Author Visits Stony Brook, Says U.S. Foreign Policy Creates Hate

By Michael Kelly

On Oct. 22, at an event held in Stony Brook University’s Wang Center Theatre to increase awareness of hate crimes, Ruthanne Lum McCunn worried that the United States’ foreign policy is responsible for emotions that spawn such acts 

“I feel it is our policies in this country that create hate,” said McCunn, an award-winning author who writes children’s books and novels with a multicultural vision.

Later, in an e-mail, she wrote that the United States government often tries to impose its views on the rest of the world.  In her lecture she said such behavior was exhibited before 9/11, and has continued since then.

“We did that before 9/11.  We continue to do so.  Hence, it doesn't seem as if we've learned anything,” she wrote.

Simon de Souza, a representative from Allstate, who helped to sponsor the event, said he didn’t personally agree with McCunn’s statements.  But, he said, it is important to hear viewpoints from people who have different experiences than you. 

“At some points it got pretty hot and heavy,” he said.  But, he added, “You have to see where the statement is coming from.” 

McCunn, who is Scottish and Chinese, was born in San Francisco in 1946 but moved to Hong Kong with her mother at the age of 1.  Her mixed background led her to lead an isolated and excluded childhood, separated from both her neighborhood companions, who went to a Chinese-speaking school and called her a “foreign devil girl,” and her classmates at her English-speaking school, who called her the “ching-chong Chinaman.”

“It was very difficult,” she remembered.  “That was the world I had to negotiate.”

Negative feelings towards the United States were soon hatched because of the treatment her father, a merchant marine who sailed in the Pacific Ocean, received during the McCarthy era.  McCunn’s father had let his wife take McCunn and her sister to live in Hong Kong so his wife would be closer to her family, believing it would be just as easy for him to visit his family in Hong Kong as in San Francisco.  But, because he was a suspected communist by the U.S. government, he was no longer hired for voyages to Hong Kong, preventing him from seeing his family.   

Despite her bitter sentiments towards the United States, McCunn returned to the United States when she was 16 to attend college.  She came to the United States because her family could not afford to send her to school in Hong Kong, so she needed to work while in college.

“I had heard that in America you could work and go to school at the same time,” she said.

After finishing college, McCunn taught for a short while before taking up writing full-time.  Her first major novel was about a Chinese woman who was kidnapped and brought to the United States as a slave. 

The historical novel was called “Thousand Pieces of Gold” and was based on the true story of Lalu Nathoy, a Chinese-American who was enslaved by Americans and eventually earned her freedom.  McCunn said she wrote this book and other future books such as “God of Luck,” a story about a Chinese couple separated by the Pacific slave trade, to give voice to “the people who never had the chance to tell their stories,” such as Nathoy.

Dr. Gary Mar, a professor at Stony Brook, and the Director of the Asian American Center, wrote in an e-mail that it is through the stories like McCunn’s that Asian American children can see they are not powerless, and despite overwhelming odds can make a difference.  Though Asian Americans, he wrote, have been stereotyped as “perpetual foreigners” in the United States, they can challenge the United States to live up to its democratic ideals.

“I believe that in the struggles for their rights, it has been the marginalized groups, rather than the mainstream, who have forced America to become a freer and more democratic nation for all Americans,” Mar wrote.

McCunn said it is these untold stories U.S. citizens need to know before they decide their society is the best in the world.  This arrogance, she said, is what she finds “most irritating” about the United States.

“We like to think we’re the best,” McCunn said. 

McCunn said she does feel the United States has “great aspirations” in terms of how to treat people, but asked if the United States had ever lived up to the promises it proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. 

“No, and maybe that’s because we’re human,” she said, answering her own question.  She added, “There is no society without some form of discrimination.”

This sentiment was agreed with by Roberta Richin, the Executive Director of the Council for Prejudice Reduction, who helped put on the event.  In an e-mail, she wrote that there are groups of people in all countries who suffer from some sort of discrimination.  But, she said, she still reserves hope for the future.

“I am inspired by the framers of our remarkable Constitution to remain convinced that we can help ourselves and each other enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” despite the many differences of people, she wrote.

de Souza echoed Richin’s sentiments, believing a discrimination-free society is possible.  While there is lots of room for improvement, he said, he feels the United States can make such progress.  

“I’m an optimist,” he said.