My Father

Dear Regular Reader,

If you think I write a lot about my mother, you're right. I mean, I can't get away from that woman. My sister and I have always been dominated by her strong personality, but our mom is also like our third sister--only bossy because she's the mother, after all.

This week, I'll fill you in a little bit about my dad. That's him in the photo as a young soldier in Germany. The Winfrey's (some who are first cousins to THE Winfrey--Ms. Oprah) are planning a family reunion this summer, and my father and I plan to attend. I just hope there's something vegan I can eat in Arkansas.

Although I've written about my dad extensively in an essay included in the anthology Brothers and Others published about seven years ago, I'll brief you here.

Born in Richmond Texas in 1927, my father was the oldest of three boys and a girl belonging to Andrew and Eleanor Winfrey. A chauffeur and maid, respectively, Andrew and Eleanor saved their money and built a small hamburger stand. It was the first eatery for blacks in Richmond, and, as the years passed, my grandparents grew it into a barbecue cafe with indoor dining. (Today, there's a monument to my grandfather in Richmond.)

As a child visiting during the summers, I would wait on customers and drink strawberry soda in that smoky cafe. Behind the restaurant, my grandparents raised animals they would slaughter for everything from ribs to chitlins. Thinking about it today, my vegan stomach turns. But back in the day, it was a source of pride knowing that my kin owned their own business. That, plus I was known to scarf more than a few pigs' feet.

Not satisfied with having just a cafe, my grandfather also learned bricklaying and built several houses. The family lived in one and rented the others to tenants. But by the time my father turned 18, he decided he wanted to see the world. He wasn't crazy about the idea of working in his parents' b-b-q joint forever, and all the successful black men he knew of in his small country town had joined the military to acquire their bling. So, my dad signed up for the Army.

Well, he ended up seeing the world, all right. He was stationed in the Philippines, Korea and Japan where he met my mother. Later, he was sent to Germany (we went with him) and several other American military bases. But my father also experienced a segregated military before President Truman desegregated it. While my dad was overseas fighting for America, America represented by the Army approached restaurants and shops near military bases in foreign countries and ordered them to either serve only its black or white soldiers--but never both at the same time. Once he returned from serving his country overseas, my father struggled to find a place to live in Washington state.

Several weeks ago, I read an article about the book Slavery By Another Name by Douglas Blackmon, and it triggered something my father had told me about his childhood. He'd said that after class each day, he went to work picking cotton. Naively, I replied that it must've been nice for him to have earned some money. But my father corrected me, and clarified that neither he nor the other children were ever paid for their labor. Instead, the white people who would round them up after school each day were still practicing slavery when it was clear that slavery had been declared illegal nearly 80 years before. According to Blackmon's book, slavery continued in the south until 1945--18 years after my father was born.

If you'd like to know more about my father, I still have a few copies left of Brothers and Others. Drop me an email at watermelonsushi@comcast.net, if you're interested in getting one.

And, if you're not busy this Saturday, February 7, at 4 pm, you'll have the opportunity to listen to me being interviewed by Janice Malone at http://www.filmfestivalradio.com. Please tune in to hear us discuss multiracial issues as well the Watermelon Sushi film.

I'm also anticipating an interview with playwright and Watermelon Sushi Associate Producer Jaz Dorsey of Nashville. I'll keep you posted about when the article will appear on the AAPEX blog.

Meanwhile, if you're on Facebook, join our group on the Hip Hapa Homeez page. Dude, we're hip, we're hapa, and we're homeez!

Until next week, I am...

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Tabasco v. Wasabi

I don't know 'bout ya'll, but in our humble abode we always had two kinds of hot sauces sittin' up on that dining room table. As you know by now, my father hails from Texas and my Moms from Japan. Since both of them love spicy food, my sister and I were exposed at any early age to all the hot stuff our stomachs and tongues could bear. Which was a lot. Especially for kids.

I remember that way back in the day, before Fritos became so popular, there was a snack called Chili Chips. A lot of children didn't care for them because they were so peppery, but my sister and I would lick our fingers clean of the powdery, red hot residue that inevitably covered our hands.

Since my dad's parents owned a barbecue joint, our family also ate lots of homemade hot sausages that my grandmother would send us via the U.S. post office from Texas. Now that I'm vegan (and veggie for over 25 years), I can't even imagine how I used to stuff myself with all that pork that my grandparents butchered themselves. Folks would come from near and far to taste my grandfather's barbecue sauce--a truly spicy concoction.

But the Texa-cans were never outdone by the Nipponese in our household. My Moms could out-sweat all of us while she slurped boiling hot udon (noodles) sprinkled with seven-spice pepper. Then, there was the wasabi (Japanese horseradish mustard). Squeezing a tube full of the green stuff, Moms would use the end of her ohashi (chopstick) to gather a tiny bit before swirling it into shoyu (soy sauce). She'd caution us about how hot it was, but my sister and I were hardheaded and always put more on our food than we could stand--causing our sinuses to become raw, but exhilarated.

It's really hard to say which of the two was hotter--the tabasco that we dumped all over our meat and side dishes, or the wasabi we'd dip our tempura, sushi, and gohan (rice) into. Like all good Japanese, we ate rice at every meal--even if Moms cooked burgers in buns that night.

This need for heating of the mouth even affected members of our family that came later. I remember when my sister's kid was about 2 or 3, and the three of us had lunch at a Thai restaurant. My sister, who was ordering for all of us, told the waitress what we wanted and added, "I want three stars, my sister wants four, and no stars for him," she finished pointing to her son. Upon hearing that pronouncement, the poor child looked as if he was ready to burst into tears. Choking and sniffing, he blurted, "I want stars!" Of course, he thought that we were getting the celestial variety and didn't want to be left out. But to the kid's credit, he did end up eating his phad thai that day replete with several stars' worth of heat. And, to this day, he is carrying on our family legacy of hot, spicy eating. That's him, an adult now in the photo above, about to grease big time on Moms' cooking.

So, how many stars can you handle? Talk to me. Let me know about some of the unusual cultural combinations your family shared at the dinner table. That Watermelon Sushi comes in many flavas, ya know.

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Oh, and don't forget that we've got some really hip hapa t-shirts at

http://www.cafepress.com/hapateez

And, to learn more about my Texas grandparents and their b-b-q joint, read their story in the anthology Brothers and Others. Email me for more information: watermelonsushi@comcast.net

Lovely Lunar Light Shall Never Fade

"Hey! Didja see the eclipse?!?," everyone around me shouted as I maneuvered from work to home to yoga class and back to home today. As I gazed up at the night sky (what sky?--all I saw were annoying city lights), I was struck dumb by this simple act of Nature that was totally unhampered by MAN. At least for that moment it was. Behold, the vision I encountered was lovely.

First, I watched Ms. Moon as Mother Earth's shadow cast a smoky red glow over her right side. Then, I went into the yoga studio. When I came out, Mother Earth's shadow was much darker (as was the night), and was creeping up on Ms. Moon from underneath. What a scene! This moment shall live eternally.

Meanwhile, I received several questions about my father after my posting yesterday. To learn more about African American soldiers during WWII, you could start by reading an essay I wrote about my dad in 2000. Here are links to comments that were made about the anthology, Brothers and Others, that I published then:

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art6962.asp

http://www.pressreleaseblaster.ibuilder.com/default.asp?S=E3&Document=5+Star+Book+Catalog-+-B&NID=2251618

And, that's me with Papa Legba, above. Alafia!

Bon nuit.

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi