Forgiveness

By Mark Sakamoto and Cindy Mochizuki

Mitsue Sakamoto and Ralph MacLean both suffered tremendous loss during WWII: Mitsue as a survivor of a Japanese Canadian internment camp, and Ralph as a prisoner in a Japanese POW camp. In order to rebuild their lives and their families after the war, Ralph and Mitsue must find the grace and generosity necessary to forgive those who have wronged them. Their paths eventually cross in 1968 when Mitsue’s son and Ralph’s daughter begin dating, and Ralph is invited to Mitsue’s home for dinner.

This soaring adaptation of Mark Sakamoto’s award-winning memoir affirms the power of forgiveness and shows us that in our challenging times characterized by political divisiveness, xenophobia, and race hatred, the story of Mitsue and Ralph’s personal triumphs over hatred, injustice, violence, and bigotry remains vitally relevant and urgently necessary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Release date: Jan 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9780369103963

Mark Sakamoto

MARK SAKAMOTO is an entrepreneur and investor in digital health and digital media and is the executive vice-president of Think Research, a global digital-health company. His first book, Forgiveness: A Gift from My Grandparents, debuted as a #1 national bestseller and went on to win CBC Canada Reads in 2018. The book is being developed into a feature film and has been theatrically staged by Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre Company and Theatre Calgary. A frequent television presence, Mark was the host and executive producer of Good People, a documentary series that explored humanity’s biggest problems and was co-produced by Vice Media and the CBC. He sits on the Giller Foundation’s board of directors. Mark Sakamoto lives in Toronto and Prince Edward County with his wife and their two daughters.

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Reviews for Forgiveness

[librarycin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mark Sakamoto’s grandparents were on two different sides of WWII. His maternal grandfather fought in the war and was captured and spent years as a prisoner of war, first in Hong Kong, then in Japan. Mark’s paternal grandmother, a Japanese-Canadian, and her family lost their home and livelihood in BC and were sent to rural Alberta to farm. Mark and his brother were born and raised in Medicine Hat, Alberta. After Mark’s parents marriage ended, his mother had a really hard time (to put it lightly, but trying not to give too much away in my summary).The summaries of this book make it sound like it’s all WWII, but it’s not. I found the book to be an entire biography of his grandparents, then his own – with a focus on his relationship with his mom. I really liked this. A little “bonus” for me was that Mark’s wife is from Assiniboia, Sask, a small town about 45 minutes from the town I grew up in.

[maggieflo_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The only forgiveness in this book happens in the very last chapter when the author buries his mother’s ashes in a park in Medicine Hat. She died very young from her addiction to alcohol and his forgiveness for her abandonment of her children, her husband and a good life is a brief and not very well described moment of emotion.The book is about Sakamoto’s grandfather Ralph MacLean and his grandmother Mitsue Sakamoto.Ralph grew up on a farm on the Magdalen Islands and lived an almost idyllic life until he enlisted in WWII at the age of 18. He ended up in Hong Kong in a Japanese POW camp for 4.5 years and returned to Canada badly damaged mentally and physically from his ordeal. He ends up near Calgary and marries Phyllis and has a family including a daughter Diane.Mitsue Sakamoto grew up in a small Japanese family in Vancouver. They ran a successful fishing operation, were well respected within the small Japanese community and endured subtle white racism.Once Pearl Harbour is bombed, all Japanese citizens and immigrants are sent to farms in Alberta or elsewhere for the duration of the war. Their possessions are confiscated and their lives are very difficult. Mitsue has three children, one of whom is Sakamoto’s father, Stan.Stan Sakamoto marries Diane MacLean and they have two sons.The book, although mildly interesting, could have used some very good editing. This is the Canadian immigrant story and it has been told in better ways by other authors. What is missing is a description of the emotional trauma that Mitsue and Ralph endured, the prejudice in an interracial marriage and the bullying the Daniel and Mark May have endured. Even when they first meet, how did Ralph feel about his daughter marrying a Japanese Canadian. Another Canada Reads miss.

