Assumtion at 0: Yakuza 

By: Patrick Polintan

Growing up in a ghetto community that was highly active on gang violence, made me pursue learning more about them in various countries. Intrigued in the Japanese culture, I wanted to explore the culture and history of the Yakuza. The gang lived in a similar environment as most gangs, impoverished, wrought with problems and under developed. At the root of it structure, the impoverished group of youngsters had intentions of fighting for the weak and the poor.  The Robin-hood idea was intriguing but yet it was compelling towards me in a sense that some gangs may have good intentions of forming their organizations. The entire format and policies of the Yakuzas where inventive. The way they ran their organization was entirely different. I want to go more depth about the structure, rituals, policies and how they obtained their power.

I remember attending a “ghetto school” that was poorly constructed with the most wretched Soviet-inspired designs and contained the shoddiest accommodations. The bathrooms suffered from horrific plumbing that turned each stall into a literal cesspool. The hallways were overcrowded with loitering students trying to skip class. Students were presumptuous, uncouth and lacked moral mannerism. Students in the ghetto carried the dreams and ideals of gangsters. Those dreams sadly derived from most of the garbage they have been accustomed to like from the television, the internet, videogames, peers and families around them. And it seemed at the time I was gradually falling into this clique.

Although I went to a school with an atrocious curriculum and lived in a deplorable physical environment, I never had an intentions or ambitions to participate in any gang related activity. Although, the majority of my peers and friends did. I had the most obscure childhood companions when I was in elementary school. They struck fear towards their community, retracting everyone. However, it just made me more polarized. My close friends carried the dream and ideals of gangsters. Thinking about the “dream”  life, women, money, muscle and power.I was fascinated by the topic. I would always read autobiographies, play games, and watch shows based on gangs in America. At the time, I thought gangs were only exclusive in the U.S. I never thought about gangs in Asian countries existed; like the Yakuzas.

However as I progressed towards High School, I was able to broaden my horizons and affiliate myself with gangs around the world. As I went to high school I was free to read and watch whatever I pleased. Being a “Vice” fanatic, I skimmed through their content. I was binging on these videos. One of these videos mentioned a  gang in Japan called the Yakuza and their significance and meaning in their tattoos. I briefly researched the organization. What I found was men fully coated with intricate designs of Irezumi, a traditional Japanese tattoo ink. I speculated the amount of detail. Growing up in an asian influenced community, I was immediately hooked. The corruption, manipulation,gambling and the brutality the gang brings in the Japanese community, has caught the attention of news outlets all over the world.

As a child I wasn’t always interested in the aftermath of wars. Hollywood made the Vietnam War look cool and exciting. Movies like Rambo made the war into every boys dreams. I didn’t realize that a war could be so deeply connected to me. My parents played a part in the Vietnam war, and their parents as well. As a first generation Vietnamese-American, the Vietnam war has heavily influenced my life.

My parents don’t talk about the war a lot, they usually just tell me bits and pieces. It could be when my mother is folding laundry, she tells me that every morning she would wake up before sunrise to do laundry for the entire family. Whenever my dad drinks he tells us about how he was as strong as an ox back in the day. He would tell me that I’m lucky, that I have amazing opportunities  living in a country like America. I’ve never thought much of it. As a young boy, I wasn’t interested with these parts of my Vietnamese past. I was more interested in the graphic violent parts, I wanted to hear tales from my dad of the Vietnam conflict.

When visiting my grandparents, my grandpa would tell me the same thing like my dad. How he was forced to fight in a war that he didn’t want to fight. His voice was a little sad when ever he spoke about the Vietnam War. He would talk about how he would miss his family. How he would sneak out to visit his wife. He really exaggerated the fact that I was lucky without saying it.

I use to think it was all boring. That was until the movie “Journey from the Fall” came out. I originally thought it was a movie about the war in the perspective of a south Vietnamese during the war, but it wasn’t. It showed the suffering of the southern Vietnamese when Saigon fell, especially for those who greatly supported the southern government. There were scenes of re-education camps and executions of those who supported the Americans and the southern government. I didn’t realize that my own parents had to go through something like this, especially at such a young age. I thought that they just arrived in America on a boat or a plane. However, their journey wasn’t that simple.

