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All Volumes (2001-2008) The sprO ey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry

2004 Offering Buddha a Coke Alice Fletcher University of North Florida

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Suggested Citation Fletcher, Alice, "Offering Buddha a Coke" (2004). All Volumes (2001-2008). 82. http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/ojii_volumes/82

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The sprO ey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry at UNF Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Volumes (2001-2008) by an authorized administrator of UNF Digital Commons. For more information, please contact Digital Projects. © 2004 All Rights Reserved Offering Buddha a Coke political, and economic relationships between Jacksonville’s black and white Alice Fletcher communities were defined first by slavery and then by years of legal segregation” Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Rosa DeJorio, (JCCI 2: 1992). The shift of Jacksonville Associate Professor of Anthropology from that of an agricultural society to that of an industrial/technological society has not Through my own life experiences significantly affected the system of class stratification that has been pervasive for so and also through observing those of others, I i have become sensitive to the conflicts and many years. “African-Americans will transformations that occur when widely encounter discrimination 58 percent of the dissimilar cultures come into contact. time they seek rental housing in Recently I have observed how the owners of Jacksonville, according to the draft report of Tom Ka Thai Restaurant*, where I have a study conducted by Jacksonville Area been working for about a year, have carved Legal Aid” (Schoettler 1998). Income and out a place for themselves -- a place to achievement gaps between blacks and negotiate new identities and meanings, whites continue to widen. Poor white within the dominant, northeast Florida students outperform wealthier black students culture that surrounds them. in most grades and some school board Tom Ka Thai Restaurant, located in officials as well as teachers and Jacksonville, Florida, is owned and operated administrators attribute this the fact that “the by a Southeast Asian couple. Located on quality education and its components are in the northeastern coast of Florida near the the predominantly white schools right now” Georgia border, Jacksonville is southern (Mitchell 1997). Though the city formally city, steeped in traditional white Anglo- desegregated its public spaces during the Saxon Protestant values. The area now Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the called Jacksonville used to be named city still maintains differential access to Cowford which points to its agrarian past. quality housing and educational Now one of the nation’s largest cities in land opportunities, as well as remaining quite area (841 square miles), Jacksonville is a segregated in its mentality. Desegregation financial center of Florida, home to a major has not necessarily meant integration. port, site of Navy bases, home of the NFL Jacksonville Jaguars, a Mayo Clinic medical Desegregation permits the center, a tourist destination because of its dominant culture to continue to beaches and various waterways, and home prevail “as is”. Those in the non- to over 700,000 residents dominant culture are “included” to (www.coj.net/pub/history.htm). Despite the the extent that they are able to shift in economy from that of a assimilate to the dominant culture. plantation/agricultural society to that of an Those who are unwilling to industrial city, it is still steeped in the assimilate are perceived as non- ideological system set up by the former conforming and tend to be plantation period. “As in most southern excluded from the cities in the United States, the social, mainstream….while the distinction between integration and

* All names in this paper are pseudonyms and were desegregation is of the utmost created to protect the privacy of the individuals and significance to blacks, many whites institutions involved. in Jacksonville are unaware of the Because of pressing economic reasons, Ati difference or its implications…The initially moved to Bangkok to work in a resulting miscommunication is textile factory in order to raise money to puzzling to well-intentioned whites send back to her family. Her village, like who believe that they live in an most villages in northeastern Thailand, is a “integrated” society and fail to rain-fed agricultural community that has understand why blacks seem increasingly been integrated into a global dissatisfied (JCCI 4: 1992). economy (Keyes 851). Keyes states that in northeast Thailand in 1980 “at least one- In addition to strictly economic and third of all villagers, male and female, over political factors, a clear division of races and the age of twenty… have found classes is still prevalent in Jacksonville supplementary temporary employment for partly because of this pervasive belief that several months to several years in Bangkok we are an integrated society. This ongoing or other urban centers” (Keyes 852). segregation and the pressure to assimilate According to Keyes, “[h]alf of all are endured not only by the American black households in 1980 would have to be population, but are also experienced by the judged, according to World Bank standards, growing number of immigrants to as having incomes below the poverty level” Jacksonville. A study released by the Center (Keyes 853). This has caused many villagers for Immigration Studies in October 2001 to leave their homes in pursuit of economic indicated