A Different Mirror

“But what happens when historians do not ‘record’ their stories, leaving out many of America’s peoples? What happens, to borrow the words of Adrienne Rich, ‘when someone with the authority of a teacher’ describes our society, and ‘you are not in it’? Such an experience can be disorienting—‘a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.’ What should we do about our invisibility?” 

This quotation exposes the dangers of the Master Narrative and the inequities of who gets to narrate official accounts of history. It highlights the psychic toil the Master Narrative has on individuals who are rendered invisible and thus seemingly unimportant. Takaki does not accept this inaccurate reflection of history and addresses the invisibility of ethnic minorities by writing a book about multicultural America.

“Indeed, The Tempest can be approached as a fascinating tale that served as a masquerade for the creation of a new society in America. Seen in this light, the play invites us to view English expansion not only as imperialism, but also as a defining moment in the making of an English-American identity based on race.” 

Throughout the book Takaki refers to The Tempest to illustrate English constructions of racial difference. A key figure in the play, Caliban, serves as a foil for the English to project their imaginings of “the Other.” Caliban stands in for all ethnic minorities, as the English create a dominant white American identity vis-à-vis everyone else.

“Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence, so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others.” 

Benjamin Banneker, a free black mathematician in Maryland, sent this letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1791. He challenges the hypocrisy of Jefferson, who proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that liberty was a natural right but then denied freedom to his slaves. Banneker asks Jefferson to consider black people on equal terms with whites and grant them their freedom.

“Toward the black coffin of the upland in the

Darkening Land

your paths shall stretch out.

So shall it be for you…

Now your soul has faded away.

It has become blue.

When darkness comes your spirit shall

grow less and dwindle away, never to

reappear.” 

This is a Cherokee song that details the immense pain and suffering of the Cherokee people who were forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and relocate to a newly designated Indian territory west of the Mississippi. In the winter of 1838, the US military forced the Cherokee to march to their new territory on a journey known as the Trail of Tears. More than 4,000 Cherokee, nearly one-fourth of the population, died during the march. The song recounts this experience from the perspective of the Cherokee.

“Here was a society hysterically afraid of a black ‘giddy multitude.’ The master-slave relationship was dynamic, contradictory, and above all uncertain. ‘Sambo’ existed and did not exist. What was the reality? How did the slaves themselves view their own behavior?” 

Southern slaveowners lived in constant fear of slave rebellions. The “Sambo” figure represents a slave who is lazy and childlike as well as happy, docile, and affectionate. The Sambo figure helped mitigate Southerners’ fears of rebellion, yet it never was clear to them if Sambo was real or a figment of their imagination. Takaki does not take the Sambo figure at face value and instead examines slaves’ narratives to better understand their experiences and perspectives.

“Slabery an’ freedom

Dey’s mos’ de same

No difference hahdly

Cep’ in de name.” 

This is an African American folk song from the late 19th century during the Reconstruction period. The Civil War ended slavery but not much changed for blacks. Most became wage earners or sharecroppers on Southern plantations, working the land for a small portion of the crops. Many blacks fell into a condition of debt peonage and were forced into exploitative labor agreements with white landowners. The song alludes to this lack of meaningful changes for blacks, which persisted well into the 20th century.

“Ireland’s oppressors soon must know, they

can’t for ever last,

Landlords [have] been cruel for generations

past,

What right have they to claim the soil which

never was their own,

When thousands now are starving and

Evicted from their home?” 

This Irish ballad from the mid-19th century conveys the oppression the Irish experienced from their English landlords. While the English profited from their agricultural holdings in Ireland, the Irish suffered immense pauperization and were under the constant threat of eviction. The situation worsened with the potato blights in 1845, when over the course of 10 years, 1 million Irish died from hunger and disease. The English treatment of the Irish foreshadows their encounters with indigenous populations in the Americas, whom the English also dispossess of their lands.

