All Mixed Up, With A Twist of Teriyaki

 

     I had a conversation today that made me remember events and consider things anew.

      At church, I met a young man that told our ward (congregation) about his mission to the Philippines, the various languages, the many islands he lived on and, of course, the people that he’d taught the scriptures to. I told him that half my family is Asian and several of those are of Pilipino descent.

      I recounted the time I was working at a museum a couple decades ago. I hadn’t seen my co-worker (I’ll call her Deborah) for several days as I’d been in Lake Tahoe for a family wedding. I told her that I’d be making a scrapbook and I’d bring it in. (Scrapbooking was a thing in southern Utah where I was living at the time.) It was slow that mid-morning. I counted my drawer and slid it under the register. Before we shared my photos, I asked Deborah how she was doing. “Well, I spent too much time on the phone with some Asians. They kept forwarding my calls to different departments! Why can’t we just have Americans answer customer service calls?” I agreed with her. “Then there was this Asian at the grocery store; why did they hire her? She doesn’t fit in. Also, there’s some Asian dating my nephew. She has funny-looking eyes, but enough about my week. Show me your photo album!”

      “No, it can wait; we’re bound to get some tourists soon," I declined. "Maybe another day.” (I wasn’t ashamed of my family. I really didn’t want to get into a big discussion just before welcoming customers, selling tickets, talking about the history of our museum and the discovery of dinosaur prints on the very rock our building was standing on.)

      “Oh, is this it?” She asked, reaching for the white book next to my purse under the cash register.

     “Yes, it is,” I answered as she opened it up. It was too late to stop her.

      As she thumbed through the pages, Deborah saw the bride, the wedding party, my nieces, nephews, spouses and the reception photos. Asian Americans. Beautiful, slanted eyes. She looked at me and turned as white as a sheet of paper. She kept saying, “Oh, I am so sorry, so sorry!” She was embarrassed. I was embarrassed for her. It was very awkward. “I didn’t know!” she gasped. How could she? Despite all the things that I am, I present as white. She mumbled her apologies and repeated that she was sorry.

      I mentally asked, ‘You’re sorry I have Asian family or that, unlike you, I am not a bigot?’ but I kept my mouth shut. This wasn’t about me. People were ready to come in and enjoy themselves. I wasn’t about to steal their joy with a grumpy attitude. Soon a few families came through our big, glass doors, approached our counter and before long I was selling tickets.

     A few weeks later, I was back in Michigan for the summer; Deborah found other volunteer opportunities in our community, so I didn’t see her when I returned, and I don’t give the incident much thought, except that it makes me laugh sometimes. What else can I do when someone makes a fool of herself?

     I repeat -- how could she know? I myself was raised Japanese. I realize that sounds delusional to someone who casually knows me, but I was.

     My Scots-Irish Cherokee dad’s significant other while he served in the Navy, Mary-Hana, ¹  was Japanese. While living in Japan, he learned how to make tempura vegetables and shrimp, teriyaki marinated beef, shrimp curry, and much more. He taught me how to count in Japanese, how to say phrases like good morning, and I’m sorry. My mother’s first husband, Kiyoshi, was born in Hawaii but was 100 % Japanese by ethnicity (possibly Okinawan). My mother cooked a lot of fried rice. Of course, there were other things she’d learned but about a third of our meals were Japanese.

     The home that I grew up in was decorated with what my parents brought into the marriage: Delicate Japanese paintings of flowers and birds, bamboo furniture, a low to the ground octagon table with accompanying large pillows that we sat on for some meals, Asian rugs and more. It wasn’t until 1976 that my mother came into the 20th Century and purchased modern American furniture. She sold much of what she had on the walls and on shelves. So, it was exciting to finally have nice American furniture and new (to me) meals that my mother was learning to cook while watching talk shows on the Detroit area TV stations.

