[Originally published on February 16, 2017 during the Trump administration. Republished to commemorate February 19, the “Day of Remembrance” marking the date on which President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.] This Sunday marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066. On February 19, 1942, in the wake of the bombing of Pearl […]
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Tag: San Francisco
Kiyo’s Story: Introduction
My aunt Kiyo died three years ago at the age of 102. For most of the last few years of her life, she was no longer herself. It was hard to reconcile the frail, somewhat vacant woman who seldom spoke with the incessantly verbal, independent, and rather bossy dynamo who had presided over the Takahashi […]
Chicago
Kiyo’s story, part 9: 1944-45 Kiyo, though by that time 31 years of age, had never before lived away from her family. She had never lived outside of San Francisco, except for Tanforan and Topaz. Arriving in Chicago in the late fall of 1944 must have been both thrilling and a bit frightening. Her brother […]
Freedom
Kiyo’s story, part 10: 1945 In December of 1944, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mitsuye Endo, declaring that the United States could not detain loyal citizens. The internment order was rescinded by FDR and Japanese Americans were allowed to go home beginning in January, 1945. (The last camp didn’t close until the end […]
The fork in the road
Kiyo’s story, part 11: 1945 Professor Nimoy, Kiyo’s boss, was Russian Jewish, but had come to the US as a child with his parents. He was a full professor at the University of Chicago and highly respected in his field. He had a wife and three children, two girls and a boy. In exchange for […]
The Summer of Sandals
A young relative recently graduated from middle school, and I was stumped as to what kind of gift might be suitable. I am not great at gift-giving, being borderline phobic about shopping and not being a craft-advantaged person who can whip up quirky home-made items that people would not immediately regift or donate to a […]
For my dad on Fathers’ Day
We will not say “sayonara” to you; we will not let go of the small, good things you taught us to love, like the sound of the river, the buzz of a fishline spinning out after a fat, freckled trout. Or cold, dark mornings when you lured us from sleep with a single, whispered word: […]
My mother’s kimono
This week my place is a kimono museum. For the past five years, since we started clearing out my mom’s house, a pile of Japanese kimono* that belonged to my mom and aunt have been sitting on my childhood bed, neatly folded and wrapped in a cotton sheet, while I tried to figure out what […]
Working at Christmas
When I was a child, I was eager to work. It seemed like a “grown-up” thing to do. I helped at my dad’s wholesale business, first on Columbus Avenue, and later, on Bryant Street. I put stamps on envelopes and got rides on the handtruck when my sisters were around. (In reality, my dad was […]
Chinatown
It was a gorgeous April day in San Francisco, so I took BART into the city and walked all the way up Grant Avenue, through Chinatown, to Live Worms Gallery in North Beach, where my brother-in-law Paul was having a show. Although I’ve spent most of my life in San Francisco and the East Bay, […]