“Targets of Protestant nativist hatred identifying them as Catholic, outsiders, and foreigners, the Irish newcomers sought to become insiders, or Americans, by claiming their membership as whites. A powerful way to transform their own identity from ‘Irish’ to ‘American’ was to attack blacks. Thus, blacks as the ‘Other’ served to facilitate their assimilation.” 

This passage explains the assimilation strategies that Irish immigrants used to improve their status in the United States. Initially treated as ethnic outcasts, the Irish adopted antiblack attitudes to create new identities as white Americans. Naturalization laws, based on criteria of whiteness, allowed the Irish to become American citizens, thus facilitating their entry into a dominant class that oppressed ethnic minorities.

“The doctrine of ‘manifest destiny’ embraced a belief in American Anglo-Saxon superiority. As the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Walt Whitman explained: “We pant to see our country and its rule far-reaching… What has miserable, inefficient Mexico… to do with the great mission of peopling the New World with a noble race?” 

This quotation conveys Americans’ support for the conquest of Mexican territory in the name of manifest destiny—a 19th-century doctrine that justified American expansionism as inevitable. In this case, Walt Whitman, an iconic American poet, also conveys the sense of white superiority associated with manifest destiny, as he describes Mexico as “miserable” and “inefficient” and Americans as a “noble race.”

“‘The Mexican braceros who work in a mill, on a hacienda, or in a plantation would do well to establish Ligas Mexicanistas, and see that their neighbors form them.’ United they would have the strength to ‘strike back at the hatred of some bad sons of Uncle Sam, who believe themselves better than the Mexicans because of the magic that surrounds the word white.’” 

In this speech Reverend Pedro Grado urges Mexicans to continue forming benevolent associations to support one another and fight against the racism of white Americans. These associations also helped Mexicans resist labor exploitation, as they offered emotional support and material resources, like food and clothing, during times of strike. Other minority groups formed similar types of associations, promoting ethnic solidarity and cultural pride that countered negative stereotypes and denigration from white Americans.

“All three groups—blacks, Indians, and Chinese—shared a common identity: they were all Calibans of color. This view was made explicit in the 1854 California Supreme Court decision of People v. Hall […] In its review, the California Supreme Court reversed Hall’s conviction, declaring that the words ‘Indian, Negro, Black, and White’ were ‘generic terms, designating races,’ and that therefore ‘Chinese and other people not white’ could not testify against whites.” 

This quotation shows the legal institutionalization of racism in the United States that discriminated against ethnic minority groups. Takaki’s reference to Caliban highlights the social constructions of racial difference that, over time, solidified into legal categories of whites versus nonwhites. The view that the Chinese were not white buttressed subsequent legislation, like the Chinese Exclusionary Act of 1882, which denied Chinese laborers from entering the country for 10 years and prevented naturalized citizenship for Chinese immigrants already residing in the United States.

“Pitiful is the twenty-year sojourner,

Unable to make it home,

Always obstacles along the way, pain knitting

my brows.

A reflection on the mirror, a sudden fright:

hair, half frost-white.

Frequent letters from home, all filled with

much complaint.” 

This Chinese song reveals the emotional pain of Chinese men who could not bring their families to the United States because of discriminatory immigration laws. Most men did not expect to be separated from their families for so long, as the term “sojourner” implies a temporary stay. Americans also viewed Chinese men as “sojourners,” deliberately shaping legislation to support a temporary “industrial reserve army” of migrant laborers that could be called upon or denied access to the United States at any time (187).

“House made of dawn,

House made of the dark cloud,

The zigzag lightning stands high upon it,

Happily, with abundant showers, may I

walk.” 

This is a Navajo song that addresses their dependence on the rain for the well-being of their society. Takaki includes it in his discussion of the Navajo’s resistance to US government policies to cull their sheep, which the government claimed were causing soil erosion from overgrazing. The Navajo repeatedly denied that their sheep were the reason for soil erosion, instead explaining that drought was the reason for silt piling up in the Colorado dam. The US government did not listen and forced the Navajo to reduce their stock, making them dependent on wage labor for subsistence. Scientists later determined that the Navajo were correct: The lack of rain was the reason for the soil erosion, not the sheep.

