European Samurais, oh my!

I'm at the Starbuck's by my home for my mini afternoon pick-me-up of hot green tea (usually I get iced green tea with no ice but hey, I was cold). Handing the barista my gift card, I spot a reader a few feet from me. Attack! Attack!

Positioning myself across from him, I try to think of how I can make this go smoothly without him thinking I'm hitting on him.

Ryan was reading Stephen Howarth's Knights Templar. It's non-fiction about, "Well, the Knights Templar", he says. I notice a highlighter on his table and a notebook so I ask if it is for school or for pleasure. Although he is a History Major from UCLA (yes, we proceeded to bond over our Bruin-ness) this book is not for class. He starts going on about tidbits on the Knights Templar, about this book tries to weed out what is factual and what is fiction, because there are alot of myths and fiction. I finally interrupt him because I had never heard of them.

"Who are they, exactly?" He had a hard time trying to explain it off the bat so I ask who they can be compared to. Turns out these knights are like Japanese Samurais but of the European Crusades! He goes on to elaborate their status. Like their Samurai dopplegangers, the Knights Templar are elite religious soldiers of the Crusades, soldiers of virtue.



I ask if they raped and pillaged in the name of God and turns out they did little fighting. Yes, they carried swords and the like but they were these high status soldiers who answered to noone. They went around spreading good. They were like gods on earth, if I understood him correctly, and revered by the people. Nice.

Since he has just finished his stint at UCLA as a History major and is applying for grad school (hoping to remain a Bruin if he can help it) I wondered if his forte was in European History, Crusades era. Interestingly enough his specialty is West African History. He is interested in someday writing a book on History's role in social development and he hopes to be a teacher one of these days. Before attending grad school he will be heading off to teach in Oakland first. He wants to make a difference in how History is taught in schools!

Well, why not teach in LA? "I got hired in Oakland first, and I am still waiting on LA. So I will be heading up to Oakland to teach ESL there and then come back to LA later on. As a teacher he wants to reform public education and change education's view of history. When asked what he meant he replies, "I believe different cultural groups should learn about their own culture. I think it really affects how kids grow up, how their minds develop." Ryan starts giving me examples of what he means. (I somewhat stop writing at this point because I am so enthralled in what he has to say).
Ryan believes that a kid in Crenshaw should be learning different History than a kid in, say, Van Nuys (both are little sub-cities in Los Angeles, by the way). For example, a young black female child should be learning about important historical black females/figures as oppose to rich white males like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Not to say that she shouldn't know about these men but she should have an in-depth learning on her own history. There is a lack of this in our school systems and he wants to change that and nurture identities.

We start talking about our education and how we grew up, how our identities were molded. I tell him how in the 1st grade my sister's teacher insisted she was "yellow" and not "light brown". 'Twas a lesson in race. The Whites were white, the Blacks were black, the Asians were yellow. I tell him I'm filipino but I do not identify with filipino culture at all because I was born and raised here. Ryan smiles and says, "Yeah, I'm Japanese, raised Japanese all my life." I smile back, not believing him. He looks white as white can be, then I pause, thinking he is a halfsy. Ryan clarifies that his mother remarried a Japanese man when he was 5 and was raised by his Japanese grandma. "I'd do something bad and get scolded in Japanese by my grandma who spoke little to no English!" He's a Japanese Jew! I love it.

More identity talk ensues surrounding race and sexuality, about how our culture focuses on one individual (when teaching history) when we should focus on the whole event and movement as a whole, i.e we focus on MLK Jr. in schools when we should elaborate on the Civil Rights movement as a whole, and talk about all the other people involved. We talk about how African history is oral, hence less focus on an individual but the whole stories and histories. Amazing and enlightening conversation with Ryan. We were done and he started packing up. I wished him good luck on his grad school interviews this weekend and good luck in teaching in Oakland.
By the way, when asked what his favourite fiction book is he says Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

Reader, do you have a favourite non-fiction book?