“Threads from the Immigrant’s Loom”

San Francisco Chronicle, February 16, 1992. Reviewed by Peter Handel.

Add Ruth Sasaki to the growing list of talented and prolific Bay Area Asian American authors.

The nine short stories collected in “The Loom and Other Stories” focus primarily on Japanese American families. They range from wryly humorous to deeply touching, as Sasaki explores the experience of Japanese immigrants in San Francisco and the conflicts of parents and children who have grown up in very different cultural settings.

The title story is an exquisitely drawn portrait of a woman who grows up in San Francisco “wearing the two faces of a second-generation child born of immigrant parents. The two faces never met; there was no common thread running through both worlds.”

As the story begins, a woman learns that one of her four daughters has been killed in a climbing accident. When another daughter informs her of the death, “the awful words, choked out like bits of shattered glass,” her response is initially one of anger as opposed to grief. “You see? … Daddy told her not to go mountain climbing. He said it was too dangerous. She didn’t listen.” We come to understand such a response as the story of her life unfolds.

Hr children reflect on her past and try to plan her future. Their mother’s childhood was one of hard work and intangible rewards. She diligently studied and gained a degree from the University of California at Berkeley, only to see her future and her father’s business swallowed up by World War II and three years in a detention center. “The experience had no connection with the rest of her life; it was like a pocket in time, or a loose string.”

She marries a hardworking young man and begins a family. Life slides into a routine of raising babies. As her children grow up and start to lead their own lives, she becomes reclusive and self-effacing. The death of her daughter brings her children back into her life, but moments of happiness remain fleeting, until one of her daughters presents her with a loom.

After a life of being who she thought others needed her to be, she is finally able to be herself as she sits, “weaving the diverse threads of life into one miraculous, mystical fabric with timeless care.” The Loom” is a haunting, beautifully realized story of quiet yet powerful redemption.

Other stories have a lighter tone. “First Love” is set in the early 1970s and deals with the differences (and similarities) between “Americanized Asian Americans” and those who are F.O.B.―”fresh off the boat.” In high school, “an F.O.B. … could follow one of two routes: he could be quietly good at science or mathematics, or he could be a juvenile delinquent. Both options condemned him to invisibility.” The romance of a high school “brain” and a supposed bad boy is a tender but realistic look at the joy and pain of young love complicated by class and cultural expectations.

“Independence” is a tale of two sisters who become housekeepers for a rich white woman with a summer cabin at Lake Tahoe. Not surprisingly, things don’t work out as the girls wish.

In “American Fish,” two women meet in a fish market in Japantown and try to figure out where they’ve met before, each assuming that because they’re both Japanese, they must have a friend in common. The twist ending works perfectly and acknowledges the often stereotypical thinking we’re all guilty of on occasion.

“Driving to Colma” and “Ohaka-mairi” are both narrated in the first person and concern death, with the former about a woman’s father preparing himself and his family for his impending death from cancer. “Ohaka-mairi” is a trip to the cemetery, through the eyes of a younger sister visiting her older sister’s grave, and ties in with the characters in “The Loom.”

“Wild Mushrooms,” set in contemporary Japan, brings a father and his daughter together for a visit―she’s living there, he’s back to see his old neighborhood in Hiroshima―and gracefully reminds us that home is where you are, not where you’ve been.

“Seattle,” the concluding story, is filled with touching and knowing insight about the relationship between a mother and daughter who want to be close but can’t quite bring themselves to be honest with each other.

Sasaki illuminates her characters’ inner worlds with depth and rich perception. “The Loom” makes us look forward to much more from this gifted writer.