NIKKEI & KUROCHAN
Truth and transformation on anti-blackness
I sometimes feel like I’m a bull in the china shop in the JA community. But I just have to talk about this. These stories comes from my very own family experience. And I do this with respect and love for those I speak of, who are no longer with us and because they were able to transform their attitudes. Maybe you’ll see similarities in families. Maybe it will give you a space to share your stories. Read it and see.
Example #1: It was 1946, just after we got out of camp and returned to Los Angeles, my family was staying at the house of my Auntie Hatsue and Uncle Fred. They lived at 2706 Hobart, between Adams and Jefferson just East of Western, a neighborhood of primarily black folks, with whom we shared the same restrictions of neighborhoods we were allowed to live in. Now, my Auntie was a devout Buddhist and one of the sweetest people you’d ever meet. I remember her exchanging greetings over the fence with the black lady next door, but one day as I was going out to play, my mother firmly told me, “don’t play with the kuro-chan kids,” echoed by my dear Auntie. They grumbled more words in Japanese that included “kuro-chan” and from the sound of their voices I knew they meant business. I somehow knew that kuro-chan (kuro=black) meant black people…or negro in those days. It was a kind of golden rule for little Japanese girls…don’t play with the kuro-chans.
Example #2: Okay, let’s fast-forward a decade. We are now living in our own house on 4th Avenue, near Venice Blvd., another black neighborhood we lived in. I’m going to LA High School now, that has an equal mix of black, Jewish and Asian kids. One day I walk home with the Curtis who lives just down the street from me. I invite him into my house to finish a conversation we are having. We are sitting in the living room when my mom comes home. After Curtis leaves my mom screams at me, “never bring him into the house when you’re alone!” I try to point out her irrational, fearful and racist response, but nothing pierced through her emotions. Another Golden Rule moment for Japanese girls.
Example #3: In high school I am a shy dateless teen, busy with dance classes and pursuit of career. While other gals are socializing JA guys seem to fear me. One day a tall and beautiful brown brother approaches and asks me out. Of course I knew him. He was the brilliant president of our class. And he was son of the famous singer Lena Horne. It was a dumb struck, deer in the headlights moment. My whole life flashed before me - especially the Golden Rule for Japanese girls. What should I do? Does he know what he’s asking? Say yes and have my parents have a heart attack? Say yes and face their wrath? How do I stand up for my own feelings? Golly he’s handsome. Gee, I’ve never really been on a real date. This was 1957 and I was a wimp. I couldn’t smash my way out of my mother’s Golden Rule. I just looked at him and said, “I can’t.”
Example #4: Okay, let’s cut to the chase. I’m 33, been married and divorced, had a career, lived in New York. I’ve been pretty much been living by my mom’s Golden Rule, but I’m part of the Asian American movement and been working with blacks and Latinx folks. I’ve had practice standing up for what I believe. That makes me pretty dangerous when it comes to being part of my community in 1973. So…I’m pregnant. The father is black and I just told my mother. She is on the floor, crying. She tells me I did this because she married my dad, who is half Japanese and me being a hapa/mixed blood caused me a lot of pain feeling like an outcast in my youth. There is no explaining, no consoling as she repeats her mantra, “what will people think?.” She stays in her room for three days crying. I feel horrible. My father’s furious at me. I leave their house thinking I may never see them again.
The months go by and I thrive with the help of my brother and my Asian American comrades in the movement. On December 10, 1973, I deliver my beautiful baby, Kamau. When my brother drives me back to our apartment, my mother is standing at the front door. What is she doing here? She’s got a big pot of chicken soup. What? Somehow my mother, in our months of separation got beyond her fears, her perceptions about “Kuro-chan,” her feelings about “what will people think.” I don’t think it was so much about facing the racism and classism that is a deep part of Japanese heritage, something rarely talked about. It was more about her wondering how she could help her first grandson, who was black and Japanese, have a good, safe, fulfilling life. She showed me how to bathe him, she babysat, she opened up a savings account for him, and relaxed into sharing him with her friends. I’m proud of my mom because she stretched her soul and took steps change her feelings, her attitudes. Because she loved this black child, she learned that black lives matter.
Maybe that’s one way the world changes - from the inside out. But not everyone can have a first-hand experience that grabs their heart. In this profound moment when the history of anti-blackness is being revealed and confronted, what can we do to bring light and change in the places closest to us? Maybe one way is by starting to talk about our own secrets when it comes to black people, to look at our own stories and cultural attitudes. Maybe that can be a way towards truth and transformation in our world.
Nobuko Miyamoto
June 9, 2020