that there were 10,720 legal stability elsewhere. immigrants who intended to settle in the It was in the early 1980s that Ati and Jacksonville metropolitan area between Loun left their home villages. They decided, FY’91-’98 (Jacksonville MSA Immigration independent of one another, that earning a Fact Sheet www.fairus.org). The Asian and livelihood meant immigrating to the United Hispanic immigrant population alone States. Ati initially lived and worked in accounts for 15.3% of the Duval County’s Texas with an aunt who sponsored her until population increase between 1990-2000; she got her own work visa. Ati and Loun apart from other ethnic immigrant groups met one another in South Carolina where that are moving into the city. The number of they were both working in a meat- immigrants to Jacksonville is steadily rising. processing factory. Their trajectory after this New cultural enclaves that did not exist in point remains vague to me, as they are both the early 90s are popping up around town. reluctant to divulge all of the details of their Places called Little Bosnia and Little India lives to me. I do know, however, that the have appeared in the Old South. It is in the quest for economic security has been the midst of this slowly changing city that the primary motivator behind all of their moves. owners of Tom Ka Thai find themselves I know that they ran an oriental foods store imbedded. outside of Atlanta, GA for years. They The wife (Ati) and husband (Loun) supported their two children with the income owners of Tom Ka Thai are originally from made from this venture. Through a network small agricultural villages along the Mekong of peers, however, they came to know about River in Laos and Thailand. The a more lucrative opportunity. A Thai agriculturally based villages that Ati and restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida was up Loun came from were impinged upon by for sale. They sold their house and their centralized states, and they are becoming store to Loun’s brother, and moved to increasingly affected by the world at large. Jacksonville with high hopes. Now the owners of Tom Ka Thai, Do you see how they eat together? Ati and Loun spend seven days a week in (She points discreetly). American the restaurant cooking, arguing, eating, families are so loving. My mother dealing with various bureaucracies, making never even says she loves me. She friends, and making money. They work to never even touches me or hugs support the lifestyles of their American-born me…I wish we could be like that. children and also to help their relatives back Like the Brady Bunch on T.V. you home. The service-oriented nature of their know? business forces Ati and Loun to interact with Misty often complains about her the dominant culture on a level that they parents’ lack of understanding. Ati often were previously unaccustomed to -- unlike complains about Misty’s “American” the way they interacted when they worked in ways. a chicken-processing factory in South “She [is] so messy. She [is] just like Carolina. To run a successful business, they her father. Just throw clothes all have had to become familiar with the city over her room. She [is] more like a and its cultural as well as economic man than a woman…When I [was] workings. New commodities transform their her age, I take care of myself. I consumer tastes, and mass media suggests to already a grown woman. I work in a them a wide array of “possible” lives factory and support my family. She (Appadurai 193). They have increasingly not even take care of herself. She learned the norms of the dominant society just play. She [is] not my daughter”. around them by virtue of the fact that their children are enrolled in the public school Ati’s ideal of feminine is that of a system, and by having to deal with phone demure, neat, and obedient girl. Ati and companies, real estate agents, landlords, and Loun also want Misty to be academically others. They must strive to meet the “criteria successful so that she can have “better lives of hypercompetence” that this new context than we have” and so that she can eventually demands in order to be successful take care of them when they are old. She, (Appadurai 205). their American born daughter, wants to be a On top of the influence that their carefree teenager with the stereotypical and dealings with various bureaucracies have most often imaginary “American” family of had on their lives, another ‘text’ from which the kind portrayed on television sitcoms. Ati, and Loun constantly derive new Instead, she has a scolding father and a information is the clientele of their physically non-affectionate mother, neither restaurant. Not only Americans of varied of whom she thinks really loves or ethnic backgrounds and classes frequent understands her at all. Ironically this inter- their restaurant but also recent immigrants generational conflict characterizes most from many ethnic groups. The effects that American families. The child rearing the dominant society has had on Ati and practices of Ati and Loun are different from Loun’s family life are evidenced by the what Misty perceives as being typical of the relationship that they have with their teenage “American way” she sees on television. daughter Misty. Misty once commented to They are more strict and disciplined, me about a white, American family that especially since she is their eldest child. came to eat at the restaurant. These conflicting expectations have no doubt put a strain on Misty and her parents’ relationship. My employers’ worldview has been come from. The Thai eggplant, watermelon, influenced and informed by the dominant peanuts, and basil are consistently eaten and American culture around them. Place and serve to fortify them (quite literally) with a geography played a large role in the sense of connection to the place from traditional communal life of Ati and Loun. whence they came. Both Ati and Loun take Place provides us with structure and the extreme pride in the foods that they cook. security of belonging. Place helps us to The fundamental element that forget our separateness and the world’s constitutes the bedrock of my bosses’ indifference to the plight of individuals identities and informs their lives, however, (Tuan 28). However, what is the nature of is Buddhism. Their continued religious locality, as a lived experience, in a devotion here in the U.S. has played a globalized, deterritorialized world? critical role in their adaptive process. In (Appadurai 196). What serves as the their new, transplanted locales, villagers stabilizing factor for Ati and Loun in their have attended more movies, seen more new transplanted locales? television, read more newspapers, and One element that serves as a looked at more shop displays than they ever stabilizing factor in lives of my bosses’ is have while resident in the village (Keyes their integration into extended kin networks 856). Despite this exposure to new throughout the US. Not only do “[r]efugees resources, and the partial adoption of tastes and immigrants use social networks to make and desires induced by US mass culture, their passage from homeland to host none of the new messages have produced a society,” as is evidenced by Ati’s Aunt fundamental challenge to their basic sponsoring her, but these same social Buddhist ontology. I find Buddhism to be networks are of central importance in the central to the lives of the owners of Tom Ka adaptation process (Hein 52). Ati and Loun Thai Restaurant, in faraway America. They are both part of a far-reaching expanse of wear Buddha icon necklaces and bracelets, relatives and friends who provide additional and they have two small altars where they support and cultural know-how to those who make offerings and observe Buddhist need it. Ati’s mother lives with the family holidays. Whenever they go back to and helps out around the restaurant. She is Thailand for their yearly visit, they make a often in the kitchen washing dishes or taking point to consult Buddhist monks for their care of Mikey, Ati and Loun’s son. Loun, an advice and for their prognostications for the incredibly social man, is often found at slow future. In numerous conversations, they periods in the shift resting at his fax phone, have informed me about such topics as beer in hand, gossiping on the phone with reincarnation and asceticism. To further his brother, his mother, or an assortment of illustrate my bosses’ dedication to friends and relatives. Though he works Buddhism, Loun informed me that when and seven days a week, he is still integrated into if the population of Thais and Laotians a network of friends via the telephone and increases in Jacksonville, he would be the through occasional visits. first in line to help them to build a temple. In addition to their kin networks, The Buddhism of Thailand and another key element in the structuring of Laosii teaches two basic forms of their identities is the foods that they prepare religious action: accumulation of merit for themselves to eat. The types of through good deeds, mostly for vegetables and meats that they prepare to eat laypersons, and attainment of wisdom are reflections of the geography that they (or enlightenment) through religious practices such as meditation, mostly for reduce their burden on society and priests and monks. The particular build up their own human capital – version of Buddhism to which my to be entrepreneurs of themselves bosses subscribe is Theravada (Ong 739). Buddhism. Theravada Buddhism does not view accumulation of wealth by the From firsthand experience, I see layperson as a hindrance to spiritual how, for Ati and Loun, their jobs are development. On the contrary, quintessential to the construction of their ownership of material goods is a sign of identity. In their restaurant, they not only one’s good karma from a past life. demonstrate their ability to provide for their Also, being wealthy enables one to family (not only their nuclear family but redistribute wealth back to his/her local also their extended kinship networks village by making donations to the scattered throughout the U.S. and their temple to support monks and to help the families back in their home countries), but poor. This differs from a school of they have also literally become Buddhism such as Zen, which many “entrepreneurs of themselves”, generating a Americans are familiar with, in that it successful Thai image to the patrons of their does not especially promote spiritual restaurant. enlightenment or “Buddha-hood” as a The Thai image about which I speak possible goal for all followers in this is relayed to the customers in a very life time. Theravada is more concerned organized manner, exerting a similar power with moral precepts and right livelihood and authority over the customers’ for the ordinary layperson. imagination as a museum layout would have How Buddhists realize the religious over a patron to a museum. Their restaurant goals of merit making and detachment is an effective filter for their experience. in accord with their own life situations The dynamics of their interaction with the and with reference to the variety of texts dominant society around them is structured (movies, television, newspapers, shop and is reflected directly in the actual displays, etc.) that they have read may physical layout of their restaurant. differ, but all would still agree that The outermost “layer” of the these goals are fundamental to their restaurant contains brightly colored lives (Keyes 857). The high value paraphernalia, lush plants, and ‘exotic’ attached to meritorious deeds, for decor. This outer area serves as an attractive example, contributes to a distinctive buffer to hold the attention of the patrons Buddhist “work ethic”, and this work and serves as a shield behind which my ethic serves my employers well within bosses navigate. The inner, more utilitarian the Protestant, capitalistic framework in section of the restaurant is towards the rear which they find themselves in America of the restaurant where there is the cash – a place where there is a register, the drink preparation area, the human-capital assessment of kitchen, the storage room, the restrooms, citizens – weighing those who can and a table at which employees sit and chat pull themselves up by their and eat. It is in the back where the Buddhist bootstraps against those who make altars are. Though rather ornate and claims on the welfare state. colorfully adorned, these altars are not for Increasingly citizenship is defined decorative purposes. They are a place to as the civic duty of individuals to offer money, fruits, and drinks to Buddha. Ati regularly changes out the water in cups them and thereby a part of Thai/Laotian on the altar, and keeps the altar clean. The culture begins to emerge. altars are, therefore, not just static Occupying this ideological as well as decorations on the wall. They are alive and physical structure of the restaurant are are incorporated into the lives of Ati and waiters of Asian descent like me who run to Loun. and from the rear area to the outer seating The heart of the entire restaurant, area. My employers hire intermediaries like however, lies in the kitchen. This is where me who are able to relate to both the outside the crucial dynamics of the restaurant world of the clientele and the inside world of transpire. In the back of their restaurant the the kitchen where Asian television programs owners maintain their own set of rules are received from a satellite, where foods are concerning human relations and etiquette served that are not on the menu, where Thai norms. The television set is constantly and Laotian, not English, reign supreme, and blaring Thai soap operas, the news, an where no compromises are made. assortment of comedy & variety shows, and My bosses do not hire prospective concerts of Thai pop stars. Here the food employees solely on the basis of their Asian prepared is much spicier than what is ancestry. They also assess the character of offered on the menu, and it uses a larger prospective employees. An example of a variety of vegetables and sauces. The Thai person possessing character traits that they language is spoken assertively, and loud. seek is Mei, their star waitress, who has Ati and Loun argue just as loud and as been working for them for almost since the heartily as they laugh. They joke about each time that they entered the restaurant business other’s shortcomings as they cut vegetables, two years ago. Mei has been the prevailing wrap the egg rolls, and stir the curry base. image for their restaurant. She is an Whenever friends and relatives come to international student from Hong Kong who visit, it is not in the outer area where they sit knows almost every customer by name and and talk, but rather they all congregate in the her image is agreeable to many of the kitchen. The further into the layers you go, customers. She exemplifies the “model the better you are able to see distinctions. minority” (Ong 741). She works, is soon to Their perceived authentic self can find fuller graduate from UNF, has a promising expression in the back where there are no internship lined up with a local graphics colorful decorations – just the people design firm, loves to shop for brand name themselves. Their nuances and their fashions, and has mastered formal American differences are evident. They are no longer a speech as well as slang and colloquialisms. collective “Thai” other, but rather a group of “[H]uman capital, self-discipline, and individuals, each with his own personality consumer power are associated with quirks, strengths, and flaws. The front area whiteness, [and] these attributes are holds the customers’ attention and satisfies important criteria of nonwhite citizenship in their need for the exotic. In the back, Western democracies” (Ong 739). She is however, things are genuinely different and agreeable and at the same time possesses more complex. The core of the culture just the right amount of exotic “Otherness” resides in the people, not in the pillowed as revealed in her accent, her point-of-view, booths upon which the customers sit. As one and her accounts of her childhood gradually penetrates the layers of the experiences. Through the image she restaurant and finally approaches Ati and presents, Mei validates that this restaurant is Loun themselves, a clearer understanding of authentically Asian, but at the same time she also does not jeopardize the customers’ obviously not good for business, so the “comfort level” and does not deviate beyond owners leave such situations to my fellow “permissible liberal norms” of behavior waiters and me to resolve. Waiters like me (Ong 740). It is she whom the customers are the go-betweens who bring back know, and it is she who provides the image accounts of what we see and interpret the for our restaurant. facts of what is going on in the outside The bosses of the restaurant remain section of the restaurant. We help them to virtually unknown to the ordinary stream of mediate or manage situations of conflict customers, though it is they who actually run within the microcosm of the restaurant. the restaurant. This does not mean that they