At a reading a couple weeks back, I read a piece about some of the encounters I’d had with racist folks when I lived in Wisconsin. But wait, it wasn’t all downbeat and tragic. The last section in that piece, after several nasty scenes, involves my going to a job interview and finding out that the man I was talking to was a Kamehameha School graduate. Way out there in Wisconsin. He hired me and saved me from the perils of no money for food and rent. Hawai‘i folks helping out Hawai‘i folks.
I was hired to manage a record store, Galaxy of Sound, at West Towne Mall in Madison. I loved the job and the people I worked with.
Unfortunately, at the record store, my Asian-ness continued to show, and I met with my share of nasty remarks and threats. All in a day’s work.
But those Asian-haters represented a very small percentage of our clientele. It seems odd to me now – or maybe not, given my age and the space of time that’s come between me and those days – that I remember more of the horrible people than I do those customers with whom I could have talked music all day long.
Why is that? Why do we always remember the worst moments, the worst people? Why don’t we remember only the good times and the people who never saw skin color when we interacted with them?
Well, maybe they saw the skin color – of course many would – but that did nothing to phase them.
Fortunately for my negatively selective memory, there is one customer, an elderly woman, who stands out as a positive experience at the store. She wrote to me here in Hawai‘i after I’d moved back. The essence of the letter stays with me, and I believe, no matter my losing battle with age, I’ll always remember her.
In the letter, she told me that I was the first Asian person she’d met in her life. Well, she modified that a bit. She’d seen Asian people, but I was the first one with whom she interacted to such a great extent.
Admittedly, she was cautious about talking to me, was even a bit afraid of me. But as we talked, she said, about a mutual passion for classical music, she had come to consider me a friend.
She said that she would always remember me not because I was different, but because I was kind and made her, a lonely widow, feel good when we talked.
There are gaps
Years passing
Long some the quiet
And the silence steps aside
And anger wells in snatches
But stops
Another pause
Come’s a saving grace
With memories of the ones
Who have touched us
Who save us at a dark moment
In small bits and pieces
Recall small joys
Settle light on us and peace
So these are tears of thanks for this
* * *
Note: This is my rough draft for Aloha Friday 01.05.24.
Lanning Lee 