Blog Challenge Day 1- Middle Name

1.    Your middle name and how you feel about it. 

Growing up as an Air Force brat, I was not often around many Asians.  Even during my time in California, I was usually the only one in my class or amongst my friends. 

I remember being in 1^st grade at an elementary school in San Be.rnadino, CA.  It must have been during Thanksgiving time because my teacher was talking about the whole feast and fellowship thing.  And I remember her saying, “And they were ‘Indians’ like Stacy is.  They had black hair and dark eyes.”  What??!!  I remember feeling both very important and very confused.  I had never known that I was an Indian! 

I got off the bus that afternoon so excited to tell my mom the news!  Did she know?  Why hadn’t she ever told me that my people would be a topic of school discussion? 

I remember going into the house and exclaiming, “Mom!  Did you know that I’m an Indian?!  My teacher said.”  And I can also remember the odd look that came over my mother’s face and the moment of silence before she said, “We’re not Indians!  We’re Japanese.” 

And that was that.  I was still confused.  No one ever talked about being Japanese! 

Looking back I can recall several strange looks and unkind comments, but I never attributed them to my being Japanese.  I just thought people were being dumb. 

In 2^nd grade two African-American boys chased me on the playground and called me, “Chinaman!!  Chinaman!!”  My friend made me tell the playground monitor.  I didn’t want to because I hadn’t been scared or upset, I was more offended because I was clearly NOT Chinese! 

No one ever wanted to trade lunches with me because I brought rice balls wrapped in seaweed instead of PB&Js. 

When I was in kindergarten I wanted to change my last name to Johnson because it was waaaaaay easier than my Japanese last name. 

Also in kindergarten- I asked my mom to give me cornrows so that I could have the same hair as my best friend Janice.  My mom said that my hair, “wouldn’t do that”. 

Sometimes older boys would pull the corners of their eyes up and do that sing songy “ching chang chong” thing.  Or they would sing “Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these!”  I knew they couldn’t be talking to me since I took a bath every night.

I was so naïve.  Thank goodness. 

All of this brings me to my middle name.  I would only rarely tell people what it was because it was so different from anyone else.  And then there was always the explanation of what it meant.  Yuck.  Why couldn’t I be a Stacy Ann?  That flowed nicely. 

But no.  I’m a Stacy Michiko.  “Child of a thousand beauties”. 

And how do I feel about it?  At almost 40 years old, I love it.  It’s mine.  It feels so nice to finally be comfortable in my cultural skin.