paper sons

I think it's interesting how different communities view illegal immigration. As a Japanese American, this was not something that was ever spoken of, and certainly not something that was celebrated. In contrast, the Chinese American community has embraced the legacy of the "paper sons" -- which, if you think about it, is probably the biggest concerted immigration fraud ever perpetrated on the US. But it is not viewed as shameful, it is viewed as historic.

While on a school field trip to Angel Island several years ago, I listened to the Chinese American docent describe the horrendous journey of the Chinese who came through that immigration station. Many were "paper sons" -- people who were entering under the guise of being the son of somebody who already had American citizenship. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake had created an inadvertent immigration loophole; birth records were destroyed, and Chinese men who were already living in the country could claim that they had been born in San Francisco, and therefore, were citizens. I'm not sure who first figured out that this ruse might work, but once they established it did, there was no turning back. For those who could overcome the barriers put up by the immigration officials who were trying to combat this practice, the prize was American citizenship. The emotional costs, however, were high, and for some, a heavy burden to carry even as they grew their families in America.

For others, however, the legacy of the paper sons has been cause for celebration, and the renovation of the Angel Island Immigration Station is part of that narrative. During the field trip, I asked the docent -- "Were there ever any Japanese paper sons?" He was stumped. No, he said, he could not remember ever hearing about Japanese paper sons, although they may have existed. There was certainly never a concerted effort and business built around it, as it was with the paper sons.

I'm no historian, but I think I know why we have never heard of a Japanese paper son. As we say in our household, it's a cultural thang. If there were any Japanese paper sons, they would not be talking about it. Ever. Never, never, never ever. Okay, maybe on somebody's deathbed, but not before then. It would be a shameful secret to be kept secret. Japanese Americans barely spoke about the internment, and they were the ones who were wronged! On the other hand, the Chinese American community seems almost universally quite open about the whole paper sons scenario. As my Chinese American husband would say, Chinese are loud. Loud and proud, baby. Successful paper sons had to pass a test that their lives depended on, convincing immigration officials that they knew details about their paper father's family that only a real son would know. And they did it. They had gamed the system and won the prize.

I've spoken with people who will very matter-of-factly state something like, "I'm a Wong but I'm really a Lee." My husband has a whole family of cousins whose middle name is their "real" family name, but their "legal" last name is their "paper" family name. It's confusing and fascinating at the same time. The one thing they never say is: my grandfather was an illegal alien.

Don't get me wrong -- I think it's great that the Chinese American community has chosen to shine a light on the paper sons as part of their history. What I find curious is how different our perception is of a "paper son" versus an "illegal alien." It seems that we as a society are comfortable with treating documentation fraud or marriage fraud as somehow less "illegal" than somebody who enters the country without documents. With the myriad reasons and paths to entry into this country, I can only hope that there will be a shift that recognizes these experiences as equally valid means of becoming a part of America.

Click for more information on the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and the Angel Island Conservancy.

ojiichan was an "illegal"

 Immigration. I didn’t know what this word meant when I was a little kid; it was one of those confusing words that just didn’t make much sense to me. It was a big word for a simple concept: coming to America.

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!

the convergence

About a decade ago, I came to a startling realization: hormone levels would wreak havoc on our household when our kids became teenagers. And, no, I don’t mean just because of our teenagers. Doing some simple calculations, I realized that my pre-menopausal years would precisely coincide with my kids’ adolescent years.

And, now, it’s happening. The Convergence. All the hormones have been colliding and disrupting our happy home.

I’m sad. I’m happy! Crying at weird moments. Eating everything in sight! My son seems sad. And then, he’s happy! He’s giving me a hug! Then, he disappears into his headphones. I hear sounds of objects and doors slamming. My daughter seems happy – and then she seems really quiet and not particularly happy. She doesn’t slam things though. Well, not so far. I bake cookies to cheer them up. Then, I eat too many of the cookies and get sad. I look at myself in the mirror and hear my friend Laura’s voice saying, “Look at her! She is just a mess!” She never said that to my face, but if she could see me now, I think she would say it about me. Then, I look for something else to eat, while I ponder how quiet the house will be when the kids are off at college and there is nobody around to slam doors. The dog looks at me. I don’t think he is judging me, but I could be wrong.

