In 2000, students at the American School in Japan read The Loom and Other Stories and had the following questions, which I responded to by e-mail two hours after landing in Tokyo from California (and it was around 4 am California time):
1. How much of the book is autobiographical?
I would say that many of the basic facts came from my life: I grew up in a Japanese-American family in San Francisco and had three sisters, one of whom died at the age of twenty. My mother and her family were interned in Tanforan and Topaz during WWII. My father visited me in Japan in 1976 and we visited Hiroshima, where his mother died in the atomic bombing. My father died of cancer in 1984. Beyond that, much embellishment and fabrication are needed in order to make the stories work as stories. So if you want to know if there really was a George Sakamoto, the answer is — well, yeah. But don’t believe EVERYTHING you read!
“American Fish” is completely fictionalized, although I have to admit, there have been times when I have been with my mother and aunt in Japantown and been in American Fish-like situations. The earlier stories (“Ohaka-mairi”, “Independence”) tend to be the most autobiographical, whereas the later stories (“Driving to Colma,” “Seattle”) are probably the most fictional. “Wild Mushrooms” might be the most autobiographical one — but even that has elements of fiction. For example, my father never would have been so direct as to ask me when I was coming home. That stated question, which ends the story, was my fictional interpretation of the whole purpose of his visit. One of the challenges of writing about Japanese culture is how so much of what happens is in what is not said, or what does not happen! To make the characters and motivations accessible to American readers, concessions must be made.
2. Which nationality do you feel closest to? Japanese or American? Or do you feel a mixture of both?
When I was living in Japan, I never felt more American. When I am in the U.S., where I was born and grew up, I feel relatively Japanese. Overall, since I was born, educated, and live in the U.S., I feel American. (Also because my Nihongo is pretty bad…!!) However, recently I took a series of career assessment tests, and was informed that my personality type comprised 1% of the U.S. population. There’s a reality check for you! Before I lived in Japan, I don’t think I was sure which I really was, and that was one reason I wanted to learn more about Japan. Now, having lived and survived in (and loved and hated) both cultures, I feel that I am definitely a mix. I think many of my original values and personality traits are somewhat Japanese, having been influenced by family — however, in order to survive and flourish in the U.S., I have had to develop values and styles that are almost the opposite — and that developed part is as important a part of me as the original part.
Strangely enough, I always felt that my father, who was born in Berkeley, California, educated in Japan from the age of eight to eighteen, then consciously chose to return to America, was both more American and more Japanese than many Nisei fathers I knew. Because of his ten years in Japan as a child, he seemed more Japanese, and was bilingual. But because he had the pioneer spirit (he chose to return to the U.S., and was an entrepreneur), he also seemed more American — a doer, a risk-taker.
3. Would you rather have been a ‘full’ American living in the States, or a ‘full’ Japanese living in Japan?
I think I can imagine what is meant by a “full Japanese” — but what does anyone really mean by a “full American”? I think that term is a myth in itself. From the beginning of its history, America has been a cultural mix. If anything defines what it means to be American, it is being an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant (except for the Native Americans, whose ancestors, come to think of it, probably immigrated from Asia themselves!). But the pioneers moving West were from Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland, descendants of African slaves, you name it. I *am* a “full American.” If you think about it, every American is bi- or multi-cultural — it’s just that some have lost touch with their ancestors’ cultures, or there are too many cultures in the mix to keep track of. My best friend in high school was Jewish, but also part French-Native American. A good friend from New Jersey used to joke to me that he was an Italian sansei (third generation).
But in answer to the question, I don’t wish to be anything other than what I am, and given my tendencies toward independent thinking and non-traditional life choices, it’s probably just as well that I ended up in America as a “full American!”
4. What do you consider the advantages of your background?
I can ‘style-switch.’ I can get along in different worlds. I am not threatened by difference. I can have an open mind because I know that no one way is the right way. I have long believed that diversity is America’s “secret weapon” — as long as we have it, acknowledge it and embrace it, we can’t become insulated and isolated from the rest of the world.
Being bicultural has motivated me to be a bridge-builder. I have personally experienced, in my family history as well as in my own life, the consequences of not building bridges. In the “real” world, I do intercultural training. In my writing, I try to bridge different realities and enable those who know little about Japanese-American experience to “make the leap of empathy.” So you might say that my background has given me a mission in life.
5. What type of future awaits a new Japanese immigrant to the States nowadays?
I think contemporary Japanese immigrants have a great deal of opportunity, especially if they are well-educated, can speak English well, and take the trouble to learn and adapt to the culture. Many of my Japanese friends have emigrated and are doing things like translating, training, starting their own businesses — a big difference from when my grandparents emigrated and had rocks thrown at them, were not allowed to become U.S. citizens, and were not allowed to own land! Japanese-Americans have been fighting for justice in the U.S. for over 100 years, and new immigrants reap the benefits of that struggle. The first generations of Japanese-Americans in turn owe a great debt to African-Americans, who endured two and a half centuries of slavery to pioneer the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950’s and 60’s.
This is not to say that prejudice has been overcome. Every economic downturn seems to cause a flare-up of anti-immigrant sentiment. There is also a disturbing resurgence of hate groups in the U.S., and random attacks on Jews, Asians, black people, Muslims, and gays occur with alarming frequency.
6. What do you think about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II?
I can’t possibly answer this one briefly! But I’ll give it a shot:
The internment was unconstitutional, racist, and motivated by fear of economic competition. There was a long tradition of anti-Asian sentiment in California, initially targeting Chinese immigrants (lynchings, Exclusion Act of 1882), and inherited by the Japanese (1905 public school segregation in San Francisco after Japan defeated Russia, Alien Land Law in 1913