A Little Patch of Diversity : Crossing the hill in Eagle Rock can mean traveling to a different world, where ethnicity becomes an issue. And that’s a shame.

It doesn’t always have to be a big deal.

Usually, it is. In most places, it is. But not always.

What a shame that I had to relearn multiculturalism.

There is this chunk of Northeast Los Angeles called Eagle Rock. I grew up here. It’s not much to look at, this little four-mile-square area of fast-food joints, auto repair shops, groceries and houses. Most Occidental College students bemoan the fact that we’re located here.

Over a hill from Occidental is Eagle Rock Junior/Senior High School, where the issue of diversity never rests. Seventh-grade scrubs get ceiling-high lockers, ninth-graders get to run varsity and seniors who have been there six years are ready to leave. Yet what an uprooting it is.

I didn’t know anything about multiculturalism then. I didn’t need to.

At Eagle Rock High, Attendance sheets usually listed my name next to a “Chavez” or “Chen” and in front of a “Clarke.” My cross-country teammates, my advanced-placement classmates, my fellow thespians were Latino, Asian, Caucasian and African-American or a combination of these. Some of them would, on request, list the various ethnicities in their family tree. They weren’t ashamed of it. They were, in fact, a bit boastful. But when it came down to the running, writing or acting, it didn’t matter what color your skin was, unless it was green from running after a meal.

When I dated a white boy, I didn’t think that maybe he had an “Asian fetish.” When I did a scene for drama, I didn’t wonder, “Should I play this presumably Caucasian character?”

Then I came to Occidental.

First, it was the cross-country team. Just about everybody was blond, blue-eyed and long-legged. And then there was me. It was like throwing a black-haired Cabbage Patch kid into a throng of Kens and Barbies.

I would have thought little of it, except that then I tried to enter the theater department. Same deal. And could I get that chorus part in “Oklahoma!”? Could I play the role of the mother of a blond, blue-eyed character? Hardly.

Much of that situation may be attributable to my deficiencies as a performer. But not so with another theater major, who definitely had talent to match anybody else. Unfortunately, she was Chinese. Plum roles were never hers. Should the “look” for the part always overshadow ability? Even in a fairy tale?

The newspaper staff in my junior year was 95% Caucasian, too, and mostly male, at that. But there was a crucial difference. I found myself judged, not for what I looked like or where I came from, but what I did and who I was.

Kind of like in high school.

Ah, Eagle Rock High School, where I could date a Latino, a golden-haired Mormon, a Eurasian and a Filipino-Chinese-Spanish-Portugeuse-ian and never think once about a cross-cultural dating workshop. As if we even knew such things existed.

Now? I meet men who either have a rep for “liking Asian women,” or who, as Asians, get huffy because I’m not concerned with “keeping the race pure.”

I know that’s how it’ll be most places I go. I’ll always have to be aware of my ethnicity, even when it should be irrelevant. It can be my worst enemy and my best friend. People will make assumptions about me based on the double fold of my eyes and my flat nose. That could mean hostility, disrespect--or better chances at scholarships. Not necessarily a worthy advantage, but a real one.

I suppose it’s important and valuable, particularly in this day, age and city. But what a pity that the place where I grew up was an exception, not a rule.