Within the domain of their own kitchen the stay just in their own comfortable little niche owners can assess what is being related to in the back of the restaurant, but they do not them by their waiters, and then make a extend their hand to customers unless they decision. In this restaurant, the waiters have are people that they have come to know and assumed the unofficial role of cultural trust. Gaining the trust of the restaurant translator. owners is a lengthy process. To those whom Transferal of information occurs in they do befriend, they are extremely other places besides the kitchen area. Each generous, showering them with three course shift has a communal meal during which meals, and plenty to drink. They do not bosses, kitchen help, and waitresses come possess the same type of cultural capital together to eat and talk about the state of (language skills, American norms of things in their lives. During the meal a wide etiquette, etc.) that Mei has acquired, and so range of topics is discussed, such as hopes, prefer to let her deal with the customers that funny things that happened, the news, gossip they do not know. about each other, gossip about customers, Through the employment of people the practicalities of getting visas, driver with whom they can establish rapport and licenses, savings bonds, etc. At this time exchange and discuss ideas, they are able to institutional navigation techniques are acquire “cultural capital” and therefore shared. This is where information is shared, competence in their dealings with American discussed, offered, refuted, and reorganized. people and institutions. The importance of As well as being a means of gaining employees like Mei and me can be seen in information, Ati and Loun’s restaurant the few confrontations that my bosses have serves as a forum by which they can partly had with customers. What usually happens control their own image and expression of is that a customer will complain to my themselves. It is a place where they can bosses directly about a certain type of food. gain cultural capital, but it also allows them My bosses resolutely tell them that they will to provide a certain type of information to not exchange the dish or give back the others. Much like a museum, Tom Ka Thai customer’s money. In their minds they think preserves and promotes certain ideologies. that a stranger does not have the right to The museum as well as the ethnic restaurant criticize their food and should not be both presents opportunities for the allowed to cheat them. They do not operate individual to be educated. The authority and on the same ‘return policy’ that you find authenticity of both enterprises are not almost everywhere in the US. They take usually questioned. Audiences believe in the “returns” personally and perceive such authority of museums as adequate relaters of demands as a questioning of their the subject matter exhibited (Anderson 163). competence. These confrontations are A museum, then, is an institution of power. How things are spatially arranged within a encounter with the society around them. Ati museum, and the point of view from which a and Loun do not want to interact with most photograph is shot guide the audience of the clientele. In working there I have had understands of reality. In much the same to endure all manner of ethnocentrism. One way, the customers of the restaurant believe way in which this underlying fear of the in the authenticity of what they see around foreign is exposed is when people ask them, because they have nothing to questions about the ingredients of the food, contradict their experience. The non-Thai and how the food is prepared. On more than customers of the restaurant, by virtue of the one occasion, people accuse us of putting fact that most of them have not been strange ingredients in their food. regularly exposed to Thai people or their culture, cannot make a distinction between I don’t want any dog in my food, that which is static, and merely for you hear? decorative purposes, and that which is actually alive. The customer accepts the As well as outright racism, there is whole package. Like the museum layout, just plain ignorance on the part of the Tom Ka Thai restaurant has the ability to customers. An example of this is found influence the patron’s sense of reality and when people order Thai dishes and asks for promote a certain version of Thai culture. deletion of many of the key ingredients that In the eyes of the dominant society make it Thai cooking in the first place. around them, Ati and Loun seem to be a Some of the dishes cannot be made without successful couple running a beautifully curry, Thai eggplant, basil, or hot peppers. decorated restaurant with wonderful Thai Also, many people do not even know where cuisine. Their restaurant was even chosen Thailand is and oftentimes expect us to above all the other Thai restaurants in town serve Chinese food. Many times people to be featured in Jacksonville Magazine. think Tom Ka Thai serves Taiwanese food, Through the institution of the ethnic because of the phonetic similarities of restaurant, Ati and Loun demonstrate their Thailand and Taiwan. economic viability as American citizens. As well as being a site of contention They are successful economically, as is between the host society (Jacksonville, FL) evidenced by the fact that within the last and the foreigner (Ati and Loun), Tom Ka year, they have purchased a brand new Thai has also served, in a few rare instances, SUV, a Lexus, and a house in a suburban as a platform for positive exchange and neighborhood. Ati regularly shows up with meaningful dialogue between the two new jewelry of real gold, diamonds, and different parties. It is at this sensitive