California: a state of contradiction

Yesterday I went to Southern U. to meet with some students (yes, I actually to try to be a diligent prof.), and I ran into a colleague in the hallway. Of course we both had bloodshot eyes from our lack of sleep from the night before but we also had this giddiness that felt palatable (another colleague sent me an email telling me that he thought that the mood on campus was just happier and lighter--someone else said the world seemed shinier).

But my friend also provided me with a sobering reminder. We are both Californians, at heart, and she reminded me that Proposition 8 in California had passed by a 4% margin.

For those of you who don't know, Prop 8 was an amendment that strikes down gay marriage, preventing more happy couples from celebrating their partnerships. People needed to vote NO on Prop 8 to keep marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. Unfortunately, many did not--because the pro-Prop 8 forces were well funded and organized, predominantly by religious groups outside of California (80% of funding to promote Prop 8 came from Utah).

And for liberal-progressive Californians the celebration of Obama's election was tinged by the passage of Prop 8.

I often wax nostalgic for California. I even teach a class on California narratives, one that focuses on the state as a site of social change. And yet, as liberal and progressive as certain segments of California's population is (most notably the SF Bay Area which overwhelmingly OPPOSED Prop 8) I can't help but remember that California is a state of contradiction. It has a very diverse population and one of the largest Asian American and Latino (specifically Chicano) populations in the U.S. But it also has a long and deep history of racial animosity towards these particular groups. And while left leaning, this is also a state that has been governed by Republican stalwarts such as Ronald Reagan, Pete Wilson, and now "The Governator."

However, for a realistic take on what we need to do to keep fighting, please see this entry by the Poplicks duo, Junichi & Oliver. I think, in particular, Oliver's reminder to us that we need to keep fighting--that the road to civil rights has never been linear, is an important one to keep in mind.

And for any of you in need of convincing about the need for human rights FOR ALL--let me point you to NYU law professor Kenji Yohsino's Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights. Because marriage should be a right for all humans, regardless of their identities (again, need I remind anyone of the anti-miscegenation laws on the books for so long?)

Finally, in a more upbeat note, please see this link:

Californians, or maybe more accurately San Franciscans, definitely have a progressive sense of history making (and a great sense of humor too!)

Back at home in the South

I'm back--a bit jet lagged, especially after taking a red-eye flight. But the title of my post is true and accurate: I am back at home in the South.


[I live in one of these "red" states--although perhaps in the next election, one or more will turn blue? Actually, I got this map from the website Carbon Tax Center. Check it out--especially if you are interested in environmental issues and ways to offset our every increasing carbon footprint]

All in all, the trip was wonderful, although this was the first time that I traveled to California with "Southern Man" and seeing familiar things through the eyes of someone else, especially an intimate someone else, is always a good exercise in reality checking.


Case in point: my rosy colored portrait of California as this Promised Land, particularly a live-action version of Disney's "It's a Small World," as a multicultural/multiethnic/multiracial paradise. We had some interactions and one pretty harrowing bus incident that threw this romanticized vision out the window. I'll write about it later--it's a bit lengthy and complicated, and truth be told, I'm still trying to process parts of it.

What I will leave you with, dear readers, is a small anecdote that happened on my flight into California. We were on Continental Airlines, and I have to commend Continental to be one of the last if not THE last airline in the continental U.S. that will serve food gratis to its passengers. We were en-route during the dinner hour and got box sandwiches (turkey or ham) and the requisite beverage. Now, I always get orange juice as a help to the dehydration of flying but I noticed that the flight attendant was handing people soda cans that had Chinese script on them--and as she got closer, I could see that it seemed to be some kind of tie-in with the Beijing Olympics--you know, Sprite and Coca-Cola cans with the Beijing Olympic symbol and the writing in Chinese. Except I think these cans were actually meant for their Asian airline route because everything was in Chinese: the ingredient list, the advertising, the processing plant.

Apparently a few passengers were skeptical about the contents of the cans--sure, it looks like the classic Coca-Cola can--it says "Coca-Cola" in English, but everything else is in this strange foreign script?! How will I KNOW that I'm getting a real Coke? And the flight attendant wasn't helping matters much--especially when she apologized for the cans--acknowledged that the soda tasted different because it was bottled "over there" and that they were Japanese and Mexican sodas.

WTF???!!!

When she approached my row she had apparently grown so frustrated over these foreign soda cans that she got another flight attendant to help her swap out these offending cans with American ones (the foreign cans were put into a lower shelf and then who knows what was going to happen to them?). I actually told both flight attendants that there was nothing wrong with the sodas--they were simply cans with Chinese script on them and were promoting the Beijing Olympics and furthermore, that I WANTED a soda can with the Chinese writing. The first flight attendant, the one who had the cans banished, told me that the sodas were Japanese and Mexican. And I said, "Well, no they are Chinese." And she said, "Well, I can't sell them to people; they taste different because they were bottled over there in Mexico, but if you want one, here you go."

WTF???!!!

