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"A Million Hearts from Here": Japanese Canadian Mothers and Daughters
and the Lessons of War
PAMELA SUGIMAN
So go ahead and lock me up. Take my children.
Take my wife. Freeze my assets. Seize my crops.
Search my office. Ransack my house. Cancel my
insurance. Auction off my business. Hand over
my lease. Assign me a number. Inform me of my
crime. Too short, too dark, too ugly, too proud.
Put it down in writing—is nervous in conversation,
always laughs loudly at the wrong time,
never laughs at all—and I'll sign on the dotted
line. Is treacherous and cunning, is ruthless, is
cruel. And if they ask you someday what it was
I most wanted to say, please tell them, if you
would, it was this:
I'm sorry.
There. That's it. I've said it. Now can I go?
—Julie Otsuka, When The Emperor Was Divine
FOR NEARLY TEN years now, I have been working slowly yet steadily on a project
that is close to my heart. This project is a social historical analysis
of Japanese Canadians whose rights were violated by blatantly racist and
sexist state policy in the years just prior to, during, and immediately
after the Second World War. My study focuses on the ways in which these
violations have shaped the lives and memories of the second-generation,
the Nisei. But just as this research was inspired by the wartime experiences
of my parents and grandparents, through family memories accumulated since
childhood, over the last decade I have drawn my own daughter into the active
process of remembering the events of war. I became acutely aware of my role
as a maker of memory several months ago. At that time, my daughter, then
nine years of age, told me that she too is writing a story about the internment
of Japanese Canadians. Several months later, she reintroduced her story.
"Do you know what I'm going to call it?" she asked. "I'm going to call it,
'A Million Hearts From Here.'" She added, "If you're looking for a title
for your book, you can use it, too." Explaining her choice of
title, my daughter remarked:
I called it "A Million Hearts from Here" because it is about
a million
people, well, a lot of people, that were interned. And they all had a heart
somewhere. And "from here"? They were a long way away [from
home].
And how would you feel if you were away, for about four years?
Here is a passage from her short story. It is dedicated to me.
Once upon a time there was a young girl named Isabella. She was a
poor girl but had a very kind heart. But one day, her dad told her, "You
are
young but still old enough to be scared to go to an internment camp."
"Why?"
"The government is making us go. It is not fair."
Isabella bust into tears. "Wait," she said. "Maybe you aren't telling
the truth."
"Oh, Isabella, Daddy would not lie to you about that. Never. Or about
anything."
"Well then, what is an internment camp anyway?" Isabella sniffed.
"Well," Isabella's dad said. "It's a place where we will be separated
from each other and might never see each other again. They are hard on
you, Isabella. Very hard. They make you work all day and it is difficult,
Isabella. You better go pack. One suitcase only."
"Okay," Isabella said quietly. Isabella walked to her room then softly
cried. "Why me? One day, if I ever get out, I will get them back. But right
now, I will just pack a picture of Mom, and some pants and a top and a
teddy Mom sewed me." She wrote me, "To Isabella, on your sixth birthday.
My love, Mommy."
Isabella cried gently. Oh, how much easier it would have been if
mother was here.
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