Chopsticks, Forks and Knives. The Inequality at My Dinner Table
STRAINED
Personal essays by Caribbean Americans whose food legacies have been interrupted.
Chopsticks, Forks And Knives.
The Inequality at My Dinner Table.
For the first essay of the Strained series, Paula Madison, A Former Media Executive and The author of “Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem,” writes about growing up as a Black, Chinese and Jamaican American in Harlem during the 1960s and how she navigated racism with flatware and her fists at the young age of 10.
We never had much money growing up. Sometimes Mom earned additional funds as a seamstress, sewing bespoke garments or altering clothing for customers of Mr. Chung, who owned the Chinese laundry a few doors down from our tenement building in Harlem.
Paula Madison, a former media executive, sheds light on the richness of Caribbean-American history in her memoir “Finding Samuel Lowe.” COURTESY IMAGE
With a few extra dollars, Mom occasionally treated us to dinner at the Chinese restaurant on the next block. These Chinese shop owners, like Mr. Chung, always were friendly to my mom, a Chinese Jamaican with three mixed-race children in tow. There were my brothers, ages 15 and 12, and then me, age 10.
We would order the pepper steak, beef and broccoli and sometimes the Chinese long beans. Even though there were metalware and chopsticks on the table, only one was appropriate for us to use in public. Selecting eating utensils felt like a high-stakes game where you had to navigate race, culture and class without incident in order to survive.
This was 1962, after all. The decade was marred by assassinations: John F. Kennedy (1963), Malcolm X (1965), Martin Luther King (1968). Right here in Harlem, though still two years off, James Powell, a 15-year-old African American, would be shot by a police officer, leading to a string of riots.
.My parents were immigrants in a strange land. They clung to their education and etiquette – the legacy of British colonizers who prioritized class and civility – hoping that their mannerisms could protect them from the injustice of being black and different in America.
The dinner table played a role in how each parent positioned us for success.
Nell Vera Lowe, 38, with her children, Paula, 4, Elrick Jr., 9, Howard, 6, and husband, Elrick Williams, 39, at the Saint Rose of Lima Church in Harlem, N.Y. The couple was separated and would later divorce though education and etiquette were values each instilled in their children. COURTESY IMAGE; ILLUSTRATION, TOP, BY EMILY GALLARDO FOR ISLAND AND SPICE MAGAZINE
At Dad’s house, the table was always set continental style: folded serviette and fork to the plate’s left while the knife and spoon were on the right. The knife, which of course never left the right hand, deftly maneuvered food onto the fork. We ate this way at every meal, and without exception.
My dad being African Jamaican surely had his own hurdles, but you’d be hard pressed to find any. He was an engineer and made airplane engine parts. He was the first black union shop steward for the United Auto Workers on Long Island.
At Mom’s house, she taught us to use chopsticks at an early age, probably around 3 years old — the same age she taught us all to read, using the New York Herald Tribune as our daily reader. No Dick and Jane and Spot for us!
Back at the Chinese restaurant, with the metalware and chopsticks before us, we had a decision to make. Using chopsticks would have called too much attention to our “otherness” — as though folks weren’t already wondering, “Why’s that Chinese lady sitting with three Black kids?” Continental style would have had the same effect.
We selected the metal utensils and ate American style, the way folks in our neighborhood ate: cut the meat, put down the knife, switch the fork to the right hand and spear or scoop the portions with the fork.
The dinner table played a role in how each parent positioned us for success.
I was code-switching with eating utensils rather than with language and behavior.
One day when I was jumping double Dutch in front of my building with other girls, Mom came out to summon me for dinner. “Paula, come in. Time to eat.” She waited on the stoop for the rope to stop so that I could exit the game.
“Who’s that?” asked a playmate who lived a couple of blocks away. Unlike my friends, she didn’t know about my racial mixture.
“That’s my mom,” I replied.
“That Chink is not your mom!”
I responded in the way I thought best. I punched my double Dutch playmate right in her face.
“Get up!” I said as I stepped to straddle her. “Get up!” Daring her vulgarity to rise up one more time so that I could have a reason to knock her down all over again. A chance to thump down all the reasons I didn’t eat with chopsticks in public. The reason why Mom didn’t socialize with others on our block. The reason why I had a chip on my shoulder when walking and holding her hand.
Ms. Lowe, an immigrant from Jamaica, raised three children who had to learn very early in life how to navigate race, culture and class in America. COURTESY IMAGE
She stayed down. I turned and walked over to my stoop, where my mom had calmly watched.
“What happened?” she asked in her thick Jamaican accent.
“She called you a Chink,” I said, looking into my mom’s eyes.
“OK. Come inside for dinner,” she said unflinchingly and proudly satisfied.
In the privacy of our tiny, two-bedroom tenement apartment, dinner was set. Picture a nutritious meal of meat, vegetable and rice. Now imagine you are the 10-year-old me. Born in Harlem. Sometimes I ate American style. Sometimes I ate continental style. Sometimes I ate with chopsticks.
