secret asian girl: What secret asian girl is Reading

Mourner's Bench by Sanderia Faye

  February is Black History Month, so it seemed
appropriate that I picked up Mourner's Bench to
read when I was just finishing a display at work of
notable African-American novelists. This novel
takes place in a town I've never heard of, Maeby,
Arkansas in 1964, a year I was alive in. I have
very vague memories of school integration,
having attended public school in the 1960's and
70's but I do remember the people involved. My
elementary school was 99% white, and the only
Asians were my family: me, my sister and a
cousin. It was a time when we knew it was too
late to say "Negroes or colored people," and too
early to say, "African-American" so "Black"
seemed to stick, although hesitantly. We were not
unaware of the great social changes going on
around us, even if we didn't wholly understand
them. There was one black girl at my school,
Janice, the daughter of the school cafeteria lunch lady, and she was in my class. I saw how my white friends stayed a few steps away from her, even while seemingly accepting of me, despite my obvious differences. I was not yet "Asian" but "Oriental," the political incorrectness of which, I only recently had to explain to my now 87 year old mother. (I believe I am still a "Pacific Islander" on some government documents but that's another story). Anyhow, Janice and I got along easily, two odd birds finding comfort in our shared discomfort, but I had family and always wondered how isolated she must have felt. Middle School ended up being an urban mix of blacks and Mexicans, with a minority of White kids, and Orientals were (again!) mostly my family with a few probably distant relations. Interestedly, Janice gravitated away from the friends she'd made (or pretended to make) in elementary school and found commonality with black kids who were part of the desegregation busing experiment of the early 1970's here in the South. I completely understood Janice's need to be with people who shared her experience. After we changed schools we never spoke again, which saddened me.

In Mourner's Bench, while the story's background is the early school integration of black children into white schools, much of the conflict is within the main character, 8-year old Sarah, who is torn between the comfort of what she knows and the prospect, and danger, of the unknown. Like my mother's generation, Sarah's grandmother, Muhdea, is hesitant and fearful of change. Granny, Muhdea's mother, is also afraid for Sarah but it's a concern based on past experience, some of which was steeped in deep violence and hatred. Racism and intolerance are obviously not new problems and not likely to go away soon (if today's political climate is any indication) but the concept of "separate but equal" and "integration" were new back then. Sarah's idealistic, fair-weather mother, Esther, is a product of the new courage of the era but her elders have seen what happens to trail-blazers with no support and they are fearful. Most books that deal with this subject emphasize the strength and moral conviction of the characters. I was gratified to see that while there is that, there is also a side seldom seen: the grappling with reality, the courage but also the dread of repercussions. It was still a white person's world at the time and they were not the only group resistant to change. At some point, someone says, "The colored school is good enough," which is not so much statement of resignation but one of protection of their loved ones when the odds are not exactly in your favor. Esther has the confidence of the truly untested and is like a bulldozer when it comes to pushing her idealism on her family, leaving Sarah unsure which side to take. Change, especially the hard-won kind, comes neither easily nor without risk.

Norman Rockwell "The Problem We All Live With" 1963

I really enjoyed reading Mourner's Bench. I wasn't sure what a "mourner's bench" was exactly, so I had to look it up. I think Sarah was so anxious to sit on the bench not just to own her own sins but also to lay claim to her own life, not Esther's and not her family's. I loved the way the author described life in poverty stricken Arkansas, from the deeply religious devotion of the community, to collard greens and fat back smells to the crunchy gravel roads and the rare ice cream treats at the diner back door.

As I read, I couldn't help but picture Norman Rockwell's famous 1963 painting of 6-year old Ruby Bridges, as she walks, head held high, into the newly desegregated school in Mississippi, flanked by U.S. marshals, graffiti and thrown tomatoes staining the wall behind her. She's an icon, and a national symbol but I'm sure all she was worried about was making friends that day or keeping her dress nice, or trying to fit in. The innocent concerns of little girls everywhere. Girls like Sarah and...I suppose, like Janice, too.

Check out these other great blog stops on the tour!