By JEANNE WAKATSUKI HOUSTON
Many Years Ago 43 to be exact - when I stood on the ground where De Anza College now stands, I looked out onto lush orchards, fragrant with blossoms in springtime and ladened with plump fruit in summer. I viewed acres of foliage carpeting the earth with green - patches of beans, tomatoes and squash, and long furrows of strawberries, glistening red under their leafy canopies. In those days I knew this area well, for I had spent several summers picking those berries at a large strawberry ranch called Esperanza, located not far from here. Esperanza, the Spanish word for "hope," was farmed by Japanese families in partnership with the Driscoll brothers. They were sharecroppers. My father sharecropped with the Driscolls at another ranch in South County from 1951 to 1955.
In 1945 when our family re-entered society after three and a half years of incarceration at Manzanar, a concentration camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, my father's fishing license was revoked. It forced him to seek a livelihood outside a successful pre-war fishing occupation.
Starting at economic zero, at age 59 he seized the opportunity to begin again and brought his family to San Jose from Southern California to farm strawberries. Although my father had been in this country for more than 35 years, and his family, including my mother, had been born here, we arrived at this luscious valley like new immigrants, refugees from another world.
Why do I tell you this? I tell you this because when I picked those berries I never dreamed I would be speaking at a college that someday would rise up within view of where I knelt in the dirt. It was beyond my imagination. But here I am sharing with you some thoughts and insights I have accrued since those days in the strawberry fields more than 40 years ago.
As Santa Clara Valley's landscape has changed, so has its consciousness. I'm not going to lecture about how tough it was then to be Asian, to be poor, and to be a woman. But I would like to say a few words to remind us how we have changed, how things are different - especially in attitudes toward ethnic diversity.
When I was growing up in the '50s, being "American" and acceptable into mainstream society meant one had to assimilate, melt into one great pot where the broth was predominantly Anglo-European flavored.
No one talked about the concept of cultural diversity as a mosaic or as a tapestry of multi-colored threads that when woven together created a vibrantly rich and textured fabric. "Real Americans" were white. People of color had to think and act "white" to prove their "Americanness." And while I was growing up after the war, muted by the internment experience, it never occurred to me to question this attitude.
Not even when I was told I should not continue with a journalism major at San Jose State because I was "Oriental" and a female. There were no jobs in the field. So I changed my major to social welfare. And when I was told again by the head of Juvenile Probation Services that they could not hire me as a probation officer because the community was not "ready" for "Orientals," I did not protest - although I had been educated enough by then to know it was wrong. But that was the '50s.
Equal opportunity laws were non-existent. I remained silent, returning to the safety zone of invisibility and "don't make waves" mentality.
Then in the '60s, the Black Power movement changed forever the way racial and ethnic minorities thought of themselves. Black leaders led us to rediscover our cultural backgrounds and our histories. We rediscovered our participation in and our contributions to the development of this country, and with this recognition came a sense of pride and identity.
For the first time in U.S. history, an awareness of values inherent in America's sub-cultures rose into public consciousness. We began to see that when individuals have a strong sense of identity, of pride in one's heritage, this sense of self-worth strengthens the larger society. Not only were attitudes changing in the dominant culture, but also sub-groups themselves began to recognize that America is a land of immigrants, and that all immigrants had a hand in developing it.
Thirty years ago, the word "immigrant" seemed reserved for people of color, individuals from the Third World. Today, this still seems to be the prevailing myth. I hear so often the comment, "America is becoming - so multi-cultural with all this immigration from Asia and south of the border." Some people are surprised or mystified or threatened by this idea that the country is becoming so diverse, when in fact, it always has been.
From the moment Portuguese and Italian sailors landed in the New World to mingle with indigenous peoples in what we now call the West Indies, America began its cross-cultural heritage. And up North, more than 500 indigenous tribes, speaking as many different languages, for centuries had lived on this vast and fertile continent.