I was desperate to know more about their journey from Vietnam to America but I knew it was a dark time in their past. I felt that inquiring about it would make them feel uncomfortable and they would avoid questioning. Luckily, one day my brother had a project about family history and I saw my opportunity. For the first time, I was able to sit down and really listen to their stories. For my mother it was easier for her to tell us her story than my father. She told us how her family had lost almost all of their property and she had to hide the fact that her father was running away to America. If the Viet-cong found out that he left for America, his family would have been executed. After settling down in America for a few years, my grandpa managed to sponsor my mom so she could come over to America as well. She knew no english at the time and had barely finished high school.

Having my father tell us his story was a bit more difficult. I think that it was because of the fact that he had to fight in the war. The experience was more traumatizing for him. Though he did open up a little when he had a couple of beers. He would brag about how strong he was back then and that he was good at shooting guns. He only talked about the good things that happened in Vietnam. Whenever we asked him about what he did after the Fall of Vietnam. He would only say that he left on a boat and somehow got to Virginia. He would try to avoid that topic as much as possible.

Lots of people struggled after the Fall of Saigon. Some people, like my father, tries to avoid the topic. Others want us to be educated by the event so that we could live our lives to the fullest since we never had to struggle like they did. The more I hear the stories of their struggles, the more I want to spread their stories. I want people to know that there was more to the Vietnam War. There was even more suffering. And that suffering lead to me being here today in the land of “freedom”.

Marvin Smith III

Civil Sports Movement

Athletics have always been my passion ever since I was a little kid I have always loved to talk about sports, watch sports, and play sports. I can recall every big sporting event that caused me to become a fan of the teams I follow today. I remember the first football game that brought me into the sports world and how I was fascinated by it all. My dream is to be a professional athlete and if that is not possible, then work in the sports medicine field. I want to be in the sports industry in some capacity because there is more to sports than just people playing each other and the sport itself. Sports have been that outlet for so many kids that didn't think they would make it in life or make it out of those troubled areas.

The reason African Americans such as myself and many other people have that opportunity is because the decisions people made and the chances they took in the past in order to make a difference for us today. I feel like before the Civil Rights Movement and during the Civil Rights Movement a lot of Minority athletes were sparking change, but a lot of that was overshadowed because there were bigger issues happening, and bigger opportunities trying to be obtained for minorities, especially for African Americans. Fighting back without using violence was one of the many messages trying to be sent to minorities fighting for equal opportunities and rights. The Civil Rights Movement started in 1954, there were many athletes breaking color barriers standing up for what they believed in and doing it peacefully.

Jackie Robinson may seem cliche but he is a great example of change happening before the Civil Rights Movement. Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play in Major League Baseball. When the Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey decided to start scouting from the negro leagues in 1945 in search of more baseball talent, he found Jackie Robinson who was playing for Kansas City Monarchs. When Jackie was in the Negro League he had a couple incidents in which he lashed out in anger. When Branch Rickey met with Jackie Robinson for the first time it was for an interview to truly get to know Jackie. Branch said to Jackie"I know you're a good player, but what I don't know is if you have guts?"

Jackie responded by saying "Mr.Rickey, are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?" The next words Branch Rickey told Jackie really changed Jackie Robinson as a player and person he told Jackie "Robinson, I'm looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back." In Jackie Robinson's mlb career he faced many racial incidents and never retaliated. Jackie didn't retaliate because he knew retaliating would only prove those racial stereotypes to be true and it wouldn't progress our race or make changes, it would have also cost him his job as well. Boxer Muhammad Ali is another great example, although he talked a lot of trash to his opponents Muhammad Ali took a big stand against our country. When he had been drafted to the United States Military Muhammad Ali refused to go he said "why fight for a country who doesn't want me to have equal rights". Muhammad Ali taking a stand like this was a very pivotal in making change in our country, when he took that stand he let the world know of the U.S.'s problems.

    The message of the Civil Rights movement was Fighting back with Peace and Retaliating in non-violent ways, this is why the Civil Rights Movement was so powerful and worked so well. If you don't retaliate and prove people stereotypes you take away their ammo for trying to attack you and not treat you equal. I must constantly use the message of The Civil Rights Movement in my day to day life. Everyday say "your whitewashed or you're not a real black person" I never violently respond or lash out because then I'm feeding into their stereotype and it doesn't help my culture and race improve. By me not responding it takes away from that person and whatever they may think or anything they perceive.

There have been many African American athletes that we may have never gotten to hear about or see had guys like Early Lloyd (who was the first black NBA player) not been giving the chance to play because of their skin color or Branch Rickey who gave Jackie Robinson the opportunity to play.  In sports you need to have more diversity in order for sports to change and advance, you can't just have one race playing the sports. Allowing other cultures and people to play in sports bring new ideas into the sports that will help and change the game for the better.