The View From Here:
What it Means to be a Global Citizen

Lynne K. Fukuda
Instructor, Institute of Biology, Hawaii Pacific University
lfukuda@hawaii.edu

      I was born with copper-red hair of the Saxons, much to the despair of my mother, who tried to be so Japanese. "Where does she get that inferior-colored hair?" my Japanese grandmother said to my mother, "Perhaps we should shave it off so that new, normal black hair that's more strong and healthy will grow from her scalp." My grandmother sniffed and looked at her first grandchild. I was born bald, a "preemie," and was often difficult and colicky The soft down that indicated growth of new hair did not come out vigorous and dark like the infants of my paternal grandmother's people, but sprouted weakly like that of a malnourished child. The hair on my head was an uncharming attribute for a much-awaited granddaughter.
      My mother did not answer. She was determined never to tell my ethnocentric grandmother this part of the family history. No one would understand, especially an old woman who believed in pure-breeds and the superiority of her own race. My mother did not allow any prejudice to cloud the love my grandmother had for her mixed-breed grandchild.
      All of my baby pictures were taken in black-and-white film. I did not learn until I was nearly an adult that I had been born with copper-red hair. I never knew that my Japanese mother was also born redheaded, fair-skinned, and had hazel eyes; as a result, she was teased by her Japanese classmates. I heard horror stories of half-breed children who were victims of taunting and raining pebbles born to American fathers after the war.

      The sad tale of my mother's people went back a few generations. My maternal grandmother, who died before I was born, was a brunette, but her features were deep, her eyes large, and her skin snow-white. And yet, my half-breed grandmother wore kimonos, cooked Japanese food, arranged flowers, performed tea ceremony, and was versed in the native culture. Her mother, too, possessed foreign blood, and as a result hid from public eyes. My great-grandmother dyed her dark-blond hair black, and wore a kimono, although it did not fit her figure and her tallness. When it rained, she ran for cover because the hair dyes in those days did not stay when wet, and dark splotches would stain her lovely kimono, ruining her disguise.
     "Poor grandmother," my mother said years later, reminiscing at the trials of my blond relative, "She looked so sad when the rain washed the dark color out of her hair." Yet, great-grandmother was lucky. She was born into the upper class, surrounded only by trusted servants and a loving family. She lived on a large horse ranch in the countryside. She was a recluse, only inviting near her those she most trusted and considered to be friends of her family. We continued our agoraphobic traditions, avoided unpleasant human contact, and allowed only a select few individuals to bring cheer and friendships into our circle, valued individuals who became members of our global family. My ancestors were highly suspicious of neighbors and strangers, observing them from afar, and seemed aloof and cold, a necessity for foreigners living secret lives.

      No one ever spoke of the family name. No one ever spoke of the great-grandfather who was of foreign origin and thankfully dead so they did not have to explain his appearance. When my grandmother died, most of her photographs were burned in a small bonfire as if to obliterate her history and differentness, for in a homogeneous society it was a sin to be different. Only faint memories that faded with each passing decade remain in my mother's mind Sometimes they are of the buildings with decorative stone balls that can only be found in parts of Europe--in Germany, Austria, Poland, Russia, and the Czech Republic; these could have been obliterated by the bombing of Europe during World War II. What remained were the memories of various voices, songs of the Spanish, German, French, and even Russian languages, the tongues my grandmother and her family spoke when they did not want to be heard by curious children.
      "I only remember the large hand of my nanny who led me down a gravel path in a area near a body of water. There was a church on the top of the hill and the road was lined by mimosas," Mother would say sometimes as faint memories drifted into her consciousness. "And the word Hanover. It was always pronounced Hanofer."
      I winced hearing the place name. "What if we were related to Prince Charles?" I wondered.

      And yet, my purebred Japanese grandfather's people (on her father's side) had also been diplomats, going from the Orient to Europe, making the perilous journey back and forth that spanned nearly six months. My grandfather's uncle had been to Europe. My grandfather had been living in Europe when my mother was born in 1939, although it was a secret he took to his grave, Because the war started, it became a taboo to mention living in Nazi Germany or any of the countries in the Deutches Reich. It was even a greater taboo to be of non-Japanese ancestry in a country that had become fascist and xenophobic. She had no birth certificate until the age of five, being either born on a ship or in a foreign land in the year the Great War broke out in Europe.
      My Japanese grandfather had also been a citizen of the earth, a scholar, lawyer, biologist, and engineer, and a keen student of politics. He was arrested twice, not for true crimes, but for standing up for others. He spoke for true Marxism and was not only arrested but tortured. He believed that there should be no classes dividing people, and especially detested the poverty that deprived innocents of their right to resources. He also did not believe there should have been a war with America. For that, he was hung upside-down from his ankles, beaten until he was unconscious, had hot-candle wax poured on his face, and needles stuck between his nails and fingers.

      My ancestors and my grandparents praised foreign peoples and adopted some of their cultures, made valued friends, and created bridges between peoples. Even when my grandfather lost his fortune due to the War with the United States, he still admired Americans for their diplomacy and humane treatment of the people they occupied. My mother soon made American friends with the children of a military officer. She fought and made up with them, played at their home, ate hotdogs with ketchup and drank Cokes, and so experienced American culture and customs even before she saw the shores of New York. My mother grew up more American than I did, influenced by the music, cinema, and the culture of the Americans during the Occupation. I, on the other hand, grew up less American and more Hawaiian, my childhood buried in an older Hawaii, only years after statehood.

