“Morgan, I am sorry for not talking much. It’s just that you confuse me.”
I shot a glance at Augustyna, whose cheeks were reddening even as she smiled to ease the tension. “I confuse you? How do I confuse you?” I chuckled and picked at my plate.
“Forgive me for what I am about to ask. I’m not from here. I’ve lived here for many years and worked as a doctor. I have been around plenty black men, but you are the first black woman who I have ever met. It’s just that I don’t understand why you would want to call yourself black. Why not just call yourself a human? Now, it is obvious that you are a woman. But do you have to be a black woman? Why can’t you be a human?”
If I had been in the middle of swallowing a pear slice, it would have caught in my throat. I listened to the smooth violin music playing in the background and chuckled again—smiling, too, of course. I was not offended. I was stunned.
Augustyna interjected. “Morgan, you have to forgive my uncle. He’s not from here and sometimes he says things that are . . .” Her voice tapered off.
“No, it’s okay,” I said. I twisted my upper body towards him and said, “I call myself a black woman because that’s what I am. I can be both a black woman and a human. Those two identities aren’t separate from each other.”
“But why would you call yourself black?” he persisted. “To me, you are not black. You do not present yourself as a black woman, or at least the ones who I’ve heard about. You went to Princeton, you speak many foreign languages, you travel. If this were many decades ago, I might have married you.”
I refused to make eye contact with Augustyna’s aunt. Now the tension had escalated. Had his stare been underscored by his attraction to me, his inability to see me as both a black woman and a human, or both?
She chimed in, “She could’ve married our son! I mean, he’s married now and has a kid but before, you know.”
I suddenly lost my appetite. I continued to eat so that I would not be rude, but my embarrassment filled my stomach. I felt like chattel, as though I should have been flattered that I could have been acceptable as a wife for this man or his son. Marriage was something done to me, not a choice I made; a gift that a white man would deign to bestow because I met his standards. I wondered if he would have talked this way about me in front of his wife if I had been a white woman. I wondered if she didn’t take offense because she was extremely confident in both herself and her marriage, or because I was black and black women could be shuffled like playing cards in the hands of white men.
At the same time, I wanted to be in his presence in order to expose him to someone different and force him to confront his own prejudices. It was unfathomable to me that he could have lived for four or five decades in America and never interacted with a black woman. If I had to be the first, so be it. But that was not what I’d signed up for when I agreed to come to Augustyna’s home for lunch.
Augustyna’s husband, in his jovial, unassuming, and indubitably British voice, added, “I don’t understand why they are labels to begin with. We are all human. When I look at you, I see a human.”
I thought that I might be interrogated about my arguments surrounding police brutality. I didn’t think my hosts would suggest that black womanhood is diametrically opposed to humanity.
I thought about Chris from OkCupid who said when he saw my profile, he didn’t see a “black woman,” only a “woman.” Between that experience and the one at Augustyna’s home, I had been trapped in a paradox. These white men acted as if there was no difference between me and them, but in doing so they made it clear that I had to shed my identity as a black woman. I cannot be both perceived as a human and a black woman in their eyes because those two identities are incompatible with each other. My black womanhood cancels out my humanity because black womanhood is inhuman.
White people think it is a compliment when they do not “see” you as a black person. In their minds, black people embody the biggest clusterfuck of societal ills: out-of-wedlock pregnancies, single mothers, drug addicts, high school dropouts. They are robbers, killers, rapists, convicts, degenerates, vagabonds, couch potatoes. Their pants are always sagging, they talk too loudly, they can barely speak English correctly, they dance too sexually. They cannot assimilate to white society, and if they seem perfectly okay with eschewing it, then they are condemned to being black because in a white society, blackness only exists as a punishment. They do not understand that blackness doesn’t undermine but rather vivifies our humanity.