[vancouverdeb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This quick, engrossing read packed a lot more punch than I expected. At just 256 pages, I learned a lot about the Japanese Canadians in Vancouver pre - WW11 and during the internment of the Japanese in Canada. I was also very interested about the war experiences of Ralph McLean as he battled and became a POW of the Japanese during WW11. After WW11, Mark Sakamoto's life as a biracial child in Medicine Hat was also fascinating. My impression of Mark's life is that it was perhaps more affected by the fact that his mom had to contend with mental health and drinking issues, rather than the issues he faced as a Japanese- Canadian . Well worth the read and recommended.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very powerful and moving book in which Mark Sakamoto tells the story of his grandparents. His maternal grandparents (Mitsue and Hideo) were Canadians of Japanese descent. They were forced from their home in British Columbia after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, and forced to work as labourers on an Alberta beet farm. They faced harsh conditions, the "pay" was insulting, but the biggest offense was the sheer injustice in the way these Canadian-born citizens were treated. Mr. Sakamoto's maternal grandfather, Ralph MacLean, served in World War II and was a prisoner of war in Japan for almost four years. He endured unbelievable conditions: no food for days at at time, work details, disease, witnessing the torture and/or death of friends. Yet, when Mitsue's son and Ralph's daughter fell in love, the families welcomed each other into their lives.The concept of forgiveness is strong throughout the book. Mitsue and Ralph displayed incredible strength during the awful war years and even more strength, I think, in putting the past behind them and moving on with their lives. Here, we see how forgiveness empowers and frees those who forgive...it opens their hearts to the future.For me, it was such a tragedy that Mr. Sakamoto's parents didn't stay together. After all the history and prejudice that was overcome to celebrate their love...it made me sad. The part of the book about Mr. Sakamoto's own life and that of his parents interested me less than the story of his grandparents, though it was nice to complete the family history.

[jessibud2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have to begin by admitting that I am a person who has never understood the abstract concept of forgiveness. People who forgive the murderers of their children, for example. Makes absolutely no logical sense to me. Then, last year, I saw a documentary film of the Dalai Lama and he said that forgiveness was not for the person being forgiven, rather, for the person doing the forgiving. A tiny light went on for me. I still don't totally buy it, myself, but it explained the concept for me, a bit more.Mark Sakamoto's book, one of the 5 finalists for the Canada Reads competition, which takes place from March 26 - 29, is subtitled: A Gift From my Grandparents*. I think a couple of quotes from the end of the book are actually a good place to begin my review: "My grandparents bore witness to the worst in humanity. Yet they also managed to illuminate the finest in humanity. Their hearts were my home. I saw none of the ugliness they had. I felt none of the bitterness. How on earth did they manage that? Forgiveness is moving on. It is a daily act that looks forward. Forgiveness smiles." " Life happens one decision at a time. You have no idea where each will take you. Maybe it is fate. Maybe it's God's will. Maybe everything does happen for a reason. All I know is that you have to find a reason in it. The reason is usually the future. I was inching closer to forgiveness. As I sat in King's War Room, the sun broke through thick clouds, its light filtering in through the massive arched windows. The brightness seemed to open the room to me. And then it opened my country to me, illuminating, in that moment, in how precious few places in the world my family's story -- my grandparents', my parents', and mine -- would be possible."~~~~~~Mark Sakamoto's paternal grandparents were Japanese Canadians who were expelled from British Columbia and interned in Alberta during and after WWII, along with thousands of other Japanese Canadians, many of whom were Canadian-born. A truly disgraceful chapter of our country's history. Mark's maternal grandfather was Canadian born, in the Magdalen Islands, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. To escape an abusive father, he joined the army with his best friend and eventually saw action. He became a prisoner of war in Japan and was interned there for 4 long and brutal years. This book tells their stories in sometimes heart-breaking detail. Their backgrounds, how they lived, how they survived and how his grandparents somehow, despite it all, found it within themselves to allow their children to marry, at a time when inter-marriage, let alone this particular inter-marriage, was not nearly as acceptable as it might be today.[Forgiveness] is also Mark's story, his own childhood, fraught and sad, yet throughout, he always knew he was loved. Sakamoto is a powerful writer. Here, he describes, how, as a 9-year old, his parents' marriage was beginning to unravel: "On the surface, many things remained the same. Our morning routine was unchanged...But the cracks began to appear. I kept my eye on them like a home inspector, hoping they wouldn't impact the foundation. As I watched the small cracks grow, I wondered if anyone else saw them."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~One of the things I came to understand from reading this story is that there is an awful lot we were not taught about in school when I was growing up. The internment of Japanese-Canadians is just one of those things. A quote from the book, about Mark's paternal grandmother: "Mitsue felt a little safer than most. She was a Canadian citizen after all. They wouldn't do all the terrible things people were talking about to Canadian citizens. She had been born here, all her brothers and sisters had been born here. She'd never even been to Japan. Canada was all she knew. She felt Canadian through and through. And even though she was not permitted to vote, Canada was a democracy. That meant it was a safe country. That is what she had learned in school, and she believed it. The next two months shattered those beliefs. Fear and greed can do terrible things to the human heart..."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~It is gut-wrenching and startling to realize just how contemporary such sentiments still resonate. Humans don't really seem capable of learning from history, do they? The focus of bad politics these days seem aimed at trump, in the States, but Canada has plenty of its own shameful baggage to carry and deal with. Heaven help us.This was a powerful and very well-written book.

[iudita_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a little gem that ended up being so much more that what I expected of it. I would recommend this to anyone. It is highly informative and incredibly inspiring, all while being very readable.