SBS 301 Cultural
Diversity/Prof.
Koptiuch
Fall 2015 Personal
Memory Ethnographies
Crystal Scott
Chameleon
Life is
what we make it. You have to take the good with
the bad, weigh the two, then fight for what is
right.
Once
upon a time, America was new to the European man; as
they saw how fruitful the
land was they assertively took it over, forever
setting into motion an array of
socioeconomic, political, ideological and personal
phenomena.These
laws, perspectives and effects have
shaped every aspect of life in America.
It’s
terrifying
to know that before I was born racism and
miscegenation was legal.
Even the job opportunities were limited due to
racial discrimination,
therefore, people of color with skin so fair it
could pass for white skin,
found a way to sneak into a job meant only for white
people.It
sounded ridiculous the first time I heard
of it, until I learned that the experience of
“passing” was deep rooted in my
own family.
Firstly,
I
was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1980; my mom was
newly divorced.I was an 80’s baby, it was the best decade. I
was a very happy kid, very optimistic.I’m not sure if it was the unlimited amount
of Fruit Loops I attempted
to eat, the amazing birthday parties or the
incredible dance music by Michael
and Janet Jackson but it was amazing being a kid
when I was a kid.My mother would say,
Crystal
is my
world and I am hers, we were so very close, the
more I loved her and taught
her, the more she loved back and inquired more.I taught Crystal to be strong and aware of
certain evils and dangers out
there in the world, like most mothers teach their
child but with slightly
different contexts.It was important for
me to make sure she learned how to be respectful
of herself and others, to be
kind, selfless and faithful. These were attributes
of a shining star!”
Next,
when
I was three, we moved from Oregon to California to
gain the support of my
extended family, my mother’s sisters and brothers
and my cousins.It was my first time meeting everyone, it was
the new part of my life.I learned
how
to play games like hop scotch, four square,
ding-dong ditch and other.I joined
the Brownies there, which was the scouting
level achieved before being a Girl Scout.I have the fondest memories.I
had a chance to be really close with my family and
learn more about my roots,
my mother’s childhood, my grandparent’s migration
and about being a
family.Some
of my favorite memories are
the ones where we’d all meet up at church, attend a
mid-day service and then go
to lunch.Moreover,
in the evening we
would meet back up and all the kids would get
together and play the Soul Train
game or we’d sit around in grandma’s living room,
listening to Motown artists,
watching movies or looking at photo albums with the
redundant, who is that? I loved the
photo albums, they were like time
machines, to me, the way they took me thru different
times.It
was my favorite, to see my mother back in
the day, she was so beautiful and young.
One
day
I was looking through photo albums and came across
and old picture that was
very different in its appearance, it was barely a
picture anymore, it was so
old.It
was black and white with two
women in the picture.The peculiar thing
was not the picture being old but who was in the
picture.It
was the only picture in the album of these
two white women.I asked my mom, “Who are
they?”Mom
explained that one lady was
my grandma and the other woman was my Great Aunt.My mother
was eager to explain, she
proclaimed, “grandma and your great Aunt passed for
white, back in their time
because it’s what they needed to do to survive.
Passing helped them obtain career
employment and benefits as opposed to a cleaning job
without benefits; it gave
them a middle-class lifestyle.Hearing
this was kind of confusing for me at the age of 10
but as I learned more about
America’s history, my family secret became the great
motivator for my curiosity
and journey towards the Golden Rule.
The next year, we moved to Phoenix, AZ.
My mother sought after better job opportunities.I was
going to be a fifth grader in a new
city which meant new friends.Arizona
school systems were teaching a slightly different
history curriculum than in
California but nonetheless, I learned about Samuel
De Champlain,
Mexican-American War and the Colonial settlement and
colonialism.The
history lessons seemed to be like Swiss
cheese, in which the context seemed to be riddled
with holes, as if pieces were
missing.As
my mother would say,
It was
always
an education about people that we could not
identify with or see our own
reflections in.
Markedly,
the
day I saw Martin Luther King Jr. and heard his
speech, it was like a light
bulb went off.It was the first time, I
heard about love as a resolution to the American
Race problem. He was such an
empowering magnet. Slowly but surely, I was
recognizing racism and seeing how
white children in Arizona reacted towards me in
their predominately white
schools. Their reactions toward me definitely
imposed a sense of otherness,
which made me, a few times, claim to be mixed race.