I Grew Up in the Land of Same

I left my cookie cutter, white washed, hometown as soon as I could and have spent my life celebrating diversity.

It was a sweltering, end of summer morning in the desert as I jump roped my 7 year old self up and down the sidewalk of our block in 1958. It was also the first time I experienced overt racism.

A heavy set man was moving toward me rapidly. I could feel his menacing vibes half a block away. My wild, curly hair was gathering sweat and my winter, olive skin had been transformed into a medium roast latte months ago.

His pace increased as he kept his eye on me. When he came closer, I saw a visible relaxing in his face. “Oh,” he stated, looking me up and down. “You’re a white kid. Af first I thought you were a little ‘N’ [racial slur] girl.”

I gasped. That word was absolutely forbidden in our home. I tore off, heart pounding. It was Saturday and dad was harvesting vegetables from our garden. I burst through the gate, alarming my father. “Dad” I panted, “a hideous, stranger man just told me I looked like an ‘N’ girl!”

Father was crouched on the earth and immediately stopped his task. His face flushed and I wondered if he was about to juice a ripe tomato as his hand clenched around it. I blasted out my short story, waiting for reassuring words I knew I would hear. “What have I always told you kids?”

“Never, EVER [my emphasis] judge a person by the color of their skin! And he did that. He said a terrible word too! Is he evil?” Like most kids, I was enchanted with the forces of shadow and light.

Father was shaking his head in disgust. “I don’t know if he’s evil, but we do know he’s ignorant and uneducated people can do and say evil things.”

I was secretly thrilled to have met an adult ignoramus. Later that night when we were supposedly sleeping, yours truly was on the spy and listening in on my parents discussion.

“Our kids are getting white washed in this damn town,” mother complained after hearing dad’s recount. “We have to make an effort to bring minorities into our home before they think the world is made up of white folk.”

My parents grew up on the streets of New York City, the most diversified population imaginable. Father’s parents were immigrants from Southern Italy with plenty of Moorish blood running through their veins. Some of his kids sprouted Afro’s and all 11 of us had olive skin, which turned into varying shades of milk chocolate after a day in the sun.

Mother had thick and silky blonde hair, blue eyes and cream colored skin. My maternal grandmother’s fervent wish for her beautiful daughter was to marry her off to a Jewish boy. “They’re the best providers” she declared. “You’ll never want for anything.”

This line of prejudiced thought repulsed mother and greatly encouraged her to explore her sensual nature with my father. Her mother had forbidden her to date my presumed, son of WOPs, [immigrants without papers] dad. She also refused to sign permission for the full scholarship mother received to attend Nursing College.

In defiance, mother promptly became pregnant and was temporarily banished from her home. Totally rebelling, she went on to have four children before marrying my father. Something only ‘loose’ girls would do in her Scarsdale neighborhood. No mention of my father’s behavior of course.

They had six children in New York before heading west to California where my father became an Electrical Engineer. Newly minted engineers were highly sought after during the Cold War with Russia which started in 1947. He received numerous job offers but only one with a house for his large family.

The Atomic Energy Commission was still producing plutonium to fuel atomic bombs at Hanford, a remote location in the desert of eastern Washington state. They were recruiting engineers wherever they could find them. My parents looked over the flyers and fancy brochures the Government sent as a lure. The new home sealed the deal. They packed up their now 8 kids and headed north.

When I was a teen, mother told me her first reaction to Richland. “What have we done? This doesn’t look at all like the pamphlets they sent! We’ve taken our family to the middle of nowhere desert! No culture, no museums, no diversity!”

Our town reeked of engineers and scientists but no Civil Engineers were in sight. Lacking any form of imagination or aesthetics, houses had been hastily laid out in a grid pattern. We scored a four bedroom ranch house due to our familial size and father’s position downtown. Worker bees and maintenance crews bussed 35 miles up the Colombia River to ‘The Plant,” as the nuclear reactors were called.

