Blogs: When diversity still had meaning

(From New York Daily News) Profound information arrives casually in America. My mother grew up in Texas under segregation and went to California with her parents in the mid-1930s. By the early '50s, when my younger sister and brother began going to school in Los Angeles, she made up her mind about something - and it predicted our nation today.

While there was a neighborhood black school, she did not send us there. The reason was clear to her: "The world is full of all kinds of people, and you all need to start meeting them right now," she said. The school she chose, the 28th Street Elementary School, was fully integrated.

It was after World War II, and one easily learned stereotypes about Asians, especially the Japanese. But that did not stop one from seeing how well Elizabeth Wu, Barbara Minato, Harry Quan and Alan Funo did in class and in sports. And in assemblies, we might see traditional Japanese dancing and hear tales of how it felt to be young and terrified in a fallout shelter while Hiroshima was devastated by a nuclear cloud.

We also celebrated Cinco de Mayo and had great fun beating open the piñata we had built together in class and suspended from the ceiling of our auditorium. Someone like Henry Ramirez, who was a good student and athlete, might invite you and your family to his home for a dinner of exotic Mexican food.

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