by George Takei
So Daddy began driving us through the entire Los Angeles basin. He drove us down the great boulevards of the city; Wilshire, which cut right through a shimmering lake in MacArthur Park; Sunset Boulevard, with its lush, sinuous stretches of palatial mansions; and Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica, with its panoramic vista of the Pacific Ocean.
Daddy made a particular point of driving us through the campuses of the great universities of southern California: UCLA and USC.
“These are two of the treasures of America,” he told us. Pointing out the students reading in the shade of ancient trees, he would say, voice loaded with implication, “See how hard they’re studying? They have to study real hard in college.” We got the point. But, nevertheless, these insinuating commentaries seemed to become his automatic reaction to the sight of every college student studying outdoors.
“See how hard they study in college?” he would repeat. Such heavy-handed observations stopped only after Henry and I started our counterattack.
“Look, Henry,” I would say soberly, pointing to a student napping in the shade of a campus tree. “Do you think you can be like him?”
“I don’t know,” he would respond in mock awe, “I’m only a kid. I’ll have to work much harder on sleeping back home.”
It was on one of these Sunday drives that I made my own serendipitous discovery—what became for me another of the treasures of Los Angeles—the fantastic world of the movie studios. Driving down Melrose Avenue, I glanced up Bronson Avenue and caught sight of the fabled wrought iron gates of Paramount Studios.
“Daddy, Daddy, go back. I just saw a movie studio.”
He turned around and drove us up to Marathon Street and right to the studio gate. Here, right in front of us, was the gate that I had seen in so many movie magazines—the very gate that luminaries like Alan Ladd, Lizabeth Scott, Gary Cooper, and Barbara Stanwyck passed through every day on their way to some glamorous movie set.
“Daddy, Daddy. Park the car. I want to get out and look around.”
On Sunday there were plenty of spots to park on the street. I peered through the ornate gate to the deserted street between the soundstages. A lone security guard dozed in the booth just inside the gate, but I was free to fantasize cowboys, plumed harem girls, and foreign legionnaires ambling around that empty street just on the other side.
We walked along the high studio wall down Marathon Street. Beyond the wall, we could see a gigantic block of pale blue sky painted on a towering structure looming up over the entire backlot. It looked more beautiful than the real one surrounding it. I thought I recognized the sky from so many Paramount movies. Magic was made on the other side of this wall. It was hard to believe that this wonderful place, this factory that produced such dreams far surpassing reality, was actually here in the city where we lived—that Hollywood was so close.
From that Sunday on, Daddy started to include a movie studio drive-by whenever we were in an area that had one: Republic Studio in the San Fernando Valley; 20th Century-Fox in West Los Angeles; and M-G-M when we were in Culver City. Empty movie studios, devoid of life on Sunday afternoons—and yet they became magical places swarming with the glamorous hustle and bustle of my fantasies—and yes, my first glimmerings. Hollywood was just on the other side of a fence.
* * *
These Sunday drives—rides of hope, discovery, and, for me, of dreams—took us, after many years, to their announced destination. Daddy and Mama bought a house. We found a sprawling white stucco in the Wilshire district, the old neighborhood where we had lived before the war. It was a quiet, racially mixed residential neighborhood of primarily white and black professionals. We would be the first Asians on the street.
Again, we had to move. But this time, the change was eagerly anticipated. We were moving to a nice, big house with a backyard filled with fruit-bearing orange and peach trees. We kids were excited about the Punch and Judy Ice Cream Shop two blocks away and the beautiful Uptown movie theater just another block up. Our parents were enthusiastic about the schools that we would be attending. For me it was to be Mt. Vernon Junior High and for Henry and Reiko, Wilton Place Grammar School. But most importantly, for Daddy and Mama it was a move charged with significance. This was a decision made on their own. They alone had decided to buy this house. It was not an order from the government sending them to some unknown place at the point of a gun. It was a move back and a move up. They were regaining something they had lost—control over their lives.
We moved out of East L.A. in the summer of 1950. Our four years in the barrio had come to an end. I was thirteen years old—a teenager now. We were moving to a new home and to a new life. But I was also leaving people and a life I had come to love. Onorato and Danny, Cesar’s music and the color of Cinco de Mayo, Mrs. Moreno’s cooking and the flavor of a good, messy East L.A. burrito.
I may have left the barrio, but my years there had given me appetites and appreciations that became a good part of me. More than I realized then, I am a product of the barrio of East L.A.
6
Mt. Vernon Days
MT. VERNON JUNIOR HIGH WAS ACROSS town and a world apart from Murchison Street School in East Los Angeles. A lush, green lawn led up to a row of elegant pillars fronting a three-story building. The facade replicated the architecture of the home of the first United States president—hence, the name Mt. Vernon. Here, the student body was as different from that of my old school as the architecture—predominantly white with a sprinkling of kids born in European countries such as England, Russia, Germany, and Czechoslovakia. The black kids were the children of professionals. There were few Asians—and those were mostly Japanese—and practically no Mexicans. I had to adjust to another new environment.
