I’m not a Hokie, but my mom is. I guess that makes me a son-of-a-Hokie.
A week ago, I was looking for my Va Tech cap to show my solidarity with the Hokie Nation, but I couldn’t find it. It’s actually my mom’s, but she passed it on to me. (She doesn’t wear ballcaps.)
She received it when she attended a class reunion a bunch of years ago. She’d flown out from L.A., and I drove her down to Blacksburg in my “putt-putt” Mazda Protégé. (I call it putt-putt, because I found out during a drive through part of the Shenandoah Mountains, that its uphill torque was weak. I had to downshift to make it up ascending grades. But, hey, while only 103 horsepower, you just can’t beat the mpg!)
Anyhow, my mom’s Va Tech visit wasn’t all that comfortable. The racial and ethnic diversity of today’s student body and faculty as evident in the massacre victims’ backgrounds, may not have been the case for my mom’s fellow alumni. I guess when she was going there, most of the students were white and the school was known as VPI.
Her classmates were mostly white Southerners. Nothing wrong with that, but maybe they weren’t used to the idea of a fellow alum of Asian background. Or maybe she felt a bit weird around Southerners, as she never lived in the South nor returned to the school after graduating.
She got ticked off by an incident or two, when she felt somebody was condescending to her or treated her like she was inferior. I'm not entirely sure about the specifics, so I can’t explain. All I know is that she felt slighted. Maybe it was just cultural misunderstanding. (Southern California is a bit different social environment than southern Virginia, George Allen’s case notwithstanding.)
I've been here in New York City since Wednesday night. I'm attending the Asian American studies conference. It's been good to see some old friends and acqaintances, as well as make new ones.
(I must criticize my mingling skills. I need the practice. Either I don't engage people real well, or talk their heads off. )
I made it down to the South Street Seaport, and joined a tour in progress, led by Jack Tchen of the NYU Asian/Pacific/American Institute. He talked about the history of New York City, particularly Manhattan.
When I caught up with the group, he was talking about the Dutch settlement. By the time the tour ended, he ended with ante bellum origins of American pop culture around Catherine St. (Hope I got that right.) I think the span of time covered was about 200 years.
The temperature must've been around 40 degrees. And the wind chill factor, made it feel quite a bit colder.
Towards the end, the tour gathered at a corner of Columbus park, on the edge of Chinatown. That was the site of the so-called Five Points area, which I want to say, gained notoriety in the 1830s. (It was portrayed in the Scorcese film, Gangs of New York.) This was before there was a New York Chinatown.