jade. They are doing financially better than juncture point wherein Ati, Loun, and the they ever have been, and have been able to host society have the opportunity to learn send generous amounts of money back to about each other. At certain points in time, I their home villages, sometimes even have seen Ati and Loun befriend customers supporting extremely distant relatives. I and ask them to come and dine and talk with remember one instance in which they sent them in the kitchen. It is from these friends money to a second cousin who they never that they learn the best place to fish, or buy even met. luggage, or just in general get to know Though an effective mechanism, the Jacksonville better. At the same time, I have restaurant’s filtration method is also seen some customers walk away from their indicative of the problems that my bosses’ dining experience at Tom Ka Thai armed with new information that they got by dropped out of school and attempted suicide. talking to Ati behind the cash register, or Meanwhile, Ati and Loun have just recently talking with Mei when she served them gotten divorced. Upon closer inspection, food. At certain times, both parties are their lives are fragmented to the point of engaged in meaningful cross-cultural falling apart. dialogue. The very fact that Tom Ka Thai is While the restaurant serves to situate a point of conflict that exposes both parties’ Ati and Loun and define the parameters of lack of understanding about one another their lives, providing them with useful means that it is can also be a powerful locale information and “resources – economic, wherein meaningful transformations of social, and cultural – that dilute the stress of understanding can occur. living in an alien environment,” they still Generally, however, Ati and Loun do feel profound frustration and a lack of not go out of their way to interact with competence in their lives due mainly to the customer. Their feelings of alienation are fact that they have very few English most often expressed in outbursts of anger. speaking skills (Stoller 673). This They explode when other waitresses and I contributes greatly to a sense of low self- bring back accounts of what a certain esteem for Ati and Loun, and even further customer said or did. One day after enduring isolates them from the dominant society a story of some disgruntled and picky around them. customer, Loun screamed within hearing As is evidenced by my research over range of the customer, a two-year period, financial achievement is not the only decisive factor in how well an If you ever see [them] again, immigrant family adjusts to an alien you tell them to GO HOME!!!! environment. This does much to debunk the concept of the “American Dream” and They do not feel that they would be makes us question Ong’s criterion for understood or accepted by most American “citizenship” quoted earlier in this paper. In clientele. They also feel shunned by tandem with the ability to make money, the American institutions. For example, when immigrant must also be competent in Ati and Loun’s house got broken into by dealing with the host society. In a foreign thieves, they called the police and the police environment, “the key to psychological never even responded to their call. They well-being may well be the ability to attributed this to the fact that they are Asian. develop and maintain competence in both As mentioned earlier in the paper, they cultures. The more a person maintains active prefer to let their employees interact with and functional relationships by alternating the customers. They are very dependent on between cultures, the less difficult acquiring their workers to provide them with and maintaining competency in both information and help. They increasingly use cultures will be” (Damji, Clement, and their daughter as a mediator between Noels 494). Ati and Loun’s failure to themselves and the bureaucratic world and integrate into the dominant society around the world of their restaurant clientele. them is, therefore, due not only to the host Though they are gaining financially, Ati society’s general ignorance about minority and Loun are losing emotionally. This is and foreign groups, but also to the lack of evidenced by the fact that within the period competence that Ati and Loun have in their that I have been working on this paper new locales. While their restaurant was a (about two years), Ati and Loun’s daughter key device and strategy for their adaptation process, in this case, it did not prove to be enough for successful establishment of a new life in a foreign culture. Without reforms in public policy, Jacksonville will continue to have a narrow scope of inclusion, thereby making the lives of future immigrants to the city that much harder.

Postnote

Antagonism towards that which is “foreign” is not only common to Jacksonville however. Growing up half Japanese/half white American, I myself have been the target of racism throughout the various places that I have lived in the United States. Examples include being called Ching-Chong in Tennessee or while living in Massachusetts, getting beaten up in second grade by a fifth grader while I was walking home. He accused me of “bombing Pearl Harbor” as he pummeled me and threw me into the snow.

i For further information on this matter, I suggest reading “An Introduction to the History of Jacksonville Race Relations” by James B. Crooks which I found at (www.jcci.org/racehistory.htm). ii For further information on this subject, read “Continuity and Change in the Economic Ethics of Buddhism: Evidence From the History of Buddhism in India, China, and Japan” by Gregory K. Ornatowski. This article was found at (www.ccdev.lets.net/materials/ethicsofbuddhism.htm l).