Mary's Musings

  CALIFORNIA THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL From Detroit, we went to a childhood friend of my mother’s, who lived in Glendale, CA. My parents found a house within the same school district, but in the county, an area called asthma flats. It was high, dry, and unpolluted. Glendale and La Crescenta were part of an old Mexican land grant. The stipulation in the deeds as the land grant was broken up, was all blacks had to be off the property by sundown. We would see them lined up to take the bus downtown Los Angeles to be out on time. Supposedly the deed restrictions   were outlawed in 1948, but even in the early 60’s, Glendale was the largest all white city in the United States. Obviously, I had little contact with black Americans. All other races were allowed. One of my classmates was native Hawaiian, very dark. She was always introduced as such to make sure no one thought she was black. One of our star football players was Tony Yim, a Korean. Everything was fine until he started da...

My mother was raised in a small town in Michigan. One room schoolhouse and only one black family. Actually, it must have been an extended family. The kids were part of the school and treated like anyone else. Apparently one of the older members was referred to as N word John. My grandmother heard my mother and siblings refer to his as such and promptly marched them to him to apologize. He told her that he knew what it meant   but   everyone in town called him that to differentiate him from other people He said they didn’t understand the connotation and not to punish her children. She said she didn’t care what other people called him they were not going to. After her father died, the family had to move to Detroit. My mother was a junior in high school. She said during gym, the black girls would pull the privacy curtains open to “see what white girls looked like.” Detroit has a long history of tense race relations and well as the separation of various ethnic groups. She ret...