Going through this has confirmed a theory of mine that – at least from a biological standpoint – women are not meant to bear children in their thirties. This would explain the decreased fertility women experience in their thirties and beyond, and the apparently hyper-levels of fertility of teenagers. I’ve seen Teen Mom. Believe me, that show has caused many thirty-something women on fertility drugs to glare at the television seething with pangs of injustice while watching a 15 year old who can’t even legally drive or vote struggling to care for a baby that was conceived after doing it “only once.”

Think about it. If you had a baby when you were 18, you would be a relatively fresh and young 32 years old when your child turned 14. You would be the cool and hip mom, rational and high-energy, relatively calm in the face of teenage emotional rage. By the time they are off to college – assuming they didn’t get pregnant at 15 and earn a starring role on Teen Mom – you are 36 years old, your kid can drive and vote, and you still have several years before your own hormone levels start getting crazy. You can actually be happy about having an empty nest! You have a whole decade of non-hormonal years left ahead of you! This is what biology intended. I was pretty sure of it before, and now, I feel like I am living proof.

That said, I had my kids in my thirties. Technically, my early thirties, but still my thirties. Which has made things pretty interesting around here lately.

I blame myself for somehow jinxing us, because, before The Convergence, I was very happy with my kids because they were so happy! (My husband will say I blame myself because I have “Japanese guilt” and I tend to blame myself for everything, but that’s a separate issue.) I thought that maybe, just maybe, I had been wrong about the convergence, and our domestic tranquility would emerge from the adolescent years unscathed.

But … I was right. (This, my husband will also say has something to do with my being Japanese, but I digress.) My older one didn’t go over to the dark side until this year, which, of course, coincided with my own shift over to the darkness, as well as my younger child’s very, very, very slight transition into that grey area that precedes the darkness. I was right! I am usually happy about being right, but not this time.

I was discussing our household hormone levels with my kids when my husband stumbles upon the conversation. I have taken the approach that it’s okay to talk about hormones, so I thought it was a good idea to talk about The Convergence with the kids, if for no other reason than self-preservation and, hopefully, giving us all some awareness and context to what’s happening to us.

“Remember?” I say to my husband, “I told you this would happen! When the kids were little. Remember?”

“Uhmmm. No. What did you say?”

“I told you that all the hormones would be raging in our household at the same time, because the kids would be going through adolescence and I would be pre-menopausal. And, I told you that you had permission, in advance, to leave the house to escape us if you needed to.”

“Oh. Okay,” he says. “That’s good to know.”

Shortly after that conversation, he took a spontaneous trip to the Super Bowl. The Convergence at home was balanced out by a Cosmic Convergence for my husband that had the sports and travel gods smiling down on him, and he decided to go to the Super Bowl. Believe it or not, I was honestly happy for him and encouraged him to go. And, I was reallyhappy when he came back home.

good news, bad news

First, the good news: I figured out what was causing the old vinyl floors in our kitchen to buckle.

The bad news: it was caused by our refrigerator, which had a small leak that was seeping into the seam between the wall and the flooring.

Also bad news: I finally diagnosed the problem because the leak had gotten worse, and a small puddle appeared in front of the refrigerator last night, and again this morning. I had thought it was from a melted ice cube. I was wrong.

And, more bad news: the trap door access to the basement where the water supply shut-off to the refrigerator is located was waterlogged and could not be opened with the handle in the usual way. The handle started separating from the hatch, like a peel-off sticker from a waxy sheet of paper. Not good.

Then, some good news! My son climbed under the house from an exterior access point, crawling in the mounds of dirt and debris that had been left behind during a remodel by the previous owner, and was able to turn off the water supply and pushed open the hatch door from below, literally pushing the door up with his back in a super-push-up burst of herculean teen-age strength. (It is moments like these when my husband is especially happy we have a strong, healthy and helpful son.)

But the elation is short-lived. My son reports what he sees in the basement. "There's about an inch of water down here, and the furnace is kind of submerged at the bottom." And then, a glimmer of good: "The water heater is on a stand, though, so it looks okay."

Apparently, the small leak had been seeping into and through the floor boards, raining down onto the concrete pad below, where the water heater and furnace are located.

Surprise good news: my husband reports that there is a sump pump down there!

But, you guessed it, bad news: it wasn't working.

I put on my Japanese gardening boots that my dad gave me and head down to start bailing, and decide to check out the sump pump while I am down there. I hit the reset button on the electrical outlet, and nothing happens. I pull the pump out of the waterlogged hole and try to manually trip the buoyed switch, and nothing happens. I continue with the bowl and bucket, then, I notice an extension cord. And ... good news!!! I plug in the sump pump plug into the extension cord, and it immediately starts siphoning water out and into the long snaking hose that appears to lead out of the basement crawlspace.

