I was called both a shiksa and a raving Zionist

Growing up in the US, I was told the man who lived in the house behind my family was a veteran. I am not sure if this was to make me feel reassured, or to say something about the US military, or to add some context about his belief system.

This man was somehow obsessed with my family. Not so much the whole family perhaps, but my parents. My dad, because he was Jewish and my mom, because she was Asian.

Neither of these things were good things to him, it turned out. His porch faced our backyard, looking into our kitchen, where we sat for meals or to do homework. I would look out over the kitchen table, across our back deck, over the backyard play equipment, and over the rise to his deck, where he would be sitting. Watching. Just watching, if we were lucky.

Sitting, watching, with a shotgun in hand, if we were less lucky.

To him, I learned, Jews were no good because they owned the world, and Japs were no good because they were taking everything away. Both were not part of the American way of life. That was why he was watching us. We were not part of the American way of life.

My parents found this whole situation understandably unacceptable. They told us to stay away from that house, closed the curtains and asked me to keep quiet in the backyard. But to pre-teen me, this was also unacceptable. I was born there. I went to school, had friends, and played sports (albeit badly). We lit fireworks in the street on the fourth of July. I was embedded in the American way of life.

I thought I could show him that I could be Jewish, Japanese and American too. Taking my friend Rachel with me (because she was two years older than me), I feigned courage and found the way around to the neighbour’s house. Rachel, sensibly, was uncertain that this whole adventure was a good idea.