I just wrote a blog about my disbelief at the atrocities experienced by African-American students at Little Rock Central High School. This is so far out of my own experience that I tend to forget it can happen today. In fact, I took my Korean daughter to Little Rock and thought nothing of it, even when I was standing in front of Central High. Actually, we noticed a fair number of Asians in Little Rock.
But there are unexpected times when it rears its ugly head. I think it’s happening a bit more often now in conjunction with an anti-immigrant bias. One ten-year-old adopted Korean boy was yelled at at a bus stop, “You foreigners are what’s wrong with this country!” Hello? Whatever your feelings about immigration, I think most people know ten-year-olds don’t choose to come here on their own. Most of all, there are people who grew up here, even who were born here and whose parents were born here, who get awfully tired of having people assume they’re not American.
For me, one of those unexpected moments surfaced from somewhere deep in my memory. My husband and I went to school in the Inland Northwest during the years when the Aryan Nations had their compound in North Idaho, as well as a few other white supremacist groups and racial purity “churches”. Of course this was twenty years ago, but I still remember being surprised when one of my classmates declined to go to a restaurant over the border in Idaho. She said that as an African-American, she didn’t dare.
So when my husband recently suggested a nostalgic trip to Lake Coeur d’Alene, I looked at him like he had holes in his head. “Interracial families can’t travel in Idaho, Charles,” I heard myself say.
How ironic that it never occurred to me not to travel in the Deep South when I was afraid to travel several hours from home.
My husband assured me that those compounds were gone and those days over. In fairness to Idahoans, I was aware even during my school days of many people, groups and churches banded together in solidarity to oppose the Aryan Nations and any civil rights violations. Apparently their efforts were successful.
I’m not really afraid to go to Idaho. It’s not likely that, even if the compound still existed, I’d have been in danger anyway. It was just surprising to me because the limitations of being an interracial family weren’t something I really knew that I thought about until that moment when it just slipped out.
Please see these related blogs:
Interracial Marriage and How it Affects Children
Are You Planning to Visit Idaho or Virginia?
Summer Travel: Wet and Wild Family Fun