But I didn’t want to lose my link with the life that we had just left. In junior high school, we had a decision to make about which foreign language we wanted to study. I chose Spanish.
Our teacher, Mrs. Woods, despite her English surname was Mexican and a passionate proponent of language studies as a relevant part of life. She made learning Spanish come alive, calling us all by the Spanish translations of our names. I was Jorge. The girl across the aisle from me, Nancy, became Anita, but Mrs. Woods told us that the diminutive of the name was Anitita and that an even fonder form was the last two syllables of Anitita alone, the playfully affectionate “Tita.” I liked that name. My sister’s English name was Nancy, so I found a way to incorporate Spanish into my own family. Reiko has been Tita to me ever since.
A clique of guys in class called themselves the “Oddballs.” But to Mrs. Woods and all the rest of us, they became “Las Pelotas Curiosas,” a hilarious translation of “Oddballs” that they themselves adopted.
She asked us to name famous nearby landmarks with Spanish names, such as La Brea Tar Pits or San Gabriel Mission, or street names like Pico Boulevard or Figueroa Street, or the names of surrounding cities such as El Monte or Santa Monica or even our own Los Angeles. Mrs. Woods taught us that they weren’t just exotic sounds to which we had become accustomed. They all had meaning and a dense, fascinating history. And in southern California, this was in great part Mexican. From Mrs. Woods I learned that Spanish not only gave me access to the people around me but also unlocked the whole saga of the surrounding world.
* * *
Daddy and Mama didn’t let up on the self-improvement program they had begun with us. In fact, they expanded it.
Of course, our Saturday Japanese language classes continued. They enrolled us at the Jefferson Gakuen Language School in the Crenshaw district not too far away from our new house.
They bought us a grand piano for the music room. We thought it would be fun to bang on, but we didn’t realize that they intended us to play it properly. Every Tuesday after school, with the regularity of a metronome, our piano teacher, Miss Kawakami, would appear at our doorstep, her metronome in hand. While it ticked away and she wagged a rhythmic finger at us, we would pound out the finger exercises. We thought that if we hammered on the key
s loudly enough, the constant battering on Mama’s nerves would bring an end to the lessons. We didn’t realize how high Mama’s tolerance was for the racket that passed as our piano lessons. The lessons continued, and eventually we started to sound not too bad. At the annual recital, we even received hearty, if not unbiased, applause.
Our parents signed Henry and me up with Boy Scouts Troop 379 at Koyasan Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo. There, our piano-playing fingers became quite deft at tying sheepshanks, slipknots, and whatnots. But even with the Boy Scouts, we didn’t escape music. Troop 379 had a drum and bugle corps that was fabled from before the war. It had been founded in 1932 and had rebuilt its reputation since the return of the Japanese American community to Los Angeles. Membership in the troop meant becoming a part of the drum and bugle corps. Henry became a bugler, and I was assigned the bass bugle, a larger and lower-register instrument. And so Thursday nights and weekends became our bugle lesson times. But this was group activity with a sense of common purpose—it was fun. We eventually became acceptable buglers.
The corps was invited to participate in parades and festivals throughout southern California, including the New Year’s morning Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. The cheering crowds, rousing music, and the bracing festival atmosphere were all elements that stirred my now not-so-dormant thespian yearnings.
* * *
As we were changing, so was the world that surrounded us. And far away, Washington, D.C., also was beginning to reflect that change. The government that had been so virulent in its hostility toward Japanese Americans passed—in an act both of healing and of conscience—a landmark bill, the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952. Sponsored by Congressman Francis Walter of Pennsylvania and Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, the act made all races eligible for naturalized citizenship. The passage of the bill by Congress, however, was not an unalloyed victory. Underscoring the still-extant attitudes toward us, President Harry Truman vetoed it. But both the House and Senate overrode the veto, and the bill became law. Daddy could now become a citizen.
Daddy had sold the cleaner shop in East Los Angeles and bought a grocery store on Western Avenue not too far from our new home. Running the store meant long hours of hard work, but somehow, Daddy was reenergized by the passage of the bill that would grant him citizenship at last. Getting home from work after dark, he would grab a quick dinner and then bury himself in his books late into the night.
I remember watching him studying by that lone lamplight at his desk and thinking about this strange thing called citizenship. This invisible thing that I had never thought about—something I was born with that I just took for granted, yet that Daddy valued so greatly and Mama rejected with such passion years ago. What power did this intangible thing possess that it could compel such determination from Daddy and such anger from Mama?
I didn’t mean to interrupt him, but Daddy noticed me watching. He smiled, took off his glasses, and pinched the tension strain on the bridge of his nose. He gestured to a chair, so I sat down. “You look like you have something on your mind,” he said. I knew it was late and he was tired, but I had to ask him what citizenship meant. This is how I remember his reply.
