San Leandro is a small suburb of about 70,00 people, outside of San Francisco, right next to Oakland in Northern California. It lays claim to a few distinctions. It is the Sausage Capitol of California. It is the home of Rice-A-Roni – even though Rice-A-Roni is advertised as "The San Francisco Treat.”And it was profiled by a piece on CBS in the late 60's as being one of America's most racist cities.
San Leandro was (is?) my home town.
Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, being a minority wasn't too much fun for most minorities in San Leandro. One African American family had a cross burned on their lawn. When a family that was not Caucasian was planning to move into another part of town, neighbors would conspire to buy the home themselves. Others were looked down upon simply because they were working class and people called them "Oakies." Though San Leandro was “The Cherry City” and prided itself on being friendly and welcoming, it wasn’t as friendly when it came to its residents who were different.
As for our family, we were definitely different and certainly part of a minority - but not like any of the other minorities in town. Our parents were deaf. We didn't "speak" another language so people could identify us by the sounds of Spanish or Tagolog. When we walked into stores, we “spoke” in American Sign Language. Sometimes our parents, in an attempt to be like hearing people, tried to speak, but most times, we all conversed quietly, with only the small grunts that my parents occasionally made and swish of the hands in the air to break the silence. It was all very fast and stealthy. And it was great when you wanted to talk about someone who was standing right there who didn’t understand sign. But more of that in another posting. In any case, there were definitely not like very many people like our parents in San Leandro. People didn't quite know what to make of us.
We were also Jews. Because San Leandro was primarily Catholic and Protestant, being Jewish meant you got of anti-Semitic remarks. My PE teacher often called me "the roly- poly Matzah Ball." And there were definitely weird looks when I took out Matzah for lunch when it was Passover time. But there was sanctuary (pun intended) from the remarks I got and stares. It was in Temple Beth Sholom. It was San Leandro's only Jewish synagogue. It stood right in the center of town and was rather modest and respectable, as conservative congregations went. It was where every Jewish kid in San Leandro and Hayward went to get Bar Mitzvahed or to attend Sunday school in the 1960’s. Though Jews were definitely a minority in San Leandro, Temple Beth Shalom allowed them to feel as if they belonged someplace. That worked for most members of Temple Beth Sholom, but again, we just had to be different from everyone else!
We were also Sephardic Jews- Jews who hailed from Southern Europe. We didn't speak Yiddish like everyone at Temple; we spoke Ladino, a form of ancient Spanish. Jews who spoke Spanish? My friends assumed we were Mexican. We didn't eat brisket, bagels or Kugel either. We ate baklava and fassoulia. Someone once asked me if we were Greeks. And I wasn’t fair skinned like temple members that came from Eastern Europe. I was dark and swarthy. If you look at my baby pictures, you’d actually think I born a black child. Well, at least I didn't burn quickly in the summertime.
We were just very different. And being different, we attracted other temple members who were really different.
One Jewish couple in particular -- I can't quite remember their name -- lived on Oakie Hill. Oakie Hill was the unincorporated part of San Leandro just above our house. The place probably got its name from the people who moved there from Oklahoma during the Depression (thus the name, "Oakies"). But more than likely the name came from the fact that most people who lived on Oakie Hill were just poorer than everyone else in San Leandro. And being that San Leandro was a racist town that it was, the term was likely applied as a means to stereotype anyone who lived there. We didn't think much of it but we never really saw any other members of the temple hanging out with them. But we continued to say hello to them when we saw them at the grocery store and we didn’t even mind sitting next to them in the back of the temple when no one else would.
The most distinctive thing about the couple was that they drove the biggest, oldest Lincoln Continental - black. People probably thought they were undertakers. Many years later when I moved to New York, I also realized they reminded me of a couple I might have seen living on Chrystie Street or Hester Street on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. They were older, probably in their seventies and they always wore black clothes. The husband was portly and was never without his hat. The wife was usually nicely coiffed but wore clothes that were definitely from another era. The wife also wore the thickest glasses I had ever seen. They were tinted blue - not like sunglasses - but as somehow prescription glasses because she might have had a problem with sunlight. And they both spoke with heavy accents. It sounded as if they were Eastern European but their speech was delivered in a cheery, high pitched fashion. It was as if Borat married Minnie Mouse and they had kids. Different indeed. But we liked them.
One day around Passover, we were riding with our parents in our Sky Blue Chevrolet Biscayne, my brother was probably playing on the dashboard beneath the back window waving to people behind us and I was playing with the hole in the floor that allowed me to see the pavement whizzing past below. I remembered we pulled up to a light and waited for it to change when suddenly, my brother and I heard a horn honk. Right next to us was the black Lincoln Continental, idling noisily. And inside were our friends in black from temple and they were waving hello to us. My brother and I got our parents’ attention and excitedly waved back.
Then our friends in the Continental motioned for our parents to roll down the window so they could talk to them. (They never seemed to get it that our parents were deaf). Instead, I rolled down the back window and shouted hello. With a cheery smile as she pushed up her dark glasses closer to her eyes as if she wanted to see us more clearly, the wife leaned around her portly husband and shouted out in her loudest Eastern European accented voice, "Happy Happy Han-oo-kah! Happy Eas-tah!" He husband nodded in agreement.
It was neither holiday.
Hanukkah was months away and Easter wasn’t a Jewish holiday. But we didn't really mind. They were being friendly to us swarthy deaf types and we were happy to talk to anyone who wanted to talk to us. Birds of a feather, you know.
They remained there smiling and waving, even when the light changed to green and we drove away. That was the last time I remember seeing them, but from that point on, no matter what holiday it was - Jewish, Christian or secular – my brother and I would intone "Happy Han-oo-kah! Hapy Eas-tah!" We’d do it on Yom Kippur. We’d do it on Passover. We even do it on Christmas. And we definitely did it on Easter and Hanukkah.
And we do it to this day. I'd like to think that we do it because it was part of our interesting childhood, of growing up Jewish and Sephardic with deaf parents in San Leandro. If kids made faces at us because our parents talked differently or laughed because we ate Matzahs or that our friends were different, our parents taught us that it didn't matter; though we were minority, within a minority, within a minority, we were definitely not minor - by any means. At least that's what they implied with their cheery smiles when we lamented that people were staring at us in the grocery store. With their carefree attitude, they wanted us to understand that we were unique. And because we were unique, we were cool. It's an attitude my brother and I carry around to this day and one which for which I am forever thankful. How else could we have dealt with living in such a strange land of white skies and rock gardens that was San Leandro?
So if you see me on the street this holiday season, you could say "Happy Holidays" or "Peace" or "Happy New Year." But I'd love it if you'd say "Happy Han-oo-kah! Happy Eas-tah!" instead. Just to be unique. Just to be cool. Just to be different.
Happy Hanukkah, day three.
655Jack
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