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10 March , 2003
Personal Perspectives on the Past
I suppose if I were an expert in Japanese American history, had written books about internment, or was in academia teaching about internment, I would be jaded about hearing stories from those who were interned.
 Workshop organizer Erin Yoshimura facilitating the personal stories of the Nisei generation. |
I suppose if I had dozens of books about internment, I could say with authority that the history of internment is already written down and it doesn't need to be spoken; it would bore me to hear the life stories of any of the remaining survivors of American concentration camps.
But you know what? I'm a Sansei, who didn't know about internment until I was in high school and read a book about it. I know lots of other Sanseis and Yonseis - not to mention non-JAs - who didn't know about internment until college-age, or even later. I do happen to have dozens of books about internment and can say emphatically that just because experts, academicians, historians, civil rights activists and interested people like myself have written or read all those titles, it doesn't mean that people out there in the "real world" are aware of them, or are aware of internment. I can say for certain that American children are not being taught much if anything about internment in their textbooks, which are the books that count. If kids are learning about internment, it's because teachers are asking JAs to come speak about it.
That's why I've come to the conclusion that it's important for me to keep learning about it, and keep writing and talking about it, and urge others - especially the generation that lived through it - to share their stories. Sure, the leaders have always spoken out. They testified at the redress hearings of the 1980s; they're quoted in the media. But I'm still shocked at how many folks I know who haven't spoken about those times, sometimes out of a sadly misplaced sense of shame, but mostly because they don't think what they have to say is that important.
Well, I disagree.
| It's important for me to keep learning about it, and keep writing and talking about internment, and urge others - especially the generation that lived through it - to share their stories. |
The facts of internment are written out in dozens of books. But what's missing in most of them is the personal perspective that can give the facts of internment the resonance of reality. That's why the telling and recording of oral histories is so important, and why it's critical for those who lived through the internment years, to tell their stories to anyone who'll listen - to families, to classrooms, at public events like the Day of Remembrance events around the country.
People are hungry for these stories. The Day of Remembrance event held in Denver several weeks ago was proof that people want to hear the Nisei generation. Over 200 people showed up at the Tri State/Denver Buddhist Temple for a screening of Dr. Satsuki Ina's documentary, "Children of the Camps," followed by a discussion about the lives of Japanese Americans who lived through the war years, whether they were interned or not (those who were not have their own fascinating stories to tell).
For most of the Nisei there, this was the first time they'd been asked to speak in public. They were reluctant to open up, but once someone took the time to tell their tale, others warmed to the idea. Because they weren't accomplished speakers, instead of focusing on one specific memory or experience as they'd been asked, many shared long narratives about their entire lives. If they were cut off or redirected, they might have stopped their stories altogether - it was as if the act of recounting everything was turning on long-unused switches in their minds.
It didn't always make for riveting listening, but I was moved by the courage it took for those who spoke up to take the microphone. Afterwards, even those who didn't get to talk ruefully admitted they were finally ready to open up when time ran out. Even within the long stories were many powerful recollections. When I later saw the son of one of the speakers, I told him his mother was a highlight of the event. He was shocked, and said that growing up, whenever he and siblings tried to get his mother to talk about internment, she refused.
 One of many books about internment, but one of the few that looks at the period through personal exeriences. (click the cover to order) |
Perhaps it's just time for the stories to flow, and even those who weren't willing to relive those years before understand that their legacy needs to be shared or it will be lost forever.
I just finished an excellent book, "From Our Side of the Fence: Growing Up in America's Concentration Camps" (Kearny Street Workshop, 2001), which was the result of a writing workshop sponsored by the Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Northern California in which 11 Japanese Americans were coached to express their internment experiences. The power of this slim volume far outweighs the dry facts of history, and left me with a much more emotional reaction than reading a handful of other books. Because Brian Komei Dempster, who led the workshop, included his lesson plan in the book, this would be a terrific project for Colorado, where powerful stories abound from both sides of the fence.
Those stories can be found everywhere, and you'd be surprised at how everyone's lives were different.
Erin and I a couple of days ago happened to meet a woman and her husband of almost 40 years. Thinking she was from Japan, I asked where she was born. She said she was born in Hawaii, but her family was interned at Tule Lake. She had sharp memories of her life in camp. After the war the family was shipped to Japan, where she didn't know enough Japanese to fit in and was taunted by her new classmates.
But eventually she forgot her English until the early 1960s when she met a handsome American marine stationed nearby. Despite the bigotry of his family and the protest of her parents, who were still bitter about their treatment by the US government, he was so smitten he joined her church choir and offered to teach her English to get to know her. Their story of love overcoming prejudice and obstacles from both the Japanese and American sides was so moving it would make a worthy movie plot.
Thankfully, she's already planning to share her story in writing. But the chance meeting and the stories that flowed reminded both of us how fleeting is the opportunity to hear them, yet how ubiquitous those stories are if you just ask the right questions.
That's the history, after all, that is not
yet written but must be told.