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 […]
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Tag: Japanese-American experience
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 […]
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, […]