gotohealth's Blog

 Carlos Navaro, his wife Rosa and their three children invited me to visit in their home. Carlos is from Mexico and lives in Quincy, Washington, a small town 150 miles east of Seattle.

 

Driving from evergreens to sage brush, from Seattle to Quincy to find stories connected to our Japanese heritage experience, I couldn’t help but remember my Japanese Immigrant Grandpa K. In the 1960s. He got so excited to bring his friends and relatives from Japan over the Cascade mountains and Snoqualmie Pass to show them the vastness of America and the farms that spread for miles, providing the very entrepreneurial Japanese immigrants the opportunities to get ahead in life. 

 

The Navaro family was excited to talk about my brother-in-law, Fred Goto, who lived next door. Rosa said, “I always waved out my kitchen window every day, making sure Fred was okay.”  

 

Carlos mowed Fred’s lawn the last three years before Fred passed in 2023 at age 92. After Fred died, Carlos continued to mow the lawn until the family sold the house several months later. I asked Carlos, “What is it in your up-bringing and culture that taught you to help your neighbors.”

 

Carlos immediately answered, “Where I’m from, we say ‘hello’ and greet everyone, even strangers. If anyone needs a bed for the night, we invite them into our home. My parents invited this person into our home when I was young and he’s the one who later sponsored me to come to Quincy.”  Carlos and Rosa met in Quincy and want an American education for their children who say they want to become doctors.

 

Carlos also explained, “Fred waved when we moved here and we began having conversations.” 

 

Now, I know why Fred, in our conversations in his later years, raved to me about how he admired the Mexican culture and their family ways.

 

Research is confirming the importance of neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend, in-person conversations. Story sharing leads to personal fulfillment and contributes to a better Washington State. I asked Carlos’s high school daughter, Valeria, if she would be willing to write their story for OMOIDE VII. She has agreed. 

 

OMOIDE writers, in the last 30 years, have published books with personal stories of dealing with discrimination, incarceration and hardships with resilience. OMOIDE VII seeks stories of those who helped each other during hard times that SPREAD RIPPLES OF COMPASSION AND KINDNESS.

 

Going further to Eastern Washington, I found great conversations in Moses Lake and Spokane,. “Doing what’s right”, “Hard Work”, “Not showing off”, “Doing what’s good for the community”, “TAKING CARE OF FAMILY”; are words I kept hearing about the Japanese Immigrants, their children. Honoring those that helped them in the greater community was never forgotten.

 

The 1980 US census was analyzed by the Washington State Department of Education in 1990. Those with Japanese Heritage were at the top in per-capita income and white collar jobs. It is because of their “Japanese Heritage Values”. I want these stories to motivate listeners and readers of these stories as the OMOIDE VII books are distributed to school libraries around our State, Starting with 12-yr-olds, I want stories that will inspire them to help their neighbors and wave to strangers.