“The lunas ‘never called a man by his name,’ the workers grumbled. ‘Every worker was called by number,’ one of them complained. ‘Always by the bango, 7209 or 6508 in that manner. And that was thing I objected to. I wanted my name, not the number.’ Carried on chains around their necks, the bangos were small brass disks with stamped identification. In the old country, workers had names that connected them to family and community; but in Hawaii, they had become numbers.” 

This quotation is from a Japanese laborer working on a sugarcane plantation in Hawaii. It reveals the dehumanizing conditions that plantation overseers (lunas) imposed on their workforce, reducing Japanese laborers to a number instead of using their names. The quotation also is an example of Takaki using the testimonies of ethnic minorities to convey their experiences and perspectives, which usually are not included in popular accounts of American history.

“‘Everybody took their own lunches’ to school, Lucy Robello of the Waialua plantation said. ‘And like the Japanese used to take their little riceballs with an ume [pickled plum] inside and little daikon [radish]. And us Portuguese, we used to take bread with butter and jelly or bread with cheese inside.’ Then, at noon, Japanese and Portuguese children would trade their kaukaus [lunches] with each other. Meanwhile, in the fields, their parents were also sharing their lunches. ‘We get in a group,’ William Rego recalled. ‘We pick from this guy’s lunch and that guy’ll pick from my lunch and so forth.’ Crossing ethnic lines, workers would taste each other’s foods and exclaim in Hawaiian: ‘Ono, ono!’ ‘Tasty, tasty!’”

Takaki’s attention to the everyday, lived experiences of ethnic minorities is evident in this quotation, showing the ethnographic style of his writing. The passage also reveals the diverse backgrounds of emigrants and the making of multicultural America. While sharing food is a seemingly small exchange, it facilitated a broader awareness of diverse lifestyles and helped ethnic minorities create a sense of community with each other, further evidenced by the use of a common language, Hawaiian Pidgin English.

“Frustrated by the urgings of restraint, a fragile-looking teenager suddenly rushed to the platform. ‘I am a working girl,’ Clara Lemlich declared in Yiddish, ‘one of those striking against intolerable conditions.’ The charismatic leader passionately articulated the pent-up feelings of the audience. She compared the abuse of the garment workers to the experience of blacks: ‘[The bosses] yell at the girls and ‘call them down’ even worse than I imagine the Negro slaves were in the South.’ She urged action: ‘I am tired of listening to speakers who talk in generalities. What we are here for is to decide whether or not to strike. I offer a resolution that a general strike be declared—now.’ Her brave words and her call to action touched off a thunderous applause.”

This 1909 speech from a Jewish “working girl” shows the creation of a proletarianized class consciousness that came to define the identity of Jewish immigrants. Women played a prominent role in the labor movement, organizing and leading strikes to demand better treatment and wages. Their struggles for unionization were particularly effective in the garment industry and helped create a sense of interethnic class solidarity with other marginalized workers.

“The Jewish immigrants began learning American ways in a process they called ‘purification.’ To become American meant to acquire ‘civility’—a quality of middle-class refinement in behavior and tastes. According to scholar John Cuddihy, they had been driven by the pogroms in Russia ‘out of their Middle Ages into the Anglo-American world of the goyim—“beyond the pale.”’ In America, they were swept into a process of modernization and assimilation.” 

This quotation describes Jewish immigrants’ desire to assimilate as Americans—a process that they associated with middle-class cultural values of purification, civility, and refinement. To cast off the pain of the past, Jewish emigrants did their best to look and act like “modern” Americans by wearing fashionable clothes, speaking English, and Anglicizing their names. They transformed themselves from “greenhorns” into “allrightniks,” or “successful Jewish immigrant[s] who adopted American habits” (282). While Jewish immigrants advanced economically, they were not fully accepted as Americans, as evidenced by discriminatory practices that restricted their access to housing, employment, and higher education well into the 20th century.