Ethnicity is not the exclusive property of people of color. We all have ethnicity. We are descendants of individuals from China, Ireland, Ethiopia, Vietnam, El Salvador, Canada - to name a few. Ideally, Americans should not have a problem with identity; we must realize there is no need to "wanna-be ethnic" --because, in fact, we all are.
I would like to share an experience I had two years ago when I was in Japan. I met a Japanese man, a visionary who founded a grass-roots movement called "the Sweet Potato Movement." It was a calling back to the land from the cities, the dense urban areas he referred to as the "fourth world."
He surprised me with this comment, "The world is watching America deal with its diversity. For the Japanese, America is the role model for democracy. We may be strong economically, but we need your country to lead us in human rights and values. You must succeed if democracy is to succeed around the world."
He was one of many Japanese I met who saw multi-culturalism as a pivotal test for America's democratic ideals.
I like to view our diversity as a metaphor, a microcosm of the macrocosm of a world of nations. I like to see America as a great experiment, a laboratory for testing ideals - the big test today being tolerance and cooperation. If we can't get along in our own communities because of our cultural differences, how can we expect nations around the world to co-exist peacefully?
One of our greatest challenges is to embrace our differences while seeking out the common bonds that hold us together. What are those bonds? What are those threads, the warp in the loom that sets the pattern for who we are as Americans? For me, those threads are the ideals of freedom, equality, opportunity, justice. I also include the human qualities of gratitude, generosity, curiosity and love. Those threads together provide the strength and foundation around which our individual cultural differences weave, making each and every one of us unique and interesting Americans.
As I noted earlier, there was a major shift in perception to reach the point of agreement that we are, indeed, a multi-cultural society, that we began with diversity. But there is a difference between cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding. They are not synonymous. The great opportunity now is to seek out ways to enhance cross-cultural understanding and not fall back on separatism and attitudes of "our tribe against theirs."
Today, in a time of economic crisis, there are those in our political leadership who are all too ready to find scapegoats.
More and more, it seems, those scapegoats are immigrants. The voices of fear echo daily on the front pages of newspapers, in our television broadcasts: "They are different from us. They have no idea of democracy and freedom. They won't speak our language and they keep to themselves."
Those are the words used today to describe the newest Americans. How many of us who lived through the racism and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II remember what it was like to have those words directed against one innocent group.
In 1942, we had no one to speak up for us. But after the war, empowered by the Civil Rights movement of the '60s, Japanese-Americans began a 10-year drive for redress from our government. It culminated with the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which officially apologized for the internment.
Japanese-Americans were vindicated in the eyes of history. But this victory was not for Japanese-Americans alone. It was a great victory for all Americans, for it proved our Constitution is not just a piece of parchment under glass in the National Archives. It is a living, vital contract that binds us all together as Americans.
And if that contract is broken - as it was in 1942 - it is not just the rights of individuals that are threatened, but the very fabric of this nation. And we know that the fabric is woven from threads representing many different groups. If one of those threads is cut, stretched out of proportion, or bleached of color, the design becomes listless and in danger of unraveling.
I began this talk with a memory, a powerful memory, which should underline one of the ironic possibilities of living in America. Who knows what the future holds for any of us? But whatever measure of success we have achieved is because we own a certain capacity. That capacity is hope.
When I was a teen-ager picking strawberries on that ranch, so appropriately named "Esperanza," I did not have vision. I could not envision the future I have today. Yet, I did have an unexplainable pull to fulfill some possibility, some unknown challenge. I now know that urge to fulfill was hope, a submerged belief in my own power, in the possibility I could accomplish "something."
Today I salute the accomplishments of all people and their faith - their faith in themselves and thus, in a future for this country.
(Thanks to the author for permission to use this piece in our class, and thanks to the San Jose Mercury News who published this on 19 June 1994, page 1c of the PERSPECTIVES Section. This was first delivered as the graduation address to the De Anza College Class of 1994 on 17 June, 1994-jks)