It seems fascinating to me that this woman, even after I confirmed that the script was Chinese and not Japanese (I may not be able to read Chinese but after years of growing up in a Chinese American home and having grandparents live in Chinatown, I can recognize Chinese script) still insisted that the cans were somehow Mexican, and THAT was bizarre because there was NOTHING resembling Mexican references let alone Spanish on these cans. It would seem, perhaps simplistically, that for this flight attendant, anything "foreign" and perhaps "distasteful" must come from south of the border.

Going Home

I'm flying home today. Let me be more specific: I'm attending a conference in San Francisco and extending my stay a few days because I grew up in the SF Bay Area and will therefore be seeing friends and family members in addition to do the usual conference schtick.


I had grappled, once-upon-a-time, about where I consider "home." Is it where I'm currently paying my gas bill; is it where my parents live; is it where I feel most comfortable?

I don't think there is a definitive answer--at least not for me. I have multiple homes. But truthfully, California and specifically the SF Bay Area will ALWAYS be home for me in a specific and special way because it is where I grew up--where I spent the years from 4 to 25.

Here are a few things I'm looking forward to when I arrive in California:

*Seeing my friends and my family (because I love them and miss them)
*Eating REALLY GOOD Chinese food (specifically Cantonese food) at one of my favorite restaurants
*Being near the Pacific Ocean--smelling the sea air--enjoying the view of the Bay
*Going to museums like the DeYoung and the SF Moma
*Urban hiking--because I miss the rhythm of cities and specifically SF
*Not standing out and seeing a truly DIVERSE array of folks

Let me concentrate on the last issue. I know I have waxed poetic about California before here. I know that I have created rosy-colored memories of my multicultural childhood, and I know that I, and other transplanted Californians take a perverse pleasure in elevating our cultural superiority over everyone by going ON and ON about how GREAT California is and how much BETTER it is than the current state we are living in.

[Note: the one key exception are people living in urban places like Chicago and especially New York and my friend P who lives in Minneapolis and prefers the cold even though he grew up in the Bay Area]

But the fact is: California is a diverse place. There is the ocean and the mountains. There is geographic diversity culturally and socially within California. There is conservative Orange County and the liberal-progressive SF Bay Area. And there is the history--one that hasn't been pretty--it's not like California erupted as a multiracial and multicultural utopia or emerged as a state of tolerance and benevolence towards all overnight. There has been and continues to be a history of discrimination and prejudice and bigotry--of racism and homophobia and sexism. California isn't paradise--as much as the rhetoric I use suggests it is "the Promised Land."

It is, however, mixed. It is open to difference in a way that does seem profoundly different from some other states in the union. And I know, when I step off the airplane in Oakland, that I will not be the only one. I won't be the only Asian American person in the airport, waiting at baggage claim, at a restaurant, riding the bus. And I certainly won't be the only person of color in a store or at the movies or in a coffee shop. And I don't know whether this will be true when I arrive back in "The South," because I've definitely been the only Asian American and sometimes the only person of color in all the situations I've mentioned above.

And this means I can breathe just a little bit easier when I'm in California. This means that my subconscious and sometimes not so subconscious guard is lowered. This means that I dial down the racial paranoia and hypochondria, and I don't have to second guess my interactions with people as much. If someone is a jerk to me in CA, it may or may not be because of my race/ethnicity. Chances are the person being a jerk could have a face that looks like mine. And they get to be just a jerk rather than a representative of their race. That's what you get when you have a critical mass and a mix of people.

Anyway, I'll share some observations about California when I return. In the meantime I won't be blogging or doing comment moderation, so please bear with me. And here are a few links to look at until I'm back blogging next week Wednesday.

*Interesting discussion about race fatigue at Anti-Racist Parent (tip of the hat to What Tami Said)

*George Takei announces his marriage plans to longtime partner Brad Altman on his blog (tip of the hat to Angry Asian Man). Be sure to scroll to the end of his announcement--he makes interesting and astute connections between his experiences being interned in a Japanese American concentration camp during WWII and public reaction to Japanese Americans during that time period and what is going on with same-sex marriage in our current cultural climate.

*Houghton-Mifflin is considering legal action against the Marietta, GA tee-shirt vendor who created shirts with a picture of Curious George eating a banana and the tag line "Obama '08" (tip of the hat to my friend B alerting me to this issue). For more, see this Boston Globe article.

*Finally, I forgot to wish Malcolm X a "Happy Birthday" on Monday, May 19. Here's an interesting article at The Root about the man, his legacy, and how we can honor his memory.

Doing the right thing: a history of California's marriage laws

I was all set to write a post about the Cable Act (will return to this in a moment) when I heard the great news last night that the California Supreme Court overruled a previous ban prohibiting gay marriage.


[This is Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who were joined as "spouses for life" at SF City Hall on February 12, 2004. Unfortunately, their union was nullified in August 2004 by the California Supreme Court. But thanks to yesterday's ruling, their marriage will once again be validated by the State of California.]