Daddy explained that citizenship is to be a member of a country or a city or a community; but more than that, to be a citizen is to subscribe to a set of values. When I asked why he wanted to be a member of this country when he didn’t have to, he answered, “Citizenship is a choice. Some people are born with it but never do anything about it. That’s not real citizenship. That’s only paper status. You have to consciously decide to give it meaning. Your mama felt so strongly about her citizenship and what it stood for that when it was violated, she acted. She made her citizenship meaningful and made a strong statement. And because she values it, she’s fighting hard to get her citizenship back.
“For me, there was a great struggle to make my citizenship possible, by people who wanted to give me that choice, by people who believe in America’s best ideals. America is where I’ve lived most of my life. You kids are Americans. My future is here—in this country. Now that I have the choice, my decision is to become an American citizen.”
“But America has treated us so badly,” I persisted. “There’s no justice in this country. What made you decide to become a citizen of a country like this?” Daddy closed his book and pondered. “America is a strange country,” he began. “Despite everything, it’s still a nation of ideals. Yes, justice here is neither blind nor fair. It only reflects the society. But this is an open society where people who want to can become a part of it. The system here is called a participatory democracy, where the important thing is to participate. If people like me aren’t willing to take a chance and participate, America stays that much farther from its ideals. My choice is to be in there with good people like Wayne Collins, the lawyer who is helping Mama with her legal battle. My choice is to help America be what it claims it is.”
That night, as I listened to Daddy’s fatigued but resolute voice, my understanding of the meaning of American citizenship became as solid as the book lying on his desk. By the light of the lamp shining on that well-used American history book, America and its ideals were eloquently explained to me by an immigrant, a wartime “enemy alien,” a concentration camp internee, the husband of a renunciant of her American citizenship—my father.
* * *
It was in my midteens that I discovered newspapers. We had always had the L.A. Times coming into our house, but, like so many things that we kids took for granted, only part of it—the comics and movie ads—had had any interest for me. I just flipped through the other sections. But Daddy frequently brought up current events for discussion at the dinner table, and I soon found that the Times had photos illustrating what he was talking about. From there came the realization that the text offered more details and even contrary views. Out of this grew genuine interest in the news. I began devouring the newspaper from the front page to the back. The war in Korea was almost always on the front page.
One morning, in the middle of the front page, there was a big photo of a field of rotting strawberries. It was a shocking picture. I loved strawberries. It was so wasteful to let good, ripe fruits decay in the sun. The accompanying article talked about an “Operation Wetback,” the banning of workers from Mexico. It said that “braceros,” a term for farm workers from Mexico who went from farm to farm picking produce when it was ripe for harvesting, were to be kept from coming into the country. Unless American pickers could be recruited to replace these braceros, this labor shortage meant that the strawberry crop for this season would be lost and a significant part of California’s agricultural economy would be devastated. The article said this would make the price of strawberries skyrocket.
I decided to do something about the situation. It was vacation time. A lot of my friends had time on their hands. We usually were lazing the days away on the beach. We could instead go to the farms and save the strawberry crop. The more I thought about the idea, the more my fourteen-year-old idealism became fired up. Here was a cause that we could put our energies behind and maybe eat some great strawberries to boot. Daddy heartily endorsed the idea. I got on the phone and started calling my friends. Their responses were a revelation. Ken was busy. Fred had something else to do. Billy was going away. When it came to work, there was no group of people more busily occupied than teenagers on vacation. Only Earl Gravely, my black friend, would join me.
The morning that we were to report for work, we got up in the middle of the night, and Daddy drove Earl and me to the East Los Angeles Farm Labor Station. It was still dark when we got there. A fleet of large trucks were gathered to take the drowsy volunteer pickers to various strawberry ranches. We joined a horde of people, most of whom were Mexicans. Many were experienced farm workers, but a good number were Mexican Americans who, like us, were first-timers. They were there simply to help save the crop and make a few extra dollars. For me, it was also an opportunity to practice my growing command of the Span
ish language.
Once Earl and I were loaded onto the designated truck, I hunkered down and immediately engaged the Mexican man next to me in conversation. All during the time we chatted, however, he eyed me searchingly. Finally, he asked the question that quite obviously had been bothering him. He asked in Spanish, “What tribe do you belong to?” I was puzzled. What did he mean by tribe? He repeated the same question. It dawned on me finally that he thought I was a member of some Spanish-speaking southwestern Indian tribe.
I was a teenage sun-worshipper. Almost every weekend I was at Will Rogers State Beach turning as brown as the proverbial berry. My deep copper tan and my Spanish had deceived the man next to me into thinking I was an Indian! When I revealed my Japanese ancestry to him, he widened his eyes in disbelief and covered his mouth in embarrassment. Then he nudged the man next to him, exclaiming, “Este japonés como indio habla español.” “This Japanese that looks like an Indian speaks Spanish.” There was great commotion, much laughter, and a lot of pointing at me. I became the prime curiosity on the truck.
We were taken to a strawberry farm in Orange County, southeast of Los Angeles. A vast field carpeted with endless rows of low-lying strawberry plants, each heavy with big red berries, reached all the way to the horizon. We hopped off the truck and were given our picking orders by several Japanese American men. Evidently, they owned and operated the ranch.
