I decided early on that it was hopeless; I would never be Japanese, so why try? There was too much to know, too much to be understood that could not be conveyed by the spoken English word. I would rather be forward-looking—American. But much as I tried, I could never leave it behind. Someone would […]
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Author: Ruth Sasaki
R. A. Sasaki is the author of The Loom and Other Stories (Graywolf Press, 1991). She is a third-generation San Franciscan (although she now lives in the East Bay).
How much of it is true?
In 2011, I responded to some questions from a young man in Minnesota who was taking a short story class and had read The Loom. Would you be willing to give me a short biography of yourself? In short: I was born and raised in San Francisco, the granddaughter of Japanese immigrants. My family moved […]
To Dorothy
I wrote this around 2005 for my long-time friend, Dorothy Stroup, when, in her 70s, she began suffering from Alzheimer’s. After not seeing her for a few years, an unexpected encounter with her (at Trader Joe’s) made me realize that something was amiss. She was friendly and warm as always, but I had the distinct […]
Deru kugi
The Japanese have a saying, “Deru kugi ga utareru”—the nail that sticks out gets pounded down. I did not hear this saying until I was an adult, but as soon as I heard it, I knew it was true. It was one of those unspoken rules that had ordered our lives; but not knowing what […]
Religion
I discovered religion at the age of six, when my best friend Joanne’s parents asked me if I would like to go to Sunday school with her. I would have done anything to be with Joanne. After spending the first five years of my life being the youngest and smallest in the family, always tagging […]
Bedtime Story
When I was a little girl, and my mother put me to bed, she did not tell me stories about enchanted forests or beautiful princesses. I had seen “Sleeping Beauty.” I knew “The Three Bears.” These were not the stories I wanted to hear from my mother. “Tell me the story of when I was […]
Nihonjin
At the age of six, I thought “American” and “English” meant the same thing—white people. After all, Americans spoke English. You have to understand, this was at an age when I also wondered why “onion” was spelled with an “o.” It seemed to me that it should be spelled with a “u,” except that would […]
Jiichan
I don’t remember my grandfather. Jiichan died when I was too young to remember him, but old enough to be afraid of death. He haunted my childhood by appearing in a nightmare so disturbing that I used to force myself to recall it every night before going to sleep so that I wouldn’t dream it […]
Welcome to my place…
OK, so it’s looking kind of Zen. Not much in the way of furniture. That’s the way I like it! This is going to be a place for stories—mostly San Francisco stories, since four generations of my family have lived there and walked its hills and streets. There will probably also be some Japan stories, […]
A Yosemite Family Legacy
When my mother was a child growing up in San Francisco in the 1920s, there were many more restrictions than there are today. For example, Japanese were not allowed to go swimming at Sutro Baths out by the Cliff House. Vacation destinations therefore had to be carefully chosen, usually researched through the Japanese community grapevine, […]