     Once in a while, at school or at the skating rink, kids would bad-mouth Japanese factories and cars. They’d talk about their grandfathers fighting the Japanese soldiers and how our Detroit-made cars were far superior to those ugly little Japanese automobiles infiltrating our neighborhoods. My sisters were living in California, with their biological dad, so when Margie ² the one closest in age to me would visit, I’d have some explaining to do. My “Koshi-Daddy,” an American citizen, fought in World War Two for the United States. I tried to explain that to some of the other kids, but they just didn’t care to listen and learn. To them, all Asians were dirty, potential spies, apt to torture you just for fun. It  gave me a weird feeling that anyone would believe that nonsense. How could they lump my sisters in with such paranoia? Some kids (and teachers) were already mad at me for having a German mother.

     It was refreshing that I’d occasionally see two really nice kids from Canada who were of Asian descent at festivals and venues in the Great Lakes Region. We’d run into each other sometimes. I bonded with them right away (but I’ll leave that for another blog entry).

     I had other things to deal with: Black children spitting in my curly hair at the mall for being white. White kids beating me up and calling me the N---word for having tight curls. A mother clueless as to how to style my hair, my dad loving each and every lock on my head. A broad nose that, when I found out there was a thing called “plastic surgery,” I couldn’t wait to “fix” it.

     The ethnic confusion continued. My Japanese-German sister Margie would visit from Stockton, California, and share her Motown albums with me, then she was perplexed that I was listening more to country than my city’s trademark music style. All my neighbors’ families listened to Charlie Pride, Hank Williams, Conway Twitty, Glen Campbell, Johnny Paycheck and Kenny Rogers, so that is what I sang and played up until just before high school.

     That brings us to today: I really pondered what it means to be me, a mixed-identity soul in a world of labels and constructs. If I embrace my Japanese upbringing, then some misguided people call it culture appropriation. My own sisters didn’t eat (or remember) the meals that my dad cooked. They didn’t have Asian furnishings and art in their father’s home. They didn’t know ANY Japanese words because their dad didn’t speak it. Maybe one or two ancient aunties did, but those dear ladies were living in Hawaii and had little influence on Jeanette³and Margie.

     I thought even more about what it must be to identify with a culture but be ethnically different. What about the part African American child that is raised with a white-European mother? What about a man who was very much Native American whose family suppressed their heritage for a century, yet subtly instructed their children and grandchildren in the old ways, whether they knew they were teaching it or not? I was blessed to have the influence of many cultures growing up. What I wasn’t, my neighbors were. I don’t feel that I missed out, but these past two decades I feel very confused.

     In 2025, I hope to touch upon these subjects. Some of them are: being a curly-haired little toddler in Georgia at a funeral, my uncles having served during World War Two just to have their baby-brother (my dad) marry a German-born woman with Japanese-American children, my uncles fighting during that war, how my father’s younger siblings fought at home, their life on a houseboat, my dad surviving a tornado, my Uncle Harold’s pet pig, my Papa George meeting the great escape artist Harry Houdini,  how my American grandparents met, their unusual marriage ceremony, their ways of camping under the stars, how my Auntie Delma met Oak Spiering who was the love of her life, good things my daddy showed me how to cook, some food history that he taught me, how I gained a Vietnamese brother, my great-grandfather who was a country doctor in North Carolina a century ago -- and that’s only the beginning!

     My late father, David Owen, often shared tales of the rollicking life he had in the Navy, and I hope that I can relate those experiences to you in his words. He was quite a character.  I recorded his tales more than forty years ago, and they're on old cassettes. 

     This New Year will be full of the stories that made me the complex human being that I am today. You may not understand. Don’t fret; I do not even fully understand! I just hope you enjoy my family history. 

     See you next year – 2025 here I come!

 ¹  Mary was not Ms. Hana’s actual given name. This is just what my father and other Americans called her. My dad wanted to marry her in the States and make the marriage legally recognized, but she would not leave Japan.  They lost contact with one another.

  ²  Known as Maggie in my first published book Lizzie’s Blue Ridge Memories.

  ³  Known as Jenny in my first published book Lizzie’s Blue Ridge Memories.