In my family’s case, it was something that was talked about, but not very often. Although I had heard the story as a child, I didn’t really remember the details until I had to do a family history for school as a young adult. And then, at some point, I realized: my grandfather was an illegal alien.
My father was born here, I was born here, and my grandparents had long since returned to Japan and lived out their lives there, so this realization didn’t strike fear in me -- but it did put things into perspective. I remember growing up and hearing my father, uncles and others routinely speaking about “Wetbacks”* – which was ironic, since my grandfather crossed the border into California, without papers, from Mexico. Family lore tells it something like this:
My grandfather grew up in Japan and wanted to be in the military. However, due to poor eyesight, he was turned down when he went to apply. Having lost face in his failure to join the military, he heard about an opportunity to go to Mexico for work, and was on his way. After spending some time in Mexico, he and his friend decided to head north to California. I wonder how often they thought about how fitting their names were – my not-very-tall grandfather, Oyama 小山,meaning “small mountain,” and his friend, the tall Takayama 高山, meaning “tall mountain.” Perhaps they didn’t think about it at all, given that they were trying to make a new life in a foreign land. They devised a plan to walk across the border, backwards, so that their footprints would always be heading south and they would not attract the attention of the border patrol. They walked only at night, all night, and then they would dig a hole in which to rest and hide during the day. Because they were going through desert, they used a wet tortilla to stay hydrated while they hid during the day. They repeated this routine until they were in California, walking along the train tracks. My grandfather pulled out a silver dollar, and, flashing it in the bright sunshine, caught the attention of the engineer, who stopped the train and let them hitch a ride in exchange for the silver dollar. And, just like that, they made it to Los Angeles.
My grandfather worked the fields, where the immigration inspectors would conduct raids on horseback. Other undocumented workers would run, and inevitably some would be caught. Apparently, my grandfather would stay put, look up from his work, wave, and say, “Good morning, officer.” Since he didn’t run, they never bothered to check if he had papers. At some point, he went to San Francisco and paid an attorney for some documents that allowed him to live and travel without fear. He went back to Japan, returned to California with a wife, and proceeded to build a life in America – at least, until he felt they had overstayed their welcome and took his family to Japan in about 1940.
I am one of the younger cousins of my generation, and I always assumed all of the cousins had heard this story of our family history. I discovered that I was mistaken in 1995, when my Uncle Min passed away and I took a trip to attend the service. Uncle Min had visited us in California several times, but usually by himself. I had memories of playing two-square with him when I was in second grade, falling asleep on his shoulder in the back of the Impala as we drove to another uncle’s house for dinner, as well as golfing with him in San Francisco and Los Angeles as an adult. I had always heard stories about my cousins and their children, and had come out to my cousin Mark’s wedding during my college years. Since then, we crossed paths infrequently, and it was bittersweet to see my cousins without my uncle there.
At some point during the visit, my Michigan cousins, my cousin Rick from L.A., and I were gathered at Uncle’s house, and for some reason, the discussion turned to immigration policy. It was the basic keep-them-out attitude that my father had expressed, which was a pretty popular viewpoint at the time and wasn’t surprising at all. I was clearly outnumbered with my pro-immigrant, pro-legalization, lefty Californian perspective.
My polite Japanese upbringing told me to just smile and listen quietly.
Instead, I ended up blurting out, “Well, you know Ojiichan was an illegal alien.”
I can still see the expression on my cousin Mike’s face, stunned and frozen for a split-second, as the collective, “What are you talking about?” clattered out of the group. “He was an illegal! He walked backwards across the border, so his footprints would face south. Haven’t you heard that story before?” I continued. Well, apparently, Uncle Min had neglected to tell this part of the family history to the Michigan Oyamas. After the initial commotion had settled, one of the cousins said, “Doesn’t matter! That was then, this is now!” “Yeah! I got mine, you go get your own!” said Mike, and we all started laughing about it. All the Michigan cousins talked in this humorous, jokey manner that Uncle Min had, and it made me laugh, too.
And, my Japanese upbringing told me that this was fine; it was okay to laugh and let this go. We were connected by blood and history -- and not all of it was pretty.
With the current immigration debate going on in our legislature, I have to wonder: would all of our lawmakers be here today if all of the "illegal" ancestors in their past were not allowed to build lives here and give birth to the next generation of Americans? Do our legislators know their own family histories, or our country's history of racist immigration laws?
* Note: at the time, not only was it common to hear racist terminology in everyday conversation, you could see comedians on TV regularly use words like "Polak" -- which, as a child, I actually thought was an acceptable word for a Polish person! Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, but we have made some progress!
