The Winter of Melancholy

By Patricia Takayama

The Winter of Melancholy opens in Manzanar Interment Camp, a WWII relocation compound in the Mojave Desert, where Japanese American citizens were incarcerated along with their immigrant family members. Told from the viewpoint of the women whose lives were shaped by this period of isolation, separation and suffering of one extended family, we trace the resilience of the women, their strength, spirit and compassion that weaves through their stories from the immigrant to post war generations.

The other short works of fi ction include stories: of a Japanese American girl who encounters racism on a PTA sponsored fi eld trip, a midwife whose work requires her to drive up and down the El Camino Real to ply her trade, a Nisei woman who translates Japanese radio programs during WWII for the U.S. Army to intercept troop movements. These stories and others trace the challenges that women encountered in the face of racism, duty as family bread winners, transformation in response to social change, and finding ways to forge and retain familial connections.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503524767

Patricia Takayama

Patricia E. Takayama was born in 1947, Chicago, Illinois. Her parents left the Manzanar Internment Camp during WWII to find work in Chicago. She attended school in the San Fernando Valley. Later, she moved to the Bay Area, where she graduated from University of California Berkeley and Hastings College of Law. She studied the Japanese language and taught English in Tokyo, Japan before and after attending law school. She has also lived in San Jose, Sacramento, Seattle, and Charlotte, North Carolina. She presently resides at her childhood home in the San Fernando Valley, California.

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The Winter of

Melancholy

Patricia Takayama

Copyright © 2015 by Patricia Takayama.

ISBN:      eBook         978-1-5035-2476-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/27/2014

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART ONE

Family matters

Genealogies

Issei – The Immigrant Experience

Camp Friends - Letters

Alone in Camp

Nokorimono in Japan

Marriage or America

Measuring Up

A Touch of Rivalry

Valley Girls in the City

Traffic Court

The Letter

Rock Candy

PART TWO

Other Stories

Sanba-san: The Midwife

Nisei – Betty Crocker Generation

The Field Trip

Radio Waves

After Repatriation: Naomi’s Story

Boarding House Reunion

Where to Now?

Who Was That Lady?

Glossary

Dedication

To my mother, Sumiko who inspired me, my paternal grandmother, Yone who nurtured me, my maternal grandmother Kiya who never met me, and my sister, Nancy whose advice and assistance supported me.

To all those women who came before and guided our footsteps to stand strong and forge a link that empowers those of us who follow to be brave and confident in our own ability to do whatever it takes to articulate and bear witness to our courage and amazing accomplishments.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks, to all those people who offered information, advice and kind words of support during the course of this endeavor. I am especially indebted to Lynne Kutsukake who read an early draft of this collection and offered valuable suggestions. My thanks also go out to J.P. De Guzman for offering historical corrections, Naomi Suenaka Derr for social and cultural accuracies, Eri Kameyama for Japanese language corrections, Valerie Matsumoto for advice and encouragement, and Nancy Takayama who patiently took time to read initial drafts and point out problems.

I wish to thank those people who willingly offered their time to be interviewed and share memories of their experiences of World War II and camp life that shaped their post war life. Thank you to: Bo Sakaguchi, Dr. Mary Oda, Kiyoe Ishida, Sono Kondo, Kamacheyo Takahashi, Kiyo Fujitaki, Masaaki Iwaoka, Joanne Miyamoto, Liz Doomey, Michiko Tokunaga, Art Ishii, Lily Ikuta, Amy Shimada, and Archie Uchiyama, Ann Gorai, and Kathryn Calhoun,.

Introduction

This collection of short stories is a long overdue writing project on Asian American history. That was the major I would have chosen, if such a major had existed at the time I attended University of California, Berkeley.

It was the passing of my Nisei parents that triggered a sense of urgency to collect interviews and record stories that illustrate the scope of experience and history of Japanese Americans in the United States. Without a printed record or film, children especially have no idea that Japanese Americans exist, made contributions to U.S. history, influence our evolving American culture or had an impact on state and federal jurisprudence, specifically on racist anti-Asian laws and the effort to overturn them. Japanese American internment is as significant as slavery in U.S. history. Although it did not result in Constitutional amendments, it did precipitate constitutional challenges and Congressional action, eventually establishing civil rights legislation.

