When Evelio Grillo said those words to me I felt like I might cry. He was speaking
about the barrier that persists between blacks and whites in this country.
Even though both our parents migrated here from Latin America-–his
from Cuba, mine from Colombia--and we exchanged a few words in Spanish
at the start of our interview, he told me that his identity as a black
man was the single most defining aspect of his life.
A dapper 85-year-old dressed in a powder-blue Guayabera shirt, Grillo spoke
candidly and cogently about his observations on race. Born in Tampa, Florida,
Grillo said the overt segregation his family encountered in the South differed
from the racism they left behind in Cuba. In America, Grillo would not dance
with a white woman until he was 25. He found himself steadily incorporated
into black America.
A defining moment in his life occurred when he was assigned to an all-black
army unit stationed in India during World War II. Under the leadership of
white officers, Grillo said he and other black soldiers were herded through
the jungle like cattle. He couldn’t wait to remove his uniform at the
end of his tour of duty. He said he has never claimed a single benefit as
a vet because his wartime service was so humiliating.
“You are not black. And I’m not white. So that is the biggest
reality in both our lives,” Grillo said simply and honestly, his voice
laced with grace. “You still don’t know me. And I don’t
know you. And we are stuck with that. I wish I could know you… and
you wish you could know me.”
Grillo said writing his book Black Cuban, Black American:
A Memoir, published
by Arte Publico Press in 2000, allowed him to confront the “unpretty” in
his life–-and in the process to find the beauty therein. As I sat in
his presence, listening to his life story, I felt moved by his wisdom. And
I realized that speaking truth–-and acknowledging the presence of the
barrier–-is perhaps the only way to overcome it.
During these past few days gathering stories at the “Art and Soul” festival
in Oakland, I’ve heard stories from the children of black sharecroppers
who moved to the Bay Area from Arkansas in the late 1940s, their lives immediately
improved by the promise of integrated schools, more than a decade before
the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.
I’ve heard stories from Jewish Americans, like Alexander Weiss and
Carol Ruth Silver, who in their early twenties risked their lives by traveling
to Jackson, Mississippi, as Freedom Riders and practicing the teachings of
nonviolence to help integrate public spaces. Weiss, who was born in Austria
and barely managed to escape the Holocaust, said he was determined not to
be one of those “who looked the other way.”
Many of those who shared their stories said they found their way to the
Bay Area because of its reputation for tolerance. To be sure, we have heard
stories of housing and job discrimination, and that is part of the fabric
of life here as well.
Following a day of interviews, I walked with my colleagues to Jack London
Square to catch a ferry boat to San Francisco to have dinner. On the way,
we stopped to enjoy the sounds of an Afro-Cuban band performing in the late
afternoon sun on a downtown Oakland street. Black men were dancing with white
women. I thought of Grillo and I smiled.
