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Under the Sun Cynthia Oi |
When visage
masks your origins,
things get weird
I was served a double dose of mistaken identification that late afternoon in Montana. After exploring a segment of Glacier National Park, I had parked my pleasantly weary body on a bench in the fairy-tale marvel of a floral garden in front of the lodge.At the far end, three young men knocked a golf ball across the grass. They had just the one ball, which the fellow with a putter would tap toward the others and they'd take turns with a wedge to hit it back.
After awhile, they edged over to sit at the bench across from me, smoking cigarettes and trying not to stare too obviously. Then one of them spoke up.
"Are you Yakama?"
Confused, I squinted at him.
"From the Northwest," he added, hoping in vain to clarify his question.
I said, "No. What's Yakama?"
He answered that I looked Yakama and that they were Blackfeet.
OK, got it, I thought. They were Indians who lived in a nearby reservation and they supposed I was from the Yakama nation, a tribal group in Washington state.
I told them I was from Hawaii, which ushered in more confusion -- for them, this time. No, I'm not Hawaiian, I explained. I'm from Hawaii, but I'm Japanese American.
You don't look Japanese, the first fellow said. My too-brown complexion conflicted with his image of a Japanese person, white-skinned and thin. I laughed and told them that they looked like many of the local people in Hawaii. They found the notion funny and curious, and soon we were talking about similarities and differences in our appearances and cultures, about life in the islands and Montana.
The sun was casting our shadows long when a man wearing a white shirt and tie hustled from the lodge and down the path toward us. He advised us politely that the garden would close at nightfall and that we'd all have to leave soon. He didn't exactly give us the bum's rush, but made it clear he wanted us gone.
As the guys silently collected their golf clubs, I asked the man if the lodge was now closing the garden to its guests at night because two nights before, I had come out after dinner to look at the stars. Surprised, he peered at me, then said the garden was always open to guests.
In that case, I said, I'd like to sit awhile and, if he didn't mind, I'd like to continue talking with my new acquaintances, if they cared to stay. He smiled stiffly and went away, but the guys had been made uncomfortable and the light mood was lost.
As they finished their cigarettes, they said the man had probably assumed I was an Indian, just as they had. I said I figured as much, too. We said our good-byes and I watched them until they disappeared past the railroad station, their feet sending puffs of dust into the slanting haze of sunset.
The white-shirted man, who was stationed back behind the front desk, averted his eyes when I walked into the lodge. I guess he was embarrassed and though I was a bit peeved, I felt sorry for him at the same time.
We all have perceptions about what people with whom we are unfamiliar are like, of how they look and act, of having expectations with little or no basis.
Growing up in Hawaii, being a minority in a sea of minorities, gave me a sense of immunity. I felt no need to wear a label -- "victim of racial prejudice" -- to gain an entitlement because it comes with being born in the U.S.A. So I was told and so I believe.
For others, who by skin color or background are at a disadvantage and who haven't been lucky enough to be raised in the same atmosphere, there should be mitigation because despite the words about all of us being equal, that hasn't been the case.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to reach that ideal, to help it along and that's what the Supreme Court said this week, supporting the concept in its rulings on affirmative action. The court said extending power to those who may not be infused with the convictions that living in Hawaii has graciously provided me is the right thing to do.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Cynthia Oi has been on the staff of the Star-Bulletin since 1976.
She can be reached at: coi@starbulletin.com.