In my experience, white people are the only ones who purport to advance equality through the erasure or rejection of marginalized people’s identities, which signals to me that they have fooled themselves into believing that they are “unraced.” This belief is false, because it is based on the idea that whiteness is the human standard and that furthermore, by virtue of them being white, they are the arbiters of humanity. The Three-Fifths Compromise, a clause in the US Constitution that allowed for a state to count three-fifths of each black person when determining population for legislative representation in the House of Representatives, is a prime example of racism at its crudest level. People can only access their humanity by casting away all identities that exclude them from this white standard.
I did not respond to Augustyna’s husband’s comment, instead stuffing more arugula in my mouth like a rabbit meddling in someone’s garden patch.
The last question her uncle asked me was this: “Why do you only write about black people? Aren’t you afraid of cutting yourself short? You’re a smart girl. You can write about anything.”
I quietly laid my fork down on my plate. “I love writing about black people, and no, I don’t think I’m cutting myself short, especially when our narratives are often neglected or dismissed altogether.”
Augustyna nodded, and we proceeded into another room for Polish tea and pastries.
On the ride back to the train station, Augustyna profusely apologized for her uncle’s behavior. She explained that because of his bluntness, he is rarely invited to social events, and whenever she invites people over to her home they can become uncomfortable. I was partly relieved that Augustyna was not defending her uncle, but I was also somewhat disappointed that she did not defend me more during that conversation. Then again, what could she have done? She was learning, too, intently watching me when I spoke. Would I have liked it if she had tried to interject and given her thoughts on an experience that was not hers? And we all have (often older) family members who are “too far gone” on certain issues, who have not been swayed by any kind of new argument since the Kennedy administration. Accepting this is a resignation and an act of self-preservation in order to retain our peace and sanity by not expending intellectual and emotional labor on those who haven’t asked for it.
When I was six years old, my mother came home one day with a Sailor Moon VHS tape. The case cover had a pink background studded with a pair of cunning eyes, and centered in the middle of them was the long-haired blonde Sailor Moon. Her raised right hand held a crescent moon scepter in the air; her left hand was balled in a fist. Tuxedo Mask, Sailor’s long-term boyfriend, hovered above the glow of her scepter, while Luna, her purple cat, stood in between her legs, her tail wrapped around Sailor’s right leg. I’m not quite sure why my mother brought me that tape. I assume she did because I was obsessed with pink, and that was the extent of her thinking. I wasn’t an anime fan. My mornings were spent watching traditional cartoons like Hey Arnold!, The Angry Beavers, The Ren & Stimpy Show, and Rocko’s Modern Life. My nights were spent watching a mix of new shows like All That and Kenan & Kel and reruns of The Brady Bunch and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It wasn’t like I needed any more VHS tapes. I pretty much had all the movies from the “Disney Renaissance,” and repeatedly watched them with the same excitement I would have if it were the first time.
Either way, as a child I couldn’t turn down a gift—especially not one with a pink cover—so I promptly watched the first three Sailor Moon episodes, and that’s ho
w my affinity for Japanese culture began. My eyes beamed whenever I saw Sailor Moon transform in midflight, a dazzling array of colors enveloping her body. I clenched my hands into fists just as she did whenever she called for the power of the moon to help her fight her enemies. I swooned every time Tuxedo Mask assisted her in fights after she’d lost her confidence or her willpower to persevere. Instead of voraciously devouring Disney, I began to consume Sailor Moon, buying more VHS tapes featuring full-length episodes as well as movies. It was a solitary passion until I was around eight or nine and I found out that twins from my church, three years my senior, were just as big of fans as I was. Candace and I were more passive in comparison to Bianca, who could draw accurate depictions of all the Sailor Scouts, sometimes as we watched episodes together. She was much more knowledgeable about Sailor Moon, and it was through her that I was able to draw the connection between the show and Japan. It had never occurred to me before that “Usagi Tsukino” was a Japanese name and that Azabu-Juban, where Sailor Moon lived, was a posh Tokyo neighborhood. Unfortunately, once I realized how far away on a map Tokyo was from New Jersey, my connection to Sailor Moon shrank. This had less to do with the fact that she was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Japanese teenager who looked nothing like me and more to do with the realization that I couldn’t be with her because of how far away she lived. Sailor Moon was more real to me than any other animated character, and I wanted to be her friend.
