(no subject)

[mallorys_camera]

Hauled Robin and his best pal Ilgin, the Korean prodigy, off to Salinas yesterday. They're collaborating on a social studies project on the Japanese internment during WWII and Ilgin's father is the kind of super-involved dad that puts The Shame on me. He it was who supervised the numerous library research trips, who managed to track down two ancient survivors of the camps and who drove Ilgin and Robin out to Watsonville in the pouring rain to interview the survivors.

The only thing I could come up with was a California Historical Marker.

And the only thing I knew about the California Historical Marker was that it was somewhere in North Salinas, in the general vicinity of the Rodeo Grounds.

So yesterday I got up at 3 AM to do all the accounting and bill-paying for the store, reported for duty at Scut Job Central at 6 AM so I could be out at 2:30 PM and pick up the boys for the slog to Salinas.

Speeding through Corral de Tierra with only the barest beginnings of the housing developments – which one knows, inevitably, will line this corridor wall-to-wall twenty years from now – filled me with yearning. It's the time of year when the seasonal rains turn California's hills green & lush. I used to like to hike in this kind of weather, everything smells so good. Little know epistemological fact: "nostalgia" is a word that was invented in the 17th century, combining two Greek words: ??st?? = nostos = one's homeland, and ????? = algos = pain/longing.

In the back seat of the Veedub, the boys were arguing. They'd just gotten their report cards. Robin, an underachiever like his beloved mother, had snagged a A+ in reading and an A- in math, but C's in everything else. Ilgin who has the advantage of afore-mentioned super-Dad had gotten A's in everything but the rules of English grammar. Robin crowed about that. "Last semester, you only got a 1! I got a 2!"

"You go to Korea!" Ilgin snapped. "See how well you do with Korean grammar."

I sometimes think his association with Robin is purely a friendship of convenience for Ilgin. Robin, the most guileless and least judgmental of children, does not mock him for mispronunciation and holes in English language comprehension the way the other fifth graders do.

"Do you play instrument, Robin?" Ilgin continued. "I play two instrument. Violin and piano. Also I golf every Saturday."

"I play an instrument!" said Robin. "I play the drums!"

"When have you ever played the drums?" I asked.

"I play them at night," said Robin, unphased. "On my computer. When you can't hear me."

"I play violin for the orchestra at my church," said Ilgin.

"What church is that?" I asked.

"First Baptist."

Now I know that Christianity thrives in South Korea but I'd always imagined it was the talking-in-tongues Pentecostal kind, not the you-made-that-baby-now-give-birth-to-it Baptist kind. I was intrigued. "Did you go to church in Korea, Ilgin?"

"No. In Korea we are Buddhist."

Even more intrigued. The church as portal to assimilation!

"Do you believe in God, Ilgin?" Robin asked.

Ilgin snorted. "No."

It turned out that Salinas proper is involved in a very elaborate road construction project which turned a ten minute drive into a forty-five minute exercise in honking horns and spraying mud. I had a lot of time to observe the ugly downtown business district, all those cut-rate furniture emporiums in a state of perpetual fire sale, empty nail salons, fast food joints with delusions of franchise potential. Small businesses: the capillaries of the American economy. Salinas may be the most depressing place in California.

Finally we reached the Rodeo Grounds. No California State Historical Markers in sight.

"You can't find it," said Ilgin smugly. "Even my father can't find it. We look Saturday. After golf."

"We'll find it," I said grimly.

It turns out there are the remains of a small pastoral town behind the Rodeo Grounds, just a few yards behind the strip malls and the relentless concrete sprawl. In the middle of a tiny grassy field, sits a deserted band gazebo. Blood-red graffiti tags its peeling paint: Nortenos. Nearby a small grove of blooming fruit trees in full pink relief against the wet gray day. Ornamental cherries, I thought. The Japanese memorial would have to be somewhere close by.

"Let's go, boys," I said.

In 1942, this ugly complex was probably a wooden grandstand standing in a meadow. There may even still have been a few barns. The Nisei hereabouts had mostly owned property in Watsonville along the Pajaro River, where they'd played a major role in transforming the one-crop, wheat-dependent valley into a diversified farming community. Sure, I read Snow Falling On Cedars but it didn't grab me. It's the interstices I find fascinating, the spaces between events. For example: what was life like for the Nisei in the waiting period between Dec 7, 1941 and March the following year? They were given the option of voluntary evacuation and apparently that winter there was a huge run on auto wrecking yards, Japanese farmers combing for parts with which to build trailers so they wouldn't have to leave every possession behind. Where were they planning to go?

The monument is a boulder with a plaque: This monument is dedicated to the 3,586 Monterey Bay area residents of Japanese ancestry, most of whom were American citizens temporarily confined in the Salinas Rodeo Grounds during World War II from April to July 1942. They were detained without charges, trial, or establishment of guilt before being incarcerated in permanent camps, mostly at Poston, Arizona. May such injustice and humiliation never recur.

Who writes this stuff? I wondered. The sentiments bear the imprimatur of some obscure governmental branch and yet they've gone to great pains to hide them in a place where they'll never be seen.

We took some photographs. Then I herded the boys back into the car and we started the long drive home.