| Remembering "good times" at age six By Paul Kusuda |
| or "You can't do anything about it." Their over-all advice was to take such situations in stride without letting them bother me, since there was nothing I could do about it. In other words, they felt it was part of living and they were powerless. They didn't want me to feel badly about it; it wasn't my fault, I didn't do anything wrong. That's the way things were, and I'd have to accept it. So, I did. Later in life, of course, my attitude was quite different. Both my parents were immigrants, aliens ineligible for U.S. citizenship because they were Asian. I, on the other hand, was born in the United States (Los Angeles, to be specific) and was therefore natural-born U.S. citizen. (In school, I learned that was called jus soli as compared with jus sanguinus.) That pretty much explained the difference in response to overt racial slurs between my parents and me. But, while a child, the lesson I learned kept me out of trouble. / It took me a long time to understand many of the problems my parents faced as they raised their three children in L.A. My father completed his high school education before emigrating to the U.S. and my mother completed eighth grade in U.S. after emigrating when she was about 13. My father's proficiency in English was much better than my mother's; however, their Japanese accent sometimes made their pronunciation hard to understand until a person got used to it, as did many of my parents' American friends and acquaintances. I remember going shopping with my mother, sometimes with my brother who was 4 ½ years older than I and sometimes with my sister who was 2 years younger than I. Most of the time, my mother left my sister at the hotel and took my brother and me. At lunch, we'd go to a drug store or "Five and Dime" to sit at the counter. She always ordered "hot beef sandwich and 'coke.'" I thought that was her favorite eat-out lunch; I never asked for anything else. Years later, I figured out, but never discussed it with her, that that was the easiest selection for her to order without running into any trouble. But, even now, once in awhile, I think about ordering a hot beef sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy and canned green beans on the side. Most of the time when my mother went shopping, it was not for groceries but for clothing sales and to the "Five and Dime" store for "notions" -- needles, thread, buttons, etc. When my sister went with my mother and me, we had to walk rather slowly so she wouldn't have to run. After all, she was only about three or four. She and I usually shared the hot beef sandwich and 'coke.' By the time I was in first grade, I used to wander around town after school and on weekends. Once in a while, I'd take my sister for a walk to show her what I saw when I meandered around downtown L.A. within five or six blocks of my parents' hotel on Winston Street in the skid-row area. Actually, it was a rotting neighborhood, not a desirable place to raise children. My sister and I would walk hand-in-hand up Fourth Street to Main Street. We usually walked to Second Street on Main. We stayed on one side of the street and looked at all the windows, went into Five and Dime stores along the way, and looked at magazine covers of periodicals displayed by small stores outside as well as indoors. We'd gawk at newspaper stands as we walked by because some of the papers had big pictures on the front pages. People didn't bother us; they didn't tell us to move on; they probably didn't even notice us. We were careful to hold hands and not touch things because our mother told us how to behave. After we got to Second and Main, we crossed the street and went on to Fifth and Main. On the way, we had a chance to wander around the foyer of two movie theaters where we looked at movie posters -- some even showed people kissing, which we thought was funny. After getting to Fifth and Main, we crossed the street and returned to Fourth Street. That was the best part. In the middle of the block was a Penny Arcade. There were pin-ball marble machines where people could play for one cent per game. When the machine point total was larger than a threshold amount, a person would get pennies back. So, in fact, it was a game of skill, or gambling. Once in a great while, I'd have a penny or two and I'd play while my sister watched, standing on a box. When I won, once in a great while, she'd clap her hands. With our loot, we'd go to the counter where a man served hot dogs and other sandwiches plus soft drinks to Penny Arcade customers. For a nickel, my sister and I were able to share a concoction made in a blender. We usually chose one that had a banana base and some orange and pineapple plus ice chips. We had two straws, and since I was bigger, I drank more of it than my sister. But we shared and were happy. Nowadays, I'd call it parental neglect. But at that time, we thought it was fun. We didn't do it often, but both my sister and I remember the good times ? even though we were only six and four. And, we didn't run into any trouble or race prejudice either. We were a couple of dumb but happy kids who didn't realize the dangers to which we had exposed ourselves. Parts of growing up were fun; others were not as fun. |
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| In last month's issue, I mentioned that my first exposure to racial discrimination and overt hatred was when I was less than five years old. I didn't mention how my parents reacted when I told them about the incident. Their response was calm, understanding and instructive. They satisfied my curiosity by saying, "Shikata ga nai," or "It can't be helped" |
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