I’ve chosen first to research and interview the stories of women, because history is written by men, who tend to overlook the contributions of women and their perspective on evolving events.

All the stories that follow are fiction. I’ve based them on real people and have attempted to utilize aspects of the stories I’ve collected to illustrate the broad experience of Japanese American women. The choice of fiction was due, in part, to accommodate the women I interviewed who did not want to be identified and therefore only agreed to be interviewed on condition that I conceal their identity. Also, my preference was to have the luxury to embellish freely and not be tied to personal truths, but I have made every effort to be historically accurate.

This concept, presenting Japanese American history through fiction, literature and social history, was inspired decades ago by my modern Chinese history professor, Tu Wei Ming. For our 10-week quarter, he assigned 10 books, among which were: a standard history text; a novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, Fanshen, the transformation of China during a period of social and political upheaval; and Village Life in China, among other books. The point he made was history is not a collection of dates and events, history is the impact those events have on the individual and the social fabric of the culture and nation in which that individual lives.

By focusing on the experience of individual lives during significant events or political upheaval and social change, the reading selections illustrated the transforming experiences individuals shared are filled with tension and drama, consequently, far more interesting to the average reader.

This lesson was reinforced as I found myself drawn to period or historical fiction. Frequently, I was enthralled by mysteries set in other cultures where a key piece of history and culture served as the pivotal clue. In Seicho Matsumoto’s Inspector Imanishi Investigates, the key to discovering the truth was in the government records hall for family genealogies. In Anne Perry’s mystery series set in the late 1890s a key piece of data vital to uncovering motive was found in the emerging legislation granting women property rights in Great Britain.

By making a pivotal historical or cultural event a key factor in a work of fiction, much like a character in the story, the reader recalls that event along with the character, long after the story has ended.

That brings me to this collection of short stories. My intent has been to show a wide range of experiences among the three generations of Japanese American women and to demonstrate the strength, courage and resilience that the Japanese culture, especially family loyalty, instilled in the core of Japanese American women. It should be noted that the first wave of immigrants was born and emigrated during the Meiji Restoration period (1868-1911) when the legacy of samurai leadership was still integral to the social and political culture of the era. It was during the Meiji era that universal education became available for young boys and to some extent for girls. Girls who grew up in the countryside might receive an elementary education. Daughters of merchants were given sufficient education to enable them to manage the family business successfully. Bride prospects were considered for their connections but also needed education and business acumen to make the business thrive. Daughters from a samurai family received a more extensive education, enabling them to become school teachers. In the first wave of arranged marriages that brought Issei women to America, all of their courage and strength was challenged to adapt to a new culture, language and the demands of a new social order. Most of the women worked along side their farmer husbands. Others worked as domestics, a few in small businesses such as boarding houses, general stores or newspapers. In the case of the midwife, the opening story in Part 2, she emigrated when many settled Issei couples were starting families. She was instructed by her husband to learn the midwife trade before she emigrated, because midwife services were needed in the Japanese American community.

Several of the stories in this collection are about Kibei women, born in America, but sent to Japan to be schooled and then returned to their parental American home. Their experiences were vastly different from the Nisei women who were born and raised in America and attended a Japanese language school after the American public schools, sometimes daily, but mostly on weekends, depending upon accessibility. If a Nikkei woman became a professional, she was most likely born and raised in America.

My intent was to show that the Japanese American woman’s experience was not monolithic or stereotypic. It was diverse, challenging, sometimes sad, or heartbreaking and occasionally rewarding. In contrast to the Nisei experience, at least on the Pacific west coast of the United States, where most Japanese Americans resided pre-World War II, imprisonment in WWII internment camps was a defining event in casting shame and humiliation on an entire population of Americans.

