Black Women Forge Ties With Japan

The setting was simple, the talk was plain, the warm hospitality was quintessentially black, female and culturally Southern--despite the Los Angeles location--and the food was catered by an outfit known as the Ghetto Gourmet.

The women from Japan seemed to love it.

But there were tense moments at the start.

“Is Japan really anti-racist?” demanded a reporter for the Los Angeles Sentinel, the largest black-owned newspaper in the West. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone “insulted blacks all across this country,” when he said they, as well as Puerto Ricans and Mexicans were dragging down the intellectual level of the United States, the reporter told them.

‘Slip of the Tongue’

It must have been “a slip of the tongue,” replied Iyoko Yamada, part of the three-woman delegation representing the International Women’s Education Assn. of Japan.

Seated in the Los Angeles office of their hosts, the National Council of Negro Women, Yamada and the other women said they were “unaware of the comments,” but “they think it’s a shame to say that.”

In America, Yamada said, speaking through an interpreter, “Japanese are also considered to be a minority. So we have to fight together for the women’s position.”

The Sentinel reporter wanted to press the point, but Lois Carson, one of the council’s national vice presidents, intervened. “On behalf of the national president (Dorothy Height) . . . we hope that what we do will express, more than anything, what we are.”

With that, the IWEA delegation was whisked to the main room of the council’s Crenshaw District office, where the aroma of the Ghetto Gourmet’s assemblage--a rich, gumbo-like dish made with macaroni rather than rice--filled the air.

The IWEA delegation, which has the imprimatur of Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, especially wanted to meet with representatives of the council, said Yamada. It is “one of the most important women’s organizations in America,” she explained, “and we want to learn as much about its history as possible.”

One of Three Groups

Yamada said her delegation is one of three visiting various regions of the United States, and will report to the prime minister after the 25-day tour.

And she noted that “of course we will use the information to improve our own organization,” which was founded in 1971, is based in Tokyo, has 800 members in 10 cities and is dedicated to improving women’s education in Japan and increasing their knowledge and understanding of international issues.

The council itself, Carson told them, was born of networking.

“On Dec. 5, 1935, our founder, Mary McLeod Bethune called together 18 (black) women’s organizations and said to them ‘We have no voice. Our organizational structure in this country does not permit us to speak with one voice, and, therefore, we have no power and no authority to impact national issues and national leaders,’ ” Carson told them.

Bethune “enjoined them to form a council, saying that ‘If I touch you with one finger, you may not know you’ve been touched. If I touch you with two, you still may not know. But if I roll my fingers into one fist, I can deal a mighty blow.’ ”

Bethune “was ahead of her time,” Carson said. She founded Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona, Fla., advised three Presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, and was director of minority affairs for F.D.R.’s National Youth Administration.

A Lone Monument

The only monument to a woman in the nation’s capital, Carson told them, is the one of Bethune erected in Washington’s Lincoln Park in 1974.

Though eager to impress their guests on their Nov. 3 visit, the council’s local leadership also wanted to present a realistic picture of black life in Los Angeles.

“That’s why we are not having a luncheon for them at the Hyatt,” said Meda Chamberlain, executive director of the council’s Southern California district. And though the setting of the mostly brown meeting room was plain, when the Ghetto Gourmet’s assemblage was served to 50 or so guests, the place took on the atmosphere of a Sunday supper at grandma’s Baptist church.

At meal’s end, more than one member of the council was seen hugging members of the Japanese delegation.

And during a tour of black Los Angeles--the Watts Tower, the well-to-do neighborhoods of Baldwin Heights and Baldwin Vista and the Crenshaw shopping district--the Japanese women were quick and gentle attendants to several older black women who had difficulty getting in and out the van at each stop.

Alberta Mable Kearney, 67, who used a walker for support, stayed in the van most of the trip. But she was where she wanted to be, right next to the Japanese women. She even missed her ride back to Perris, near Riverside, to spend extra time with them. And she didn’t know how she was going to get back home that night.

A Personal Debt

“Meeting these women is a once in a lifetime experience,” Kearney said. She had a very personal reason for wanting to meet them, as well.

“I feel a debt of gratitude to the Japanese who were so kind and gracious to my family,” after her cousin, international volleyball star and Olympian Flo Hyman, died suddenly during a match in Japan two years ago. Hyman was the victim of Marfan Syndrome, a congenital heart disease that caused a ruptured aorta.

The Japanese team for whom she played “defrayed all the funeral expenses, paid for the catering of all the food after the funeral and the members of the team were here for the funeral,” Kearney said.

She knows, however, that the perception of Japan as a racist nation has been widening in the American black community in the last two years.

Other Incidents

Besides Nakasone’s remarks, for which he apologized, a leading Japanese politician, Michio Watanabe, told a political meeting last summer that American blacks have no qualms about going bankrupt. Soon after, it was reported that Japanese stores were using black mannequins with highly exaggerated racial features, and that one company was distributing in Japan a line of toys and beachwear that feature a “Sambo” figure, also with exaggerated racial features. The manufacturer has since apologized.

At the same time, blacks have become increasingly angry about the seeming willingness of Japanese corporations to expand trade with South Africa, steping in to fill the void left by American and European companies that have divested. Japan is now South Africa’s leading trading partner.

Things have gotten so bad, black political leaders have discussed the possibility of boycotting Japanese products.

Officials in the Japanese Embassy in Washington are worried by the worsening relations with the U.S. black community, and have asked Tokyo to take action to stem what they see as the growing racist image of Japan.

But Kearney, a community activist in Perris for 20 years, believes a little human contact can make a world of difference.

Her family was among the first to befriend Vietnamese refugees who were relocated to Perris from Camp Pendleton in the late 1960s.

Her son brought several young Vietnamese home, she recalled. Kearney told them she’d like to meet their mothers. “The next day there were about five mothers and 15 or 20 young people who came to my house.” No one spoke the other’s language.

But Kearney pulled some fish out of the ice box, told her daughter to chop up some vegetables for a salad and put an apron on one of the women then gave her a pot and some rice. The young Vietnamese started “pulling condiments out the cabinet,” then they all sat down to eat.

“Many of those young people are grown and have children. Though they’ve moved away, some come often to visit me.”

Kearney is now raising money to build a black museum in Perris and the Flo Hyman International Peace Center, which she hopes will promote interethnic and interracial understanding.