“In their ethnic enclaves located in cities and rural towns, they did not feel like aliens in a foreign land as they did whenever they crossed the railroad tracks and ventured uptown into the Anglo world. Though their neighborhood was a slum, a concentration of shacks and dilapidated houses, without sidewalks or even paved streets, the barrio was home to its residents. The people had come from different places in Mexico and had been here for different lengths of time, but together they formed ‘the colonia Mexicana.”

While Takaki largely describes people and events, he also pays attention to places and the meaning places have for ethnic minorities, whether they are forcibly displaced or willing migrated. Here Takaki describes the barrio, a neighborhood that is economically impoverished yet considered home by many Mexican Americans. In the barrio Mexican Americans are not “foreigners in their own land” (165)—it is the one place where they feel like they belong in America.

“The ‘mass movement of the urban immigration of Negroes’ was ‘projected on the plane of an increasingly articulate elite.’ In the ‘largest Negro community in the world,’ ‘the peasant, the student, the business man, the professional man, artist, poet, musician, adventurer, and worker, preacher and criminal exploiter and social outcast’ were coming together. They were forming an imagined community on a vision of black pride.” 

This quotation highlights the diversity and cultural vibrancy of early 20th-century Harlem, as large numbers of African Americans migrated to New York City in search of economic opportunities and a better life. In Harlem, African Americans could find housing, making it one of the most densely populated parts of the city. Although it was crowded and, in many areas, dilapidated, Harlem became the epicenter of black intellectual and cultural life, a place where writers and artists created an alternative narrative to mainstream America—one that helped give rise to the black pride movement.

“Birds,

Living in a cage,

The human spirit.” 

This poem was written by a Japanese American held in an internment camp during World War II. It expresses the desolation and inhumanity of imprisoning men, women, and children who, because of their ethnic heritage, were viewed as enemies of America. The poem also conveys the ideological hypocrisy of Americans, as they fought Nazism abroad while practicing intense discrimination and racism at home.

“As the protectors of white pilots flying bombers en route to enemy targets, the Tuskegee pilots dubbed themselves the ‘Lonely Eagles.’ Their nickname signified their segregated status even in the sky. ‘We flew alone,’ explained Coleman Young, ‘because our 332nd was not readily accepted when we were sent overseas and attached to white groups. A group was usually commanded of three squadrons; so our one black squadron was attached to three white squadrons. They still kept us segregated.’ But the skills and sharpness of the Tuskegee pilots earned them respect, and bombing groups began requesting them as escorts. ‘They all wanted us,’ said Young, ‘because we were the only fighter group in the entire air force that did not lose a bomber to enemy action. Oh, we were much in demand.” 

This quotation highlights African Americans’ contributions to the US war effort while also showing the discrimination and prejudice that they faced during the war. The Tuskegee pilots’ flying and combat skills were highly respected, yet they remained segregated from white squadrons. The experiences of African Americans in the military were similar to those other ethnic minorities who also enlisted in large numbers but did not receive the same status or recognition as their white counterparts during World War II.

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

A powerful statement of solidarity, this quotation, originally attributed to Rabbi Hillel, often was used by Jewish Americans to explain their support for the Civil Rights Movement. As they learned from the Holocaust, to be silent was to be complicit in the evils of racism. Takaki’s inclusion of the quotation also highlights the interracial alliances that formed during the Civil Rights Movement, as Jewish students comprised more than half of the white social activists who traveled South to expand voting rights during the Freedom Summer of 1964.

“‘Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she

With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I life my lamp beside the golden door!’” 

This quotation is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and upholds the fundamental values of America as a country populated by immigrants from around the world, including those seeking refuge from poverty and war. In principle America should welcome all peoples; however, this has been a constant struggle for ethnic minorities—a point that Takaki repeatedly refers to while also showing the ethnic minorities’ refusal to accept their subjugated status in a land that is purportedly free to all.