Wait. I say "appears to" because I don't actually know where it leads. I've never seen a sump pump hose outside of our house, which is partly why I was convinced we didn't have one. Surely, the water must be going out and away from the house, right? I strain to see where the hose is leading, but can't see much with all the dirt. I unplug the sump pump, and decide it's my turn to get dirty. My husband gets me a step stool so I can climb out of the concrete utility pit and onto the dirt, following the hose until I find the end, which didn't take long because it was inside the basement, emptying the water directly against the interior of the foundation. Bad, bad, bad news. It looks like somebody had done some shearwalling within the crawlspace -- good news -- and closed up the exit point for the hose, and decided to just leave it dumping water along the foundation -- very bad.

We decide to re-route the hose up the stairs, through the laundry area and out the door. Good plan. Unfortunately, the hose has many holes in it, and in my effort to make sure the hole-riddened section stayed in the basement squirting into the concrete pit and not inside the house, I didn't give enough hose to make it completely out of the doorway and, once the pumping started, the hose moved around like a serpent and belched out its watery innards inside the house. Bad.

Undeterred, we try again. With a little bit of duct tape and tweaking, we finally get it working so the water goes out of the house, trailing away from the house and its foundation with no further serpentine belching in the house. Good, good, good.

The concrete pit is now empty enough that I am no longer sloshing around in my boots. There is still enough water to make puddles on the concrete -- which does not seem to be draining towards the sump pump hole (bad!!!) -- but I am not going to lose sleep over this. My husband has been busy drying out the laundry area, which is extra important since this doorway, unfortunately, is our main entrance in and out of the house right now. The handset on our front door was broken, and since our contractor was not able to finish the job before the weekend, the front door is literally screwed shut until he comes back. Sigh. Bad, but not too bad.

It feels like Murphy's Law has been in full effect today, but I am still feeling pretty good that things are better than they were when the day began. As I take off my boots, I say a little "Thanks, Dad" -- grateful that I got to be the "boy" of the family, watching him fix things while playing the part of daddy's little helper, internalizing the curiosity and persistence it takes to trial-and-error things in hopes of some sort of resolution.

Now, it's time to get some dinner and a bake a birthday cake. Today, my daughter's birthday, was almost completely consumed by our little home project. Almost. There's still time to celebrate. And that is definitely good news.

uncomfort zone

I am out of my comfort zone. I was coaxed here, into the uncomfort zone, by love. My love for my husband, children, and extended family. So ... here I am, sleeping in a bunkbed, listening for mosquitoes, which I can still hear in spite of the alternating and nearly identical snoring of my husband in the top bunk and his brother in the next room. Just as I think I am ready to doze off, I hear the distinct buzzing of an insect intent on sucking my life's blood from me, and I spring into defensive action. I turn on my iPhone Flashlight App, grope around to find my glasses and search the coffin-like landscape of the lower bunk. BAM!!! Got him. Or her. Doesn't matter. I close my eyes, lulled into slumber by the now snoring-in-unison brothers.

Some people love "roughing it" -- oh, the joys, of communing with nature, lugging all your stuff and food and trash and children and pillows and sleeping bags and contact lens solution through dust and dirt and then "relaxing" out of sheer exhaustion before it's time to cook food and clean-up and hide all the food because the mice might visit during the night. Granted, we are not in tents, and we have plumbing, so this is not "camping." But this is as close to camping as I like to get. We've been here before, so I know what to expect -- tap water that smells like sulfur, the aforementioned blood-thirsty insects, various and sundry rodents, the occasional bat, no TV, and generally feeling dirty (not that kind of dirty) and feeling dirty again (not that kind of dirty) almost as soon as you've taken a shower in the sulphury smelling water. Did I mention there's no TV?

"Who wants to go on a hike?" says Cindy, my
sister-in-law and ringleader of all things fun. She is a big reason why I am in the uncomfort zone. She has a way of getting me to do things I would not otherwise do. I think there is magic or hypnosis involved, but I have not figured it out yet. We all fall in line, the glorious sun beating down on us. We are on Decatur Island, one of the San Juan Islands, and the scenery is just beautiful. From the sea star in the tidepools, to the vast expanse of water surrounding us, everything looks like it belongs on a postcard.

