There's No Racial Segregation In Space

This is a unique response to the book we're studying "Sons for the Return Home".

While reading Albert Wendt's "Sons for the Return Home", I noticed there was obvious separation between the Pakehas and Samoans. The separation between the two races weren't too extreme, but you did get a sense that sometimes other characters in the book felt uneasy mingling with other people from other races outside of their own.

An example I can give in the book is in Chapter 14 when the main Samoan character invites the main Pakeha girl to the Church's dance. He wanted her to meet some more Samoan people "before she met his parents". One startling comment that I found the girl made was when she asked "Don't other pakeha come here?" It's as almost she wanted other people of her own race to be there to feel more comfortable. Why should she feel uneasy hanging out with a bunch of Samoans?

The main reason the main Samoan character invited her to this dance in the first place was to let her "know something of what it's like being part of a minority group".

This got me thinking, why do some people feel uncomfortable if they're the only person from the race somewhere? We are all human being aren't we?

A can give two examples in my own life where this racial separation occurred. The first example was when I went to a Metallica concert with my brothers. Since Metallica's demographic are mostly Bogans, you can bet we were the only Asians there. To me, I did not feel uncomfortable being there because we were all there to see Metallica. My brother did comment and say he felt weird being the "minority race" here. In the end, noone really cared and we jammed all night long with other fans anyway...

Another example I can give was when my cousin was getting married. This was only in 2003, but I did sense my racial separation. This was because my cousin was marrying a half pakeha/island woman. I remember at the wedding, my cousin's family was sitting on one side while his bride's family was sitting on the other. Even when the wedding presentation was over, most people started only talking to the people they knew. I do find it weird how humans feel this way sometimes. Is it a natural response or something?

This got me thinking even further that racial segregation doesn't really exist in Science Fiction. The best example I can give is the Star Wars universe. Whenever you see the characters out in the city or in the bar, you see many humans and aliens of any kind mingling and socializing with one another. You don't see an all-human bar or anything like that in Star Wars. Even in the 2009 Star Trek film, Captain Kirk was in bed with a green alien girl. In a video game series called Mass Effect, the player can have a straight/gay relationship with several characters. It doesn't matter what they look like or even if they're male or female!

I know "Sons for the Return Home" was written during a time when racial segregation was the norm, but I do feel that some humans still feel uncomfortable if they're the "minority" in a social gathering even today. Will this type of attitude ever change? Only time will tell...