John Lewis V: My Story

In March 1965 my father took his family of seven for our immigrant voyage inside a stowage cabin in the rear of the American President Lines' SS Woodrow Wilson from Hong Kong to the United States.  We sailed passed the Taiwan Strait to Yokahama, Japan, a brief stay in Honolulu visiting a relative, then to our destination in San Francisco.  We were mesmerized by the hula girls welcoming our arrival in Hawaii as my younger brother kept on intoning Hawai-ee-ee-ee afterward.  We were transfixed by the Golden Gate Bridge as the liner approached and sailed underneath the giant Golden Gate Bridge then docked under the shadow of the Oakland Bay Bridge.  We arrived at our land of destiny on 11a.m. March 15, 1965.

After gone through the immigration check-in, our U.S. sponsor, a distant cousin of my father whom we eternally grateful for sponsoring our family in this country, took us to his Oakland house for dinner before taking us to a house (soon to be demolished making way for the freeway) to stay.  I had never watched a big screen, which at the time meant 25", television before and was transfixed at the old man talking out of the tube while we sat on the living room sofa eating our first U.S. meal.  Afterward the good uncle transported my family to our new abode where we were just amazed at the size which to us was huge, with a backyard to spare.

Time flew by rapidly and I'm in the autumn of my life and experienced my version of "good troubles" as exemplified by John Lewis.  But it's not until this weekend with the passing of John Lewis that I made the connection between the beginning of our family's journey in this great land of ours and the momentous events transpired during our voyage to this country, across the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean to our family's Promised Land.  Little did I know that our first steps on American territory was the day when Martin Luther King, John Lewis, and their fellow civil rights marchers walked across the Selma bridge, got attacked by vicious police and snarling dogs and that the old man on the television screen during our first evening in America was President Lyndon Johnson addressing the joint session of Congress advocating for black Americans rights to vote.

I'm here to share the precious few of our family photos as I relate to an immigrant's story to the struggle for freedom and justice in the life of John Lewis.  Please watch President Johnson's important speech as well because what was said is equally relevant to our time now.

SS Wilson sailed thru a storm during our passage across the Pacific Ocean

whereupon 9 year-old me had a stay at Honolulu on Bloody Sunday

When John Lewis made the march across the Selma bridge

Where he got beaten and his skull cracked

Seven days later the steam ship sailed underneath the Golden Gate Bridge

When my family arrived on U.S. shore in the morning of March 15, 1965

The very same night inside our sponsor's living room I distinctly recalled watching President Lyndon Johnson, though understood not a word he said, addressing Congress on the Voting Rights Act

http://www.lbjlibrary.org/lyndon-baines-johnson/speeches-films/president-johnsons-special-message-to-the-congress-the-american-promise