always went to Maneki’s restaurant and had the same thing for lunch every time: miso soup, rice, and buta dofu (pork with tofu). After lunch, we would tour different stores, or visit a family friend, or have an ice cream soda.
My mother was the youngest of ten children. Her father died when she was only two, and her mother died when she was six. She ended up being raised by her adoring older siblings, who nurtured her and provided her with an education far beyond what most Japanese girls in that era received. Her outlook on life was always upbeat and positive, even in the most difficult of times.
As a family, we talked with one another more than most, and in a different manner. My parents were genuinely interested in my brother’s and my daily lives, but I never felt like they were prying. I felt comfortable talking about school, my friends, or whatever else was on my mind. Sometimes, Mama-san or Papa-san told us of their early lives, including Papa-san’s harrowing experiences, as a young man, of extreme prejudice. No topic was off limits.
Both of my parents had a sense of adventure and a relative lack of need for control. From a young age, I felt respected and loved by my parents. It did not matter that my wants and desires might change from one moment to the next, or that they might seem unimportant to an adult; my thoughts and opinions were still honored by them. Their guidance was gentle, and mostly by example, rarely verbal. Arguments were almost unheard of in my family. Punishments were meted out with care, but hardly seemed necessary except on the rarest of occasions.
Later, it was this degree of respect from my parents that ironically would allow me to deviate from the path that a Japanese daughter was expected to follow. My decision to marry a hakujin (white man) in 1951 created the only serious conflict between my parents and me. At that time, interracial marriages were rare in the United States. A strong but unspoken sense of cultural pride within the Japanese-American community implied that marrying outside of our community was “beneath” us.
As open and as generally accepting as my parents were, nothing prepared them for the shock that I delivered on the day I announced my engagement. It was a scandal that brought shame on my family. And yet, once their dismay wore off, my parents’ values and respect for me would win out, overcoming their initial expectations that came from culture and precedent.
In accepting my husband into the family, my parents came to a new appreciation of the fundamental truth that all people are created equal, an ideal central to Americans. It is a simple concept, but one that is difficult to live up to in practice, especially during times of conflict, or when social norms interfere with our ability to understand and accept other people.
During World War II, my family suffered greatly at the hands of Americans who did not understand this fundamental truth. And because of the trauma I endured then, it would take a lifetime of affirming events for me to fully return to a belief in my own worthiness. I could not have made this journey, from the depths of depression back to acceptance, without the privileges I was afforded as a child—a simple life, close to nature; an emphasis on hard work and self-reliance; and the unconditional love and respect of my parents.
My father was one of many Japanese men who immigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century. He started with nothing, or even less than nothing, since he had to borrow money in order to pay for his passage from his native Japan to Hawaii. He was the fourth of five sons, and since Japanese tradition dictated that the oldest son inherited the family home and took care of the parents, Papa-san was free to seek his own way.
Papa-san was 18 years old when he left home, and in those days the only way to cross the Pacific Ocean was by ship—a long, expensive, and potentially hazardous journey. To pay for his passage to the United States, he initially worked in the sugarcane fields in Hawaii and in the coalmines in Alaska. Like most foreigners who didn’t speak English well, Papa-san’s opportunities were limited to minimum wage jobs with long hours and hard labor. And yet he seemed to thrive on this. When I was growing up, not once did I hear him complain about what must have been difficult years.
Part of the secret of Papa-san’s success was that he actually enjoyed work. He took pride in doing even simple, repetitive jobs well, so he had little need to distract himself during his leisure time. His work ethic was not forced; it was part of who he was.
For several decades, Papa-san labored, first, to get out of debt, and second, to accumulate savings. Unlike many people at the time, he did not invest in the stock market; instead, he put his money into an account at a savings and loan. He also followed the advice of a friend and invested in a $1,000 New York Life Insurance policy as a way to earn additional funds over time. I often marveled at how he could be so focused on future gains, denying himself the pleasures that other single Japanese men engaged in. Many of them gambled, or drank to excess, or just daydreamed about future possibilities, but not Papa-san.
He had a goal: To find himself a Japanese bride who shared his vision of raising a family in America. He was not content to take his chances with a picture bride. Most of his peers selected their brides from a book of photographs, sparing themselves the huge expense of a round-trip voyage to Japan. Papa-san was patient, willing to wait, and work, for the most important decision of his life.
When Papa-san returned to Japan to select his bride, he employed the help of a baishakunin (go-between). Traditionally, a third party chose potential couples. This was to eliminate the possibility of diseases, insanity, or alcoholism in the marriage, to ensure matches were made with members of the appropriate class, and to keep both families happy with the outcome.
Even though my parents initially met with the assistance of a baishakunin, the two of them had an unusually long and honest first meeting. They discussed Papa-san’s life in the United States and what each one might want from a life spent together in a new country. Traditionally, the man would have simply stated the terms of the relationship and expected his prospective bride to accept. It was unusual for Papa-san to consider his potential bride’s opinion, much less for him to ask about her hopes and concerns as a peer.
As it turned out, my mother was adventurous and a good match for my father. She appreciated being treated as an equal partner and eagerly embraced my father’s dreams. She really wanted to come to the United States, and was very happy with Papa-san’s proposal to make America their permanent home. My parents were married in Japan in 1922, and came to the United States where they lived for the rest of their lives.
Mama-san was different from many other Japanese brides, some of whom arrived in the United States and were disappointed to discover that their new mates were lowly farmers or laborers. Few of the picture brides even knew what their husbands looked like before arriving here. Still, many young Japanese women preferred the risk of an anonymous marriage in a far-off country to the fate that could have awaited them back home. In the Japanese culture of the early 20th century, marrying a man usually meant living with him in his parents’ home—and possibly enduring a life of servitude under both her husband and her in-laws. Traditionally, the bride was the lowest ranking member of the Japanese household with many responsibilities and few privileges.
The United States was attractive because of the promise of opportunity. Land was plentiful, and the news reaching Japan was that there were many prospects for making money in this young, rapidly growing country. However, Japanese immigrants could not know the difficulties that awaited them. For those brides brave enough to accept the proposals, their passage to this country, paid for by their husbands, was irreversible. Once here, some
