nwasianweekly.com
Mar. 29, 2008

We’re on the road to somewhere

After a fight that lasted 12 years and involved the Japanese American Citizens League, the Anti-Defamation League and the NAACP, not to mention countless individuals, the saga of “Jap Road” has come to a conclusion.

In 2004, the residents of Fannet, Texas, were ordered to rename their street. Originally named after Japanese immigrants Yoshio and Yasuo Mayumi, who taught the neighbors how to grow rice in the early 20th century, the name was coined as homage, according to local tradition.

However, while “Jap” might once have been acceptable shorthand for “Japanese,” the term became a serious ethnic slur, especially with the advent of World War II. Though residents of Jap Road fiercely resisted the name change on the grounds of preserving historical accuracy, many of their arguments only underscored the very attitudes civil rights activists felt the name “Jap Road” reflected.

Jap Road resident James Derouen told the Christian Science Monitor in 2004, “As far as what the Japs did to us in World War II, we have no animosity toward them.” Derouen offered this opinion as evidence that he and his neighbors were not racist. What Derouen actually betrayed, however, was his inability to distinguish between the Japanese soldiers of World War II and his fellow American citizens, contemporary Japanese Americans who were offended by the name.

These types of comments — another example is Wayne Wright’s question, “How can I be considered a bigot and a racist when I got a Puerto Rican son-in-law?” as quoted in the New York Times in 2004 — reveal that the residents who fought the name change had no interest in preserving history. The name they chose as replacement, Boondocks Road, further confirmed they were less interested in honoring the Mayumi Brothers or in historical accuracy than in stubbornly refusing to consider cultural accuracy or understanding.

The historical marker recently erected on March 12 tells the history of the area’s agriculture, with no mention of the name controversy.

However disappointing the new name “Boondocks Road” is, the historical marker will stand as tribute to the Mayumi Brothers and the contribution of all Japanese Americans in the area — even if one of those contributions has been, somewhat ironically, to erase reference to the Mayumi Brothers.

There are still plenty of racist names in the U.S. Mark Monmonier’s book “From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame” is entirely about such notorious place names and looks at such sites as “Niggershead Point” and “Chink’s Peak.”

Such places can easily be renamed to preserve the historical significance while eliminating the offensive terms. “Mayumi Road” would have been no less historically accurate but far more respectful.

Let’s continue to push for the revision, and improvement, of place names. After all, this is home to all of us now, not just to the ones who originally conferred these places with such names.

For more information and to see a photo of the historical marker, see Page 2.

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