When Gavin Newsom was interviewed on CNN and asked why the Supreme Court could do this when the majority of voters in California had approved a state law in 2000 codifying marriage as being between a man and a woman, Newsom invoked California's anti-miscegenation laws of the 19th and early 20th C. and quite astutely noted that if Californians were polled in 1948 about whether they approved of marriage between people of two different races, a majority would have voted in favor of prohibiting miscegenation/inter-racial marriage. Yet clearly history has shown that the will of the majority does not always make things right, and that legally the RIGHT thing to do was to abolish such laws--to allow people to marry whoever they want.

And this is SO TRUE.

Once upon a time, there were anti-miscegenations laws that prohibited marriage between people of different races. Actually, it was more specific than that. Most anti-miscegenation laws didn't really care if African Americans married Latinos or if American Indians married Asian Americans (or, if we are going to keep to the language of the 19th and early 20th C., they didn't care if blacks married Mexicans or if Navajos married Chinese). Instead, the majority of laws were specifically designed to ensure white purity and to punish any transgressions of white Americans crossing the color line.

One of the most shocking results of this adherence to the color line was in the Cable Act (1922-1936):

The Cable Act specifies that any U.S.-born woman marrying a "person ineligible for citizenship" would automatically lose her U.S. citizenship. In a marriage terminated by divorce or death, a Caucasian woman could regain her citizenship, but a Nisei woman could not, because she was "of a race ineligible for citizenship."

The important point to note in this quote is that the ONLY race and hence only aliens "ineligible for citizenship" were Asian immigrants--which in this time period meant predominantly Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian people. Thus, our country's earliest anti-miscegenation laws specifically targeted Asians--using not just the Cable Act but anti-miscegenation laws to prevent Asians and whites from marrying.

Thankfully, as Mayor Newsom pointed out, the Supreme Court of California was wise enough in 1948 to realize how unlawful anti-miscegenation laws are:

In Perez vs. Sharp, the California Supreme Court rules against anti-miscegenation laws, stating that they were based on racial distinctions that were "by their very nature, odious to a free people."

[For more on a timeline of events that influenced inter-racial marriages, click on this link, which is the same site that I found the quotations above.]

And if it hadn't been for the repeal of The Cable Act in 1936 and California's anti-miscegenation laws in 1948 (and the repeal of the nation's anti-miscegenation laws in 1967), we never would have a family like Jon and Kate plus eight (you have to imagine that in the mid-1930s this image would have scared the hell out of some folks. Actually, I'm sure this image scares the hell out of some folks now).

Most rational folk take for granted inter-racial marriages. Even people who wouldn't necessarily want their son/daughter to marry across the racial divide would be hesitant to turn back Loving vs. Virginia, understanding marriage to be a private affair between two consenting adults.

And I hope that one day in the not so distant future, this is the attitude our society will have about same-sex marriage. That the whole idea that once-upon-a-time people actually tried to pass laws restricting marriage on the basis of sexual orientation or gender was LUDICROUS and THANK GOODNESS we no longer live in the late 20th C. when such draconian and antiquated ideas about love and marriage were in place.

Music Plug: Goh Nakamura

I found this link on Angry Asian Man's blog, and I checked out Nakamura's website (click here) and have to say that I think the guy is really talented. Of course it doesn't hurt that this video in particular, "Embarcadero Blues," has scenes of San Francisco, so for any of you home sick Bay Area Californian's, check out the song--and for everyone else, check it out to help support a good indie musician.

Plus, it has always puzzled me why there aren't more visible Asian American musicians. I mean, sure, everyone mentions James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins or the guy in Black Eyed Peas. But can you name a prominent Asian American solo artist (and yes, I mean Asian American, so Rain doesn't count, as talented as he is). I suppose Jin, the Chinese American rapper from Queens, would be the closest we've got to a mainstream Asian American musician. So really, how much of a model minority can we be if we aren't sending anyone to the Grammys???!!!

Back in the land of all things Asian

I'm here in California--it's been about a year since I've been back. It occurs to me that writing that I'm here, there may be people I know in California who are going to say, "Hey, Jennifer, how come you didn't let me know?" The answer can be found a few blog entries back--my Uncle Frank's memorial service is this Friday, so this is a strictly family visit. Folks are coming from all over North America (and London) for the service. My Uncle is being cremated and wishes to have his ashes scattered back in Jamaica.

It's funny, the affiliations we have with certain lands. For example, I realize that I will more than likely spend more time outside of California than within it--and yet, California will always be home. And for my Uncle, I think even though he spent more of his life outside Jamaica than in it, Jamaica was where his heart was. I mean, it is telling that Jamaica is where he wants his remains placed, even while his wife and children continue to live in California.

And so I wonder, will I also want to return to California. It's not the land of my birth (I was born in Flushing, NY), but it is the place I grew up--and it continues to be a place that resonates with me. Is it because this is where my racial consciousness was born? Is it because there is a critical mass of Asian Americans--where Asian American studies as a discipline took off? Or, as I am often heard to recite, is it because if California were its own nation it would have the fifth largest GDP in the world??? Or is it really because of the people--my family and friends--that makes me forever drawn to this place?