      The sweet songs of the movie era drew my mother to the shores of America. She reached New York, the city of her dreams. There were many sad experiences as she saw the un-American treatment of minorities, the desperate poverty of the African-Americans, and the struggles of the common people. But she came away with happy experiences that all young people have, making friends in spite of language and cultural barriers of the times, when Blacks and Whites were segregated, and Oriental peoples were somewhat in an ambiguous position.
      "It was a great shock to me," my mother said, describing her first view of New York. "I believed that the same people who existed in the movies would come to life. Instead, there were many more people, much more diversity. So many African-Americans, immigrants, even Orientals. And the masses didn't live in prosperity. New York was such a chaotic place."
      When she married my American father, who was more Japanese than she was. She discovered he lived with old-fashioned values long forgotten by her generation, still naming their children in Japanese and educating their children in Japanese-language schools. He passed on the ancient traditions of his people. It was in this strange fashion that my Japanese mother, who grew up in a mixed European culture, learned the ways of her father's people by coming to America. It was a land that was diverse and puzzling, especially to Hawaiians; America's people had come from all parts of the globe.
    In time, she no longer cried to return to her island home in the Orient and began to accept her island home in the middle of the Pacific, finding pride in the local culture, practicing the Hawaiian ways of aloha, and finally becoming a naturalized citizen in her forties. "I love Hawaii, its people, and I am an American," she said, when the naturalization officer asked her the reason for her late naturalization. "I no longer wish to go back to Japan and wish to die here."
      The officer was touched with tears in his eyes, proud that someone who loved her own country of birth was willing to give up her citizenship in exchange for her adopted country. I do not know what I would have done. I might have opted for double-citizenship, but in the true tradition of her ancestors who adopted the land where they settled as their own, my mother also became one with her land of adoption. My European ancestors had settled in Japan, my grandfather's Japanese ancestors had gone to Europe and adopted the cultures there. Now, my mother had come from Japan to America, completing the journey halfway across the world from her ancestors.
     Who knows for certain where I will end up? After a stint in Puerto Rico, I am in love with Latino culture. Sometimes I dream of returning to Latin America, where people laugh and live life to the fullest in spite of poverty. I also dream of going to Africa where the AIDS epidemic rages, and sometimes I want to go to Europe, the land of my distant childhood, where I have dear, trusted friends.

      When I was growing up, I traveled to distant lands with my mother and sister. We lived for brief periods in Europe, tasting the different cultures that tantalized our senses. Our travels to other parts of the world made us global citizens, an honored but secret tradition in our family. My great-grandparents raised prize horses and were educators. My grandfather was a lawyer and my grandmother a teacher at a women's college. I am an educator like some my family, sharing my cosmopolitan views with students. In our extended group of family and friends, we have members in almost every area of the globe. We all come together from many different religions and many different cultures to share of ourselves and the love and respect for one another. Of blood and not of blood, these are my precious family, the allies I will always need on this harsh planet called Earth.
      I often have strange dreams of places I have never visited that appear vividly in my mind, and I wonder if I had ever been there before. "Did you ever take me there without telling me?" I ask my mother, only to receive a negative reply. And yet I know that those places, people, and those events no longer occur. I feel that I am only remembering my past lives, where different lifetimes managed to scatter my soul into different areas of the world. Why else would I be a perfect global citizen? How else would I have such strong feelings of belonging, such love, and such compassion for all peoples of Earth?
      One of my goals was to search for those places that I have seen in my dreams. At times, when I travel, I am transported back in time to a different era; I see different people, feel different sensations, and survey different landscapes. I grope for straws, clinging to hundred-year-old buildings as if I were lost in time or between lifetimes in my course of reincarnation. And I search for my family, also scattered across the earth, wondering where my parents, relatives, and close friends from another lifetime exist in this vast place.

      Like a handful of dandelion seeds that finally find a place to grow, our present family has found the fertile soils of the Hawaiian Islands our final home. It was a cosmopolitan, culturally rich place, where Hawaiian culture accepted our differences and allowed full expression of our true selves. We do not have to dye our hair, change our language, or pretend to be from other cultures. We are ourselves, the mixed race, the half-castes, and the strange individuals who would have been snuffed out in the gas chambers. We have strange quirks that border on schizophrenia and multiple personality disorders; we are agoraphobic and reclusive--and yet, we accept everyone we meet just the way they are. Unfortunately, not all people feel the same way about us. On this island paradise, although there is still some conflict among its peoples, many have come together in vivid colors, blossoming under the warm sun, growing under loving aloha, and sharing the fertile soil like lovely varieties of flowers. We inspire one another to grow and to flourish under the same sky and the bright, hot sun.
      In our global family, we do not have wars amongst us, but only the message that life is much too short to waste. Our partings are mingled always with tears, as we hold each other close to our hearts, and keep the brief memory of our meetings forever. We do not know if we will ever see each other alive again, but the preciousness of such a fleeting promise creates only the warmth and harmony of truly global people who love one another and all their peoples at the same time.
     And when I am by the gentle slopes of the volcanoes, where all life began, I feel at peace at last, knowing that my search has finally ended. It does not matter that I may no longer find my family from another lifetime, for I have a family in this lifetime. And when I finally leave my physical body, I have requested that my ashes be scattered in the crater of the Kilauea volcano, where I found true fulfillment and no longer felt the need to wander the Earth.

Academic Exchange Extra invites reader responses to any writings in this issue--especially articles advancing the scholarly debate of issues raised.

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