Although my husband and his siblings have all been here on different occasions, this is the first time all five of them have been here together. With the adults' work schedules and the kids' summer schedules, it was a small miracle that they all managed to get themselves here to this tiny island. We snap several photos of them, all together, and I think to myself that their parents are probably looking down on us, approving and proud of the family they raised, their children, now parents themselves.

Which brings me to another thing I knew to expect on this trip: family memories. Catching crab. Eating crab. Building a fire. Roasting marshmallows. Eating s'mores. Collecting rocks. Playing board games. Playing tennis. Playing basketball. Walking along the beach. Talking. Listening. Just being. Together.

And isn't that, really, what family vacations are all about?

By the fourth night, our last night in Decatur, I find myself strangely comfortable here. I'm going to miss this place.

summertime

It has taken us over a month, but we finally feel like we are on vacation. With the kids' activities, the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of running around and generally not relaxing. On the plus side, both of my kids (and I) had incredibly rewarding and fulfilling experiences these past couple of weeks. My son participated in a program called FACES for the Future in Oakland, where he learned about public health and health professions, and had to get "dressed up" everyday (i.e., no jeans, collared shirt, decent shoes) -- and did it willingly, on time, waiting for my husband or I to hurry up and get ready to make sure he wasn't late. It was a welcome role reversal from the usual parental refrain of are-you-ready-to-go-yet-and-do-you-have-everything-you-need-hurry-up-we-are-going-to-be-late. My daughter led the first two weeks of art classes for the TRUST summer youth camp in West Oakland sponsored by the Oakland Unified School District Police Department, teaching arts and crafts to children five to twelve years old -- an ambitious task for a thirteen year old, but she did a great job. It was wonderful to see her in action and to watch the kids taking direction (most of the time), turning the materials she provided into creations that reflected each child's interests and personality. For me, it was surprisingly fulfilling to just sit back and observe these teenagers -- my babies -- growing into their own.

And, now, at last ... time to do some summertime chillaxin'. I'll leave you with a current picture, and a flashback post: the pyro family. Time to go create some more family memories.

Happy vacation, everyone!

lifesaver

I am alive today because we had healthcare. My father, like many Japanese Americans in the Los Angeles area, worked primarily for the aerospace industry, dutifully putting in his eight hours a day, five days a week, year after year. His employer provided health insurance as part of his compensation. When I was in second grade, I came down with a persistent fever of about 104 degrees, give or take a degree. My mother took me to my pediatrician’s office, where I was seen by the “new” Japanese-speaking doctor in the practice, who gave me some medicine for fever. She took me back in when my fever didn’t break. He gave me some more medicine. She called him when my fever still hadn't broken, and I had collapsed on the bathroom floor. He told her that there was nothing more he could do for me, that the medicine he had given me was the strongest they had, scolding her as she pleaded, tearfully, to please do something for her daughter. Undaunted, she took me in again, and saw the slightly older, also Japanese-speaking, Dr. Maeda. He sent me to the hospital for chest x-rays, which revealed that I had pneumonia.

I missed two weeks of school and spent a good portion of that in the hospital, and have some random memories of that little adventure. At Little Company of Mary in Torrance, I learned that “Number 2” meant the same thing as unchi, and “Number 1” meant the same thing as shishi. I learned that adults do not always know what they are talking about, even when they think they do – like the mean nurse who demanded that I drink my milk, even though, as I kept trying to tell her, my doctor had told me not to drink it because it made me cough. My neighbor, Aunty Jane, gave me Roald Dahl’s The Great Glass Elevator to read while I recuperated. And, my friend, Mariko, told my classmates in Mrs. Oda’s room that I was missing school because I was in the hospital, and she brought my homework assignments to my parents’ house so that I would not fall behind.

All of these memories I have – well, I realize now that I am lucky to even have them. At the time, I didn’t think about healthcare. I took it for granted. My father was rarely unemployed, and his employers were generous with health insurance benefits, back-in-the-day. But thinking about it now, how would my life be different if we did not have health insurance? Would my mother have felt entitled to take me back to the doctor repeatedly? Would they have been able to afford x-rays and a hospital stay? Would I be alive today?

Everyone deserves to live a life that is free from worrying about something as basic as healthcare. I am so happy today, knowing that our country has gotten one step closer to providing a way for all of us to be able to have that peace of mind -- for all of us to take healthcare for granted.