HISTORY HELPS ME UNDERSTAND CURRENT RACISM IN A NEW LIGHT
We have all had it rough the past 12 months. I miss hanging out with my friends at school. I miss seeing my grandparents and cousins. I miss just living the life that a 16-year-old American kid is supposed to be enjoying.
Though I feel somewhat robbed, there are some silver linings that I have found. I got to practice driving on mostly empty streets! I could bug my baby sister every hour of the day! But most important of all, I found the perfect online program and classmates to bring balance and purpose to my life.
For the past several months, I have been enrolled in the Reischauer Scholars Program (RSP) sponsored by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education. Our focus of study is Japanese history and culture and the U.S.-Japan relationship.
Though the program adds five to eight hours of work each week on top of my schoolwork, I have learned more than I could have imagined when I first applied. My 28 incredibly bright and talented classmates come from across the U.S. from a variety of backgrounds. Our professor, Naomi Funahashi, brings energy and passion to each class — it is the Zoom I look forward to most each week!
It is hard to explain how enriching and impactful the RSP program has been for me. I have essentially been studying my own personal history! Motivated by our unit on the Meiji Restoration, I found a photo of my great-great grandfather in Japan, who I learned was from the Kanmu Heike samurai clan. Based on our unit on Feudal Japan, apparently, it was my family that lost the Genpei War in the 12th century!
We studied the path of immigration that my paternal great grandparents took to the U.S. in the 1910s and the challenges they faced before, during and after World War II. Similarly, we studied my mother’s grandparents’ journey from Korea to Japan in the 1930s and the difficulties they faced. I learned how resilient people can be when faced with such adversity.
Though we are only halfway through the course, the highlight thus far was having George Takei as our guest speaker last month. He was the original Sulu on Star Trek and is now a social media icon. He spoke to our class about his own family’s experiences during the war.
What struck me most during the Zoom call was how much hate and racism existed against the Japanese Americans in 1941, 80 years ago. And it was this racism and lack of political leadership that led to the unconstitutional incarceration of so many innocent people. There was a war hysteria that people fomented, and it became an abyss for others to easily fall into.
Even more striking, my classmates and I discussed and came to understand how eerily similar the situation was to the past 12 months and especially the past few weeks with the rise of so much anti-Asian hate. This has all been exacerbated by the use of terms such as the “China virus” and “kung flu” by our country’s political “leaders.” It is a similar hysteria, fomented by tweets and Facebook posts; people lose their balance and simply fall in.
My classmates have been so impressive during these discussions. They think two levels deeper, with a global perspective and with bottomless compassion.
My classmates have been so impressive during these discussions. They think two levels deeper, with a global perspective and with bottomless compassion. They make me think about things in a different light and make me question decisions and actions from history that I had never thought to question before.
Our lives have improved so much in the past 80 years through technological, scientific and medical advances. However, it feels like the tolerance for hate has not improved much. In another 80 years, I wonder if RSP students will be soaring about in flying cars, living to be 200 years old in a world with no hunger or poverty, while debating why there is so much hate for Asian Americans and other people of color in the 22nd century.
The 1900s was the century of whole world conflict. But this next century has yet to be defined. Programs like RSP inspire me to believe that my generation can overcome the hate, positively impact the entire globe, and shape this century in our own image as a century of “long life and prosperity” for all people — something George Takei insisted we do at the end of our Zoom call.