intermixing of cultures

[Nadja Adolf]

Hmmmm....
I was born in 1954 in Yakima, about a mile or so from where my mom was born
in 1924 in Yakima, and a bit north of where my grandfather was born along
the Columbia circa the 1890s. (His birth was not registered until he was in
his 60s for obvious reasons.)My grandfather's wife was born in Seattle or
Everett in the 1890s.

I agree - but I will say that contrary to popular opinion
the racism in the worst parts of Eastern Washington was mild compared to the
racism in the American NorthEast and American South or even contemporary San
Francisco.

We did run into restaurants that wouldn't serve us, and my mom never got out
of the car until we had the room at a motel or hotel. But we never felt
physically threatened the way she felt when she visited Boston, and NYC in
the 1960s and early 1970s.

A few people bitched about intermarriage, but it never slowed down people
like the Lumleys or my family.

My worst experience was living in Corvallis and finding that the local
bastion of "liberalism", the Unitarian Church, youth group leader told me
not to come to the high school youth group anymore because "surely you can't
see yourself still being friends with the group in a few years. These kids
will go to college together, marry each other, and it's time for you to be
with your own." What a surprise after starting Sunday School there at the
grand old age of three. This woman gave to the NAACP, was from New England,
was an ardent Kennedy supporter, and her head, not her hood, was pointed.

It's funny, but being jerked around at the Dairy Queen in K-Falls never
bothered me that much. I've been to towns in Eastern Washington where the
Indians eat at the outside benches at the restaurants because there is no
inside service. But nothing was so evil as the vipress liberal who years
later wanted me to get active in the Democrats because they were having an
outreach to "people of color!"