I’ve been to Vashon, actually. My grandfather had some friends there and one summer when I was staying with him after my grandmother died, we went and visited them for a couple days. It struck me as the standard “nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there”, kind of place. Even back when I was 12, I knew I was a city kind of person.

I grew up in the late ’50s and ’60s, graduating in the class of ‘71, an era that found females caught in a weird time warp between Betty Crocker and Women’s Lib. I had a taste of both. Interestingly enough, one day as a teenager I made a comment to my mother about the ’50s being such a nice era. She stopped what she was doing and turned to me, eyes wide, and informed me that it was NOT such a great time. She pointed out things like the Korean War, McCarthyism, and prejudice. Another thing a lot of people don’t “get” is that it was a time of oppression for American women who had been in the work force during WWII. When the soldiers returned real political and societal forces booted those women right back into the kitchen, so men could have those jobs. The ’50s sitcoms you mention were actually propaganda, idealizing the small town, stay-at-home, aproned Mom, glorying in her domestic bliss. When politicians idealize that era they are being unrealistic and misleading. But even with it’s tough realities that time in history did have it’s good points and many were related to small town life.

I remember my childhood on Vashon with great affection, and write about it frequently on my blog. Those stories are among my most popular posts. I can relate to what Bryan has written concerning race relations. Vashon’s minority population consisted of only two black families I knew of, a few Native Americans and a few Japanese families. Before WWII a large number of Japanese people lived on the island but fewer returned. Before the war they were totally integrated into island life, accepted and well respected. Sadly, during the hysteria of war, a few Caucasian individuals showed an ugly side, but there was very little of that compared with on the mainland. An excellent book on the Japanese American’s experience, by someone who lived it, is “Looking Like the Enemy” by Mary Matsuda Gruenewald. Her family lived across the road from mine and all seven kids in my family grew up picking strawberries on their farm.

Small town life brings both pluses and minuses. To me it felt safe and secure, almost an extended family. That strong sense of belonging helped to shape my identity and sense of self, both on the plus side. I saw the way people cooperated for the common good and helped each other out whenever needed.

On the other hand, as a teenager on Vashon, I couldn’t wait to get off “the Rock” and get out into what I saw as the “real” world, a place where, for one thing, there were some young men I hadn’t been sitting next to in class my entire life. The flip side of that cozy everyone-knows-everyone feeling that sounds so cozy is gossip and scrutiny. The lack of opportunities for cultural enrichment doesn’t really exist there any more but things were pretty quiet on the island during my childhood. Fortunately my parents saw to it that we ventured into the city to aid our education and took us to many wonderful events, like hearing the Vienna Choir Boys, seeing exhibits, etc.

Rather than dwelling on the question of whether or not small town life should be held up as perfection we should be concerned about the telling of the truth. Perfection itself is a myth and myths carry great danger. Intelligent people need to watch out for this danger. Our country faces a host of major challenges that cannot be dealt with through myths. Let’s encourage all citizen to keep their heads on straight and not buy into a twisted version of history or of present day life in America.

As far as the IWW thing goes, I’m glad to see there’s at least one other person out there who’s heard of things like the Wobbly War.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_Massacre_(Washington) for the curious)

The presence of even one member of a minority will produce racism in some form, if racism is going to occur. My point is that not only were these minority members NOT victims of any overt racism, they were (to all appearances) socially elite. The particular black student athlete to whom I referred in my previous posts was the boyfriend of the white head cheerleader and they were frequently seen around the OHS campus holding hands, arm-in-arm, etc., and it was viewed as completely ordinary and excited no comment whatsoever.

One other point – small-town racism certainly DID exist in southwest Washington, usually against the Chinese. Sadly, we had our own historical brand of geographically-diverse racist views, and violence WAS committed against the Chinese and also against labor organizers (IWWW). This means that we weren’t totally blameless, but I speak for myself only, and having lived in Olympia from 1957 to 1975 (and various periods thereafter), I experienced a town where people actually smiled and waved at one another on the streets and watched out for one another.

As a final point, we also didn’t require groups of imported, out-of-control radical idealists from The Evergreen State College to periodically flock into downtown from the west side to protest, block traffic, commit civil disobedience, mock us, spit on our ’small town’ ideals, and mistakenly believe that it was their mission (before they graduated and, thankfully, blew town for somewhere else) to teach us poor backward bumpkins to have a social conscience. If I am going to be prejudiced against ANYONE in my home town, it will be against the hyper-reactionary crowd from TESC.

Anyhow, I think part of why there wasn’t a lot of racism in Lacey/Olympia was simply because a: there isn’t much of a history of real racism in that area, and b: there weren’t enough minorities around for there to be any racism.

I have no real interest in demonizing small towns, I just don’t think they’re anything special.

When I was at OHS, interracial dating was the norm and caused no problem at all. I didn’t see sneering dislike for interracial dating or relationships until AFTER I left Olympia. So much for one of the advantages of ‘exposure’ to broader culture in larger cities.

I grew up in Olympia in the 1960s and 1970s and I had a similar experience to your own vis-a-vis exposure to anyone other than whites. We had less than a dozen African Americans at Olympia High School when I attended, as well (as I recall) as a single Jewish family, plus a smattering of Asians. However, I never observed any racism of any kind and, by and large, those minority members were considered part of the ‘upper crust’ on the social scale at OHS. I even recall seeing one black student intervene while one of the ‘jocks’ was picking on a weaker, smaller boy in front of the gym, inside a circle of jeering onlookers; he grabbed the jock by the forearm cast he had been bouncing off the smaller boy’s head and banged him across his forehead with it, then said “doesn’t feel very good, does it?” This let the air out of the situation, and caused me to admire the character of that black student very much. After all these years, I still do.

What I think I’m trying to say is that I didn’t experience any type of favoritism or racism until I left Olympia after graduation and moved to a larger city in California, then went on to a brief stay in New Orleans. I was taught by my parents (one from a tiny town in Arkansas (yes, Arkansas), the other from a tiny town here in Washington) that no one had any right to think they were better than anyone else just because of the color of their skin, their social standing, or their income. All my friends and my parents’ friends believe that, and I went out into the world believing that too. And I don’t find myself socially or morally crippled or lacking in sensitivity for growing up in a small town. Demonize if you will, but I will always look back fondly on growing up in Olympia, where I was taught lessons of fair play and equality for all people.

And you’re welcome for the link. Always happy to help publicize good work!