The Sansei generation, part of the post war baby boom, grew up during a unique period of social transformation. Social conflict challenges were codified. Age old discriminatory laws were overturned and civil rights leaders forged coalitions, reclaiming ethnic dignity and securing equal rights for women. Decades of civil rights coalition involvement were all prelude to urging the Japanese American Nisei to step forward and speak out about the WWII internment camp hardships and tragedies that tore their families apart but which were never voiced or shared out of shame, humiliation and painful memories.

The decision to compile this first collection focused on women was made in large part to shed historical light on women whose strength and courage defined my generation of Japanese American women.

As a way of introducing the historical time frame and significant events of the era, beginning in the 1920s and extending to the early 1990s, I’ve included two poems which encapsulate the experience of the Issei and Nisei generation.

The 17 fiction stories that follow are based on real characters, whose stories have been disguised, altered and used in part to fit in a short story structure that dramatizes some part of their historical experience.

The selections are divided into two parts. Part one is a series of stories about one extended family that is separated by the Pacific Ocean and events that surround WWII. Part two illustrates a range of experiences that include a variety of professions and perspectives that reflect the political and social climate of the time period. As closely as possible, I’ve tried to present the stories in chronological sequence in each section.

Finally, I’ve included a glossary for convenient access to foreign or italicized words.

PART ONE

Family matters

Genealogies

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Issei – The Immigrant Experience

We crossed the great ocean, our marriages arranged.

Many, as picture brides, never having seen

The face of our future estranged.

Seeking hopeful dreams, in a country

Mysterious - language, culture, and people, it seems.

Hard work expected, but temperature extremes,

In wind storm fields were not foreseen.

Depression era produce farming offered financial security

With the hands of many children to nurture to maturity

Growing food enough to share, savings we accrued.

In land, we Asian immigrants were prohibited to invest.

Vehicles, equipment, houses we bought,

On leased land we settled. For our children, college or

Encyclopedias, for their education, a future we sought.

With the outbreak of the Pacific War,

We were forcibly removed in 1942.

Our houses, our vegetables in the field, not yet ripe,

Furniture, clothing, and personal valuables were lost,

Unless, they fit into our one suitcase.

As Aliens Ineligible to Citizenship, so called

Enemy Aliens, we became. Sent to a hot, dry Mojave Desert

Concentration camp, with tumble weeds, sand storms, and snow,

A majestic mountain wall to the west, and Death Valley to the east,

There we sat in abandoned isolation, our future lost.

Released from camp, our prime livelihood years behind.

How do we start over? Struggle anew we must.

Re-build a community we trust; and look to our

American born children on whom we depend

For our retirement and our grandchildren,

In a land we chose to imprint our legacy.

Camp Friends - Letters

The letters below are fiction, but are based on people who experienced the duress of life in a wartime internment camp. The story weaves in actual events to illustrate the tragedy and resilience of the human spirit that is characteristic of the Japanese American community.

* * *

It has been a long time since we last exchanged correspondence. With the outbreak of the war, I don’t know when this letter will reach you. So much has happened since the war began between Japan and America. I hope you are all safe and no one has been drafted into military service. I know that is hardly an appropriate comment from the daughter of a samurai family but it would be a tragedy if our Nisei boys had to fight any family members in the Imperial Japanese army.

President Roosevelt has issued Executive Order 9066 which requires all people of Japanese ancestry be removed from the Pacific coast region. As a result, we had two weeks to sell, store, destroy or forfeit our personal property before we had to report for forcible evacuation and removal to internment camps.

We sold our farm equipment and household furniture for a pittance and stored a few personal belongings in a shed attached to our house. The landowner agreed to take the proceeds from the rental of our house as lease payments for keeping our house on his real estate. I assume elder brother explained that Japanese immigrants were forbidden land ownership. Only adult citizens could lawfully own land, but my son Tomatsu is still under age. So, even though we own the house, we do not own the land it sits on.

Your elder sister,

Yasumi

I hope you will explain to elder brother that when I wrote to him, we shared my adventures and challenges building a new life. His advice and support I valued as did my husband. That time has passed.

My life now is very different. Instead of hard labor and continuous productive activity, life is prolonged idleness, with minimal supplies and lacking the resources or ability to forge a means of improving the hardships.

