Letter from Fremont

Fremont, CA.

I don't think I've ever been here before, but Fremont is an example of how diverse California has become. I'm sitting in a hotel surrounded by Asian stores and restaurants -- Indian, Pakistani, Afghan, Chinese, Korean, Thai -- among many others. Our state has no "minorities" because we have no majority race.

Across the Dumbarton Bridge from here, in Silicon Valley, where I work, the population is split almost evenly between Latino, Asian, Afro-American, and White people. No group even has a clear plurality.

Maybe this aspect of California (and Hawaii and much of the West Coast) is why few of us can comprehend why in other parts of America Barack Obama's race is an issue. We live in as close to a post-racial society as exists on this continent; perhaps even the world. Only when all kinds of people mix can you begin to transcend race.

Why? Because stereotypes, though often containing a grain of truth, never deliver a true understanding about the nature of people. For every person who seems to fit into a racial stereotype, there are ten others who don't.

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Starting at a few minutes before 2 pm today, I embarked on a marathon circumvention of the Bay. First, I drove Junko here to Fremont so she could watch "Japan TV," which tonight aired the dopcumentary that she worked on about Joe O'Donnell, the military photographer who shot those memorable and haunting images of Nagasaki's children after the atomic bomb was dropped.

Then, I raced northward to the Oakland airport, where I signed a special form in order to be allowed to go to the gate and greet my 9-year-old daughter, back from her trip as a "Mother's Helper" with her two big sisters in Portland, helping with their babies.

I'm sure she felt so grown up as she emerged from the plane. In my eyes, she is the perfect little princess, with a lancard around her neck identifying her as an "unaccompanied minor."

"Daddy!" she cried as she ran to my waiting arms. I'm surprised the airline even requires a signature at times like that, but I don't mind.

She and I inched our way north and then west across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, and then turned south toward Bernal Hill. Her Mom and 12 and 13-year-old brothers joyfully greeted her, as I turned my trusty car, by now low in gas, back down the peninsula, past the airport, past my office, and across the Dumbarton once again to this place, Fremont.

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