As I See It
John D Tabak, DDS
*click on image to enlarge*
On the eleventh day of the ninth month of the third millennium America was changed forever. No longer are we secure in the knowledge that two great oceans shield our shores from would-be enemies. Actually, despots in far away places have dreamed of attacking us at home for many years. One of my souvenirs from WW II is a picture of lower Manhattan being bombed by Japanese planes. It was printed in Japanese newspapers during the war. I had purchased a piece of porcelain for my mother that came wrapped in old newspapers, one piece of a page had the picture. My secretary in the Army of Occupation was a Japanese-American graduate of Stanford trapped by the war during a visit to her grandparents. She translated the caption for me. Her English was better than her Japanese; she was unsure if the pilot talked about seeing the upturned white faces scurrying about as the bombs fell or if it was his dream of what it would like when he bombed New York. Either way, it is an example of how our enemies have always seen attacking not L.A. or San Francisco which were closer, but New York, the best way to "get us". The secretary’s parents spent the war in an internment camp. A little history to help put it all in perspective; there was no WTC then.
Now, there is no WTC again and we are all really angry, really, really angry. At Bin Laden and, far too many of us, at any Arab-looking people we come upon. Americans have a long tradition of hostility toward hyphenated immigrants.
My parents came here as children, brought by their hyphenated immigrant parents. They were proud of the fact that while they became naturalized Americans, my sister and I are native Americans (small n). More recently, we have come to use a large N for Native Americans, the indigenous American Indian peoples. So, I now think of myself as just plain full American.
One of my sisters-in-law, a white, white Colombian-American married a rather brown Indian born Sikh. Their union produced strikingly handsome boys who are hard to classify according to the racial profiling rules some Americans seem to know so well. About twenty years ago, when Ravi was a little boy, a women stopped him at the supermarket and asked him what he was. Ravi immediately replied, "Half Colombian, half Indian and full American". You better believe it; he’s FULL AMERICAN.
My office mate's grandparents came here from Syria. She and many in her family speak Arabic. You could call them Syrian-American or Arab-American, but, you better believe it; they are FULL AMERICAN. Secretary Colin Powell's forebears may have come here in slave ships, but you better believe it, he's FULL AMERICAN. Last night I listened to Andy Rooney’s weekly closing on "60 Minutes". He was inspiring. Andy used to be an Irish-American, but you better believe it; he’s FULL AMERICAN.
My father came here a twelve-year-old immigrant-hyphen-American. Nine years later he had shed the hyphen. While he could still speak Russian and Yiddish, he was writing an English language column for a New York newspaper. He knew he was an American. You better believe it; FULL AMERICAN. And, you better believe it, while she had to hold her tongue during the war, my Japanese-American secretary was FULL AMERICAN.
If we Americans are to find and eradicate the cowardly terrorists from God’s green earth, we need to begin by being willing to accept that FULL AMERICANS come not only in every shape and size, but in every color, every race, every religion or none, every ethnicity, every political persuasion and, yes, with every sexual orientation.
Wake up, America. Drop your hyphens. Load and Lock. We are on the march.
John Davidson Tabak, Full American.
Article originally appeared in the Nov/Dec '01 issue of the South Florida District Dental Association Newsletter.