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Offering Buddha a Coke Alice Fletcher University of North Florida University of North Florida UNF Digital Commons All Volumes (2001-2008) The sprO ey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry 2004 Offering Buddha a Coke Alice Fletcher University of North Florida Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/ojii_volumes Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons 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.
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