My husband, son and son-in-law and I were transported by bus to a desert wasteland and are housed in military style barracks on a compound surrounded by armed guard towers and a barbed wire fence. It has the look of a prisoner of war camp. They say the barbed wire and armed guards are for our protection, but the guards watch the residents of the camp, not those approaching.

We were assigned to Block 12, in a 4-unit barracks, each 20' x 25' foot apartment with a separate entrance. If you can image, for privacy, cloth blankets strung across the width of the barracks creating the semblance of separate apartment units. Each unit has an oil burning stove and a single dangling, bare overhead bulb as a light source. It is quite crowded with four people occupying such a small space, but it would be even more crowded if Miyoko had not contracted, tuberculosis, a contagious illness, and was restricted to a sanitarium unit in the restricted zone. My daughter Rumi remained behind to attend to her care. So, only my son Tomatsu, whose friends call him Tom, and Akira, Miyoko’s husband, came with me and my husband, Tokumatsu.

Your elder sister,

Yasumi

The weather is so changeable in the desert. It was freezing cold when we first arrived. Not only did we sleep with all our clothes on, we piled our coats and anything we could to protect us from the chill breeze that seeped in between the tar papered walls and the floor boards.

When the chill subsided, the wind picked up and dust filtered through the cracks of the ever widening spaces between the green wood used for the floor boards and spread a layer of film on everything. We have taken to wearing face masks, cloth bandanas when we go out. Some children and elderly seem to be afflicted with coughing spasms and shortness of breath from the dust. They are suffering terribly. Some people wear their masks indoors as well. The only time they remove the covering is to eat.

Kazue, I don’t know when or if these letters will ever be sent to you. I look at them more as journal entries, as a chronicle of our life in a concentration camp.

We eat in the communal mess halls, military style. At first, families would come to the mess halls together and eat as a unit, at the same table. By the end of the third week few families showed up together or remained at the table as a unit for more than ten minutes.

When the War Relocation Authority, camp administration calls a meeting or makes announcements, the family representatives must be English speaking or U.S. citizens. The traditional Japanese family unit is breaking down. Camp authorities will only allow English speaking American citizens to represent us at meetings. Leadership is being transferred to the Nisei. Most of our Nisei children are not legally adults, that is, twenty one years old. The community elders: political and social leadership are being displaced and made to feel useless.

We need to get out of these camps and restore order to our own communities. The children have no school to attend. The older ones have no work to keep their young bodies active. They’ve started playing baseball for entertainment. Tomatsu is looking into work furlough programs to harvest vegetables. That is a fair indicator how bored he is that he would seek out work rather than be idle.

Everyone has complaints: the food, the dust, lack of medical assistance, no schools, no privacy in the latrines, benjo, (outhouse) and misinformation. The idleness and boredom are the most damaging morale killer.

Small groups gather everywhere to complain. It is not enough to make complaints. Complaints need to be constructive: to show cause and effect of a problem, and propose a means of resolving the complaints. Once I explained this, our gatherings became more productive. We’ve identified several issues and offered proposals to fix the problems which the camp administration seems to have taken seriously.

The milk product based meals that gave many people diarrhea have been removed from the menu. Each mess hall has its own chef and crew that select and order food for their respective menus.

A call has gone out for anyone with medical experience to staff a hospital or medical facility. My neighbor from North Hollywood, in the next barrack, Hatsushi, has a daughter Mitzi, who was a medical student at University of California is working at the hospital.

Teachers and college students or graduates have been called up to act as teachers for temporary summer school programs for the young children, until a more permanent program can be set up next autumn.

A mimeograph machine has been acquired from someplace and Manzanar is going to have a newspaper, which will be printed in English and Japanese. Finally, proper dissemination of reliable information will be circulated, instead of rumors. Hatsushi tells me that her eldest daughter, Chiemi who used to write for the Kashu Mainichi newspaper, is also writing for the Manzanar Free Press. I think that is the name they decided on.

Tomatsu got a job at the Block 22 mess hall. I suppose