Stories From a Self-Help Therapeutic Community - Do you want a Chinese, Roommate?
Two personal stories about people, living in an intentional community, learning to confront, acknowledge and move past racial prejudice.
Do You Want a Chinese, Roommate?
A story from Bruce Gilbert
Edited by Andre James
Woey Goy Loey Restaurant San Francisco, Opened 1913
Chapter One: A middle-class L.A. Jewish boy meets S.F. Asian Teen
We had always prided ourselves for actively creating one of the first American, totally integrated intentional communities of the 70’s. All colors and creeds were welcome. However, in my 20 years of watching several thousand people come and go, Arnold was the only Chinese-American I can recall who lived in Synanon.
Me and Arnold. A middle-class L.A. Jewish boy meets an Asian teen. Cautiously, we became friends. Both of a quiet disposition, we were in a minority at the Tomales Academy where the most ambitious, high-verbal students had come to compete.
Arnold and I spent time together annotating Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay on “Self-Reliance.” Our friendship grew out of our attempts to link Emersonian concepts to our personal life experiences. During these one-on-one sessions I learned more about a different worldview than I can attribute to any sociology class.
When Arnold took me on an adventure, in search of authentic Chinese food, I knew we were becoming better friends. There is a restaurant in a basement in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It is crowded at lunchtime every day, yet few tourists occupy tables. As I walked in, both clients and staff seemed surprised. Arnold waved me over to my reserved seat at his table. Seafood from another ocean. Delicious vegetable plates, shellfish, and dim sum. Unlike any Chinese takeout known to man. With one meal, Arnold had taken me for a brief visit to his world.
Chapter Two - New Student Housing
Six months after our food adventure, The Cave Apartments, set on a hill overlooking Tomales Bay, were opened for occupancy as student housing. These units were designed by our resident architect Ellis K., who founded San Francisco's first multi-ethnic all-Ivy League architecture firm that included a Harvard Jew, a Yale Irishman, and a Princeton Hispanic. Fifty years later, the Cave Apartments provide retreat housing for the Marconi Conference Center.
Rewards of Occupancy. As a non-profit with limited revenue, the main source of compensation in our intentional community was housing. At the time, about twenty guys lived in the north wing and twenty girls in the south wing on tightly arranged bunk beds, located under the rafters of the historic Marconi building. These dark attic dwellings (in building pictured below) were appropriately named the Outer Limits.
Marconi Estate built in 1913 - Currently, the Marconi Conference Center (see history)
In celebration of the new Cave Apartments, the headmaster Chuck, called a family meeting to announce the lucky winners of the new cave dwellings. Large chalkboards were rolled into the eating commons. Diagrams of the caves with names of the lucky winners had been drawn on the boards. Good fortune shined on both Arnold and me. We were going to be cave dwellers!
To this point, there had been no new digs to desire. A new challenge in equal opportunity. We had certainly Talked the Talk. But, would we Walk the Walk?
Never one to miss an opportunity for a social experiment, Chuck opened up the discussion for anyone to express their disagreement with these housing awards. As you might have surmised there were not enough caves for all who felt deserving of better housing. So, as he opened this Pandora’s Discussion Box, an orchestrated mayhem ensued.
Someone yelled, “Arnold should be out. Just the other day, he split.”
There were several recovering addicts staffing and attending the Academy. So it still held true that next to using drugs, splitting (running off) was the second most deadly sin you could commit. Your act of quitting might shake the fragile commitment of anyone having a bad day. For, drug addiction was and is a monster that never quits.
Chinese Exclusion Act Revisited?
All understood the gravity of this accusation. Akin to the courtroom scene in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, people began shouting, “Arnold’s out, Arnold’s out!”
“Wait just a minute.” The room went quiet. In his best Atticus Finch baritone, Chuck began his cross examination,
Chuck: Arnold, tell us what happened.
Arnold: I was walking down the street and I thought about splitting. It scared me so much that I went home immediately and called a game, so I could get help.
Chuck: So, folks, Arnold never split. He thought about splitting and instead came back.
Chuck: So, let’s review the chain of events. Arnold had a thought about splitting. He did exactly what we would have wanted him to do; came home and called a game to discuss his conflict. The young man has one negative thought and your verdict is, send him back to Outer Limits?
Chuck: The only Chinese man we have in our community. And you are ready to punish him for something he didn’t do.
The room remained silent. As you might have concluded, Arnold got his cave. And we received a lesson in how racial prejudice, even within a liberal-minded student body, can raise its ugly head.
This unexpected mob action of veiled racism, was something I have read about, seen movies depict, but never seen revealed. For all of us, vocal and silent, it was a most important lesson learned.
Story from the memories of Bruce Gilbert
Edited by Andre James
To learn more about the Chinese Historical Society of America
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