However, I wasn’t ready to give up on her yet. I decided to learn about Japan. I Google-searched images of Japan, my heart fluttering at the sight of Shibuya Crossing, traversed by millions of people every day as bright, neon buildings buzzed behind them. I watched Travel Channel specials on Tokyo and saw white women eating sushi cooked right in front of them at Tsukuji Fish Market, taking a subway ride that was free from rats and trash, and passing by cosplayers around Yoyoji Park near Harajuku station. To me, Japan seemed like a portal between the real and the surreal, and so it excited me more than any other place on earth. It was a place where talking trash cans moved through the streets as freely as people, robots were mistaken for humans, and cell phones could be used to pay for treats at vending machines.
I didn’t think that it was possible for me to visit Japan until I discovered the People to People Student Ambassador Program, which led a two-week excursion throughout many Japanese cities, such as Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Kyoto, and organized a two-day stay at a host family’s home. I don’t remember mine being a particularly friendly group of people. It was very cliquish, the factions easily discernible through where we sat on our tour bus. The farther back someone was, the more popular they were. I sat closer to the front, near the chaperones. I was the only black girl. There was one black guy, but we didn’t even speak to each other until midway through the trip. One of the more popular white guys even asked me why I spoke so loudly while everyone else snickered. It seemed like the majority of them saw the trip to Japan not as a learning experience but as a vacation, and their raucous and frequently disrespectful behavior would often go without reproach. They would scoff when they patronized shops and restaurants and couldn’t find a Japanese salesperson who spoke English. Some of them laughed while we spent the day at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, an experience that left me so traumatized that I couldn’t sleep that night. The guys horseplayed around in an onsen (a Japanese bathhouse), disturbing the tranquility of the traditional ryokan (inn) in which it was located. I didn’t feel like I established a rapport with anyone until halfway through the trip, and by that time I was more engrossed by Japan than by any person in the program.
From the moment we landed at Narita International Airport, I was in disbelief. I thought that the Japanese signs had been purposely hung to deceive me into believing that I was in Tokyo and not a much cleaner version of Manhattan. My body had found its way to the literal other side of the world, yet I saw not a single reflection of myself in anyone around me. I was treated with the utmost respect and fascination wherever I went. I wasn’t ignored when I went into stores. I constantly received bows, which I reciprocated. Essentially, I forgot that I was black; I was simply a foreigner, a gaijin, and this was a relief even at fourteen years old. Yes, politeness and modesty are integral elements of Japanese culture, but they made me, a young black American girl, feel special.
On the long train ride to Matsuyama, where I was going to stay with a host family, I worried that separated from my mostly white group, I could no longer hide behind the simple identity of a gaijin; I would be seen and treated as a black girl, just as I had been my whole life. Much to my surprise, when I met the family of four, the father spoke to me in Japanese and, although I could only say “Wakarimasen” (“I don’t understand”), I was delighted that he assumed that I was bilingual. My only regret is that I couldn’t have stayed with that family longer. I discovered that they had been a host family for years, creating large scrapbooks celebrating the people who they’ve hosted, and those who have hosted them. The father was a businessman who left in the early mornings before I had breakfast and didn’t return until I had my bath in the evening. The mother was a housewife who shuffled their daughter to violin lessons and their son to playdates. In between, she took me on shopping trips to local bazaars and events with other host families in the area. Matsuyama was described to me as the countryside, but I quickly learned that the Japanese countryside is not the same as rural America. I had expected few to no people, tumbleweed, banjos or mandolins playing from some imperceptible place. On the contrary, Matsuyama was the capital city of the Ehime Prefecture and contained onsens, castles, several universities, and art museums. There was, though, a small Christian church not too far from a rice field, where I went with my host family, who were also Christian. On my last day, the daughter gifted me with a gimp bracelet that she stayed up every night to handcraft while I slept in her brother’s bed. The whole family waved to me as my carrier transported me away. Years later, I still think about their warmth, and I wish that I could write to them. Because I couldn’t speak Japanese at the time, their names and address have long since slipped away from me.