After the clump of ranch houses gave way, the A, B, duplexes and pre-fabs formed the edges of the hood. Every house looked the same and so did many of the very white people living in them. Thus began my parent’s despair.

Our town was so white, I was considered ethnic. A hybrid sprung from ‘mixed blood’ parents. When I kindly turned down an invitation to a high school prom from a popular guy, he flung his worst insult to cover his embarrassment. “That’s okay. You look like an Indian [Native American] anyway.”

I had a quick tongue and was a young feminist before the term was coined. I looked him in the eye and replied. “That’s the best compliment I’ve heard in a long time. Thank you!” His friends snickered in the background, adding to his mortification.

My parents did what they could in their constricted town. Father managed to gather up the few minorities around and invited them to dinner. We passed through cities on summer vacations where I jumped up and down with excitement on the streets. “Look at that! Every house is different and there’s another colored person mom!”

I was strongly affected by my parent’s attitude toward our white as can be town and the lack of culture as well. Our bookcases were crammed with Art and Literature from all parts of the world. International folk songs and music streamed out of our doors and into the neighbors ears, much to their chagrin. I heard Joan Baez and Bob Dylan singing before any of my friends knew their names. I also became addicted to National Geographic magazines and told everyone I would be an Explorer.

I was true to my word and heart felt longings. I discovered the absurdity of racial assumptions during the many years I spent circling the globe. I was mislabeled so often it became a personal joke. In Africa I was East Indian, a Kashmiri in India, a Brazilian or Chilean in South America and an Italian, Spanish or Greek woman in Europe. Ironically, due to my chameleon appearance, the one label I never received was American.

Because I traveled through many non English speaking countries I had learned to speak slowly and to enunciate simple language clearly. This habit, as well as my appearance, apparently set me apart from fellow Americans.

I became nomadic, seeking out as much diversity as possible. Thronging markets and bazaars sent me into a spin of delight. Vibrant colors, pungent smells, foods I had never tasted and exotic people I loved conversing with. My senses filled to the brim as I wandered narrow streets, dove into casbahs and wended my way overland through Third World countries.

I actively sought out contrast and unfamiliar ground. I didn’t shy away from uncomfortable discussions but merely agreed to disagree. These years proved to be an invaluable education. One I called the “School of Direct Life Experience.” I was creating my own version of the colorful and entertaining New York city streets my parents had described and wanted for their children.

Now, I look in despair at our desperate retreats into the Land of Same. Daily doses of news inflicted fear have encouraged even more racism, and inflamed multiple biases and prejudices. Who is lying and who is telling some portion of truth? It’s up for grabs as old meters of personal integrity disappear into a fetid swamp of dis-regulated emotions laced with shame and blame.

Do you want everyone to look or think like you do? It will never happen. Do you want to live in a boring world cleansed of differing races and opinions? If so, please stop and consider the fruitless manner in which you are expending your precious life energy.

Worldwide immigration is more prevalent than ever before. The U.S. Hispanic population has grown from 50.5 million to 62.1 million in the last decade alone. Latinos are now 18.5% of the total population and their population will continue to rapidly increase due to their family and religious values.

The answer to xenophobic or racially driven fear is to open new doors in our consciousness and take a good look at other cultures and societies. They offer a multitude of options to the world we are familiar with.

Expand your borders. Allow your mind to entertain new pathways embracing our stimulating variances so we can move on to the most important subject on our plate. Survival.

Unity is the concept and word most relevant to the human race at this juncture in time. Unless we can start shelving or coming to terms with our disagreements and mutually co-operate, we will not be able to adapt, evolve and thrive.

An acceptance of diversity is imperative. We learn through sharing our real life experiences. Not by insulating ourselves in cocoons created from a fabric woven with age old biases and incoherent, damaging emotions.

Treat others with respect and equality, hoping they will do the same for you. Provide an all inclusive, living example of Grace in motion. Therein lies the Land of Same we are looking for.