s c a r s

a painful memory surfacing...

I've ruminated and worried about posting this piece about race for months. It's interesting because it's part of theme of this entry; that race keeps coming up. It's a scar that reminds me of pain when I was a young girl and the scar that heats up today. I'm reluctant to share it, am concerned about how my friends will respond.  So it leads me to believe and feel it's an important thing to share. I'm uncomfortable.  I feel like I have not made the strides I thought I had. I feel like I need to work harder,  just as our society and our culture have more work to do when it comes to talking about race. 

Race keeps coming up.

 Deaths in Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Charleston, - bringing up memories of feeling different and other.









When did I first notice it?

 In kindergarten. "What's the word to describe this?",  asked my teacher, holding up a a wet sponge gesturing  "squeeze".  My hand shoots up with pride, "shiboru" I wanted to say. Wrong, not Japanese, English! Embarrassed, I think I went and hid in the dark bathroom for a little while.

Another memory, lunch in the cafeteria, wanting desperately to fit in with my new friends and have the "right" things in my lunch box. No rice balls, white bread sandwiches.  No rice crackers, pre-packaged cookies. No fresh, homegrown fruit, please.Why can't we buy Ho-Ho's? 

What is a nip, a Jap?
Oh, it's me. The words sting and punch a deep place inside. But I smile and find my convincing laugh and false grin that hides tears,  sadness and embarrassment for feeling different; not white, not blond, not blue-eyed. Even my good friends, my best friends, made those slurs common and made me feel less. Why didn't I stand up for myself? Why didn't my other Chinese, Filipino, Japanese friends stand up? Instead, we smiled, laughed and nervously hoped the topic would change. My parents told my siblings and me there was a covenant on the the deed to our house we owned in Sacramento that prohibited selling or renting to racial or ethnic minorities.  The developers wanted the neighborhoods segregated, protected from the Other.

The struggles, brutality and violence against black men and women don't begin to compare with my childhood pain but it's brought race up again. The feelings have surfaced that I thought had healed to a degree.

I've learned to blend, not to feel like I'm on the other side watching kids play tennis and swim through the chain-link fence from Park Terrace Swim and Tennis Club. As a young girl, the fence that separated me seemed like miles away.

And even though today I play in a tennis league team as captain and have lived in a super, open, beach community for over 30 years; racial injustice has exposed a sensitive scar.

I've grown accustomed to being the only person of color in the room; at work, at a tennis club, in restaurants, in stores. I still sometimes feel the "look" from the salesperson, either indifference or a feeling of being watched. So I'm not really a customer who deserves to be acknowledged when I walk in the door, sometimes ignored, or I've been made to feel, as an adult, a potential shoplifter, who doesn't really "belong" in the store. In the 90s, while grocery shopping with my biracial son, curious people would ask if I was his nanny. I've become keen on picking up on subtle, non-verbal body language and I've forgotten what that felt like until recently.  

I'm one of the "model minority"
I've never felt comfortable with the label but it really is amazing what I've learned to do, how I've become a chameleon, can conform, blend into my environment. I recognize how hard it has been to do well, be good, work hard, and blend in more and more and erase little by little the things that make me, me.

Today, I long to share my experience and the courage it takes to meet and marry a partner outside of your ethnicity. I do find it takes inner strength to hold on to your culture, your traditions with reverence. It takes fortitude to continue embracing my culture while appreciating and loving my husband and  his Hungarian, Polish, Russian heritage. I learned to hide a part of myself to survive, to conform, to blend and to compartmentalize my Japanese roots to fit in. It's taken a long time for me to progress and transform hurtful experiences into sharing more.

I've realized so many opportunities these past 56 years and have healed emotional pains but as we continue to hear, see and read about race,  memories of hateful racial slurs, language that makes me feel small and other and question my heritage cause the scars to surface.  It makes me question again, for a moment,  when I walk into a room, a bar, a boutique, any public place, do I need to continue to "prove" myself by fitting the mold, being unique but not too outside of the acceptable realm of exotic, ethnic, different?

Today Buddhism, Zen,  and meditation are part of popular culture.
 I have a wonderful lineage that ties me to Japan for generations. As I get older, I'm embracing the nuances of what it means to have this rich heritage (Buddhist, Shin, Zen) that I was once paralyzed to share. I knew there was deep meaning and beauty but was uncertain how to describe, defend or share it.

 Today, I try to engage with honesty while feeling a little vulnerable. There are times when putting my true self out there feels like the little girl who first raised her hand in kindergarten;  innately confident, straddling two cultures, excited to be an equal participant. The scars make up who I am and my thoughts and intentions are based upon all experiences.  I strive to live with understanding to cultivate an open heart. I was misguided to think I'd escape the deep hurt of racism, bigotry and racial slurs. It's a scar that still heats up now and then.  I don't want to erase it, run away or remove it any longer. I'm choosing to stand tall with my heart forward. I am learning to accept all the memories/experiences  of what makes me, me. The scars are still sensitive spots that cause pain but they have also revealed a way for me to practice being more tolerant, empathic, compassionate and more courageous with myself and to all sentient beings.

"Never be ashamed of a scar. It simply means you were STRONGER than whatever tried to hurt you."
-shared by a friend on FB