I never forgot that feeling of psychological liberation, which is why when I enrolled at Princeton I immediately signed up for introductory Japanese courses. Rather quickly, I discovered that most of my fellow students already had some familiarity with the language: Chinese students who already knew all the kanji, or characters; those who had taken four years of Japanese in high school but could not place into a higher course in college; and a few Japanese-American students who could not read well, but spoke fluently. These students influenced the way in which tests were curved, and I, who only spoke Spanish at the time, felt like I was at a great disadvantage. My grades were fine, but I probably was one of the lowest-performing students in the class. I wasn’t good at dictation, second-guessed myself with particles, and fumbled during role-plays while those who probably only had to study for exams the night before aced them. Towards the end of freshman year, we were encouraged to apply for a summer intermediate Japanese study program in Ishikawa Prefecture. I didn’t get accepted. Devastated, I fervently searched for another one, ended up at the Middlebury Language School at Mills College, and then studied some more after the program to make sure I learned the same material as those in the Ishikawa program. I placed into Advanced Japanese 301, but the demographics in this class were even less diverse: mainly white men and those of Asian descent. I was still one of the lowest-performing students on tests, but in conversation, I flexed my muscles. It was then that the freedom I’d felt in Japan flooded back to me, and I was much more improvisational and free-flowing than my classmates.
Each time I went to class, I felt enveloped by an entirely different culture and I relished the feeling. I wanted to become a polyglot, undermining stereotypes about black women, or maybe placing myself outside of them. No one would expect a black woman to have an advanced proficiency in Japanese; I could be part of more social situations, my multilingualism allowing my identity
to be as shape-shifting as my tongue.
My passion for Japanese would carry me throughout my years at Princeton. As more and more students opted out of it—those same students who had surpassed me when we were underclassmen—I persevered. By the time I applied to become an intern at Temple University Japan’s Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies—which was coincidentally located in Azabu-Juban, Sailor Moon’s neighborhood—I was damn near conversationally fluent. I was able to tell the time and hold forth on the implications of an aging society with only slight hesitation. I was going to work with Mei Nakamura, an author and associate professor of creative writing and Japanese literature at the university, and Calvin Sanders, senior associate professor in the Department of Humanities at the International Christian University. I would work on my writing with Mei while helping Calvin translate modern and contemporary Japanese poetry with the intention of publication.
My return to Japan was a relief. Once I landed at Narita International Airport and found a shuttle to Ikebukuro, I huddled in my seat with my earbuds in, reading the Japanese signs. If I was going to seamlessly reenter this country, casting off the mantle of being a black American woman, my Japanese knowledge would make that much easier. I made a concerted effort to ignore updates about the ongoing trial of George Zimmerman, the man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a young black boy, for wearing a hoodie in a gated community. I spoke Japanese and made purikura with my black Middlebury alumni friends in Shinjuku; bathed in an onsen and took a cable car around Mount Fuji with my fellow interns in Hakone; dined with Japanese businessmen in Shibuya; frequented Japanese churches and museums in Roppongi. My mother and her boyfriend at the time visited me in Japan for my twenty-first birthday, and she was astounded that no matter which shop she entered in the Ginza district—Tokyo’s version of Fifth Avenue—she was always asked if she needed help and no saleswoman hesitated to hand her an expensive purse to look at. Whenever we left a department store, she would tell me that she had never been treated with that much respect in an American store ever. For her, to be acknowledged upon entering a store and then allowed to peruse the aisles without being followed was intoxicating. I wanted to tell her that in Tokyo she was not a black American but simply an American, a gaijin, but I ultimately chose not to do so. I didn’t want to hamper her experience with national and linguistic comparisons between the United States and Japan.
This Will Be My Undoing Page 16
