REJECTIONS

It happened personally in 1955, my junior year of high school, as part of my own ethnic group of 12 or 15 of us who were the Japanese/Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF), in Ontario, Oregon, population 5000. After the WWII unjust mass rejection of Japanese in America, we continued to socialize within our own Japanese community as we started over. There was also a Buddhist church and Japanese Community Hall. Ontario’s Mayor, unlike other Idaho/Oregon communities near the Minidoka incarceration, was receptive of 800 or so Japanese choosing Ontario to starting over.

Jane had been elected president and I was a church friend of Jane, so that was likely why I had been elected vice-president. Then, Jane’s family moved back to their West Coast Watsonville, CA, homestead, and a few of the kids were objecting to my being moved up to the presidency. Reverend Fujimori’s son, Paul, was part of my high school class.

I was five years older than my sister and the rest of my seven cousins living in Ontario were even younger. My mom had depression and was sick all the time. My father was not a social climber and we were very very poor. I worked all my free time, clerking at my uncle’s grocery store and gave my money to Dad. I had also skipped fourth grade and was younger than my high school classmates. Jane was just plain nice and my same age, but she was a sophomore and lived way out on their farm. Telephone service was a party line with a central operator monitoring calls. Therefore, I had no one sharing with me about how to dress, style my hair nor have social adequacy girl talks.

On this one Sunday afternoon, the MYF meeting was convened in the basement of the church and as the meeting got started, Reverend took me aside and escorted me out the door saying, “Wait out here!” And he closed the door. The door was at the bottom of a few outside concrete steps and had a glass window in the top half of the door. I could see the Reverend and kids talking. It wasn’t cold, but I felt cold and I felt a confirmation that I was not favored. I could slightly hear Reverend scolding the group and telling them about Robert’s Rules of Order and how they needed to accept the fact that I had been elected to the position and how they should be courteous.

The recollectionI still leaves tenseness in my neck and shoulders, but college dorm living with experiences in a sorority, a great marriage, raising children, running a successful home-business for 48 years, writing and connecting “waters my roots”. Today 2025 and 75 years later, that “rejection memory” keeps me modest and is part of who I am that can serve our greater American community. And there is my deeper “inner child”, inside me, that regularly needs loving and acceptance every day as I seek contentment and fulfillment!