using a peasant to test the sharpness of their swords. Woe the hapless farmer who failed to bow down quickly enough when a passing swordsman rode through his rice paddy. Swish! Off went his head. So over the generations, children were taught to be very nimble when the powerful were about, bow your head, kneel down obediently, make yourself melt into the woodwork by conforming to all the rules designed to keep you safe. Now, with the samurai class long retired to the Valhalla of legend, it seems that Japanese society still retains its conformist ways. You see it in the salary-man culture, in the culture of the workers in the huge manufacturing corporations, in the sales clerks who bow and greet their customers as they stream into the department stores. And you see it in the identically dressed school children who travel in large giggling groups.

Sue was only too glad to leave Japan and to try her hand in a country that promised to respect her independence. Not that the United States was especially welcoming to people of color. But for Sue it did work. Her new in-laws expected a demure Japanese war bride, kimono clad and with long gleaming hair to arrive. Imagine their surprise when an elegant Asian in a mini-skirt and platform shoes came tripping down the gangplank!

She landed in a large, warm established family. Sue often spoke of the Japanese-American family that showed up at the Lopez house to welcome her and to share their knowledge of Ray’s family. Apparently, when they had been “relocated” during the war and interned in a nearby compound, Ray’s mother was one of the few who visited them and tried to bring food and a friendly voice.

So they dove into life in the Inland Valley. Raised two sons and learned how the police in La Verne could alternately protect and provoke the Hispanic community that lived in the barrio. They learned how their sons were vulnerable to the intermittent racism that is still today displayed by La Verne’s finest. Still her children grew up to become policemen and firemen. Sue says she was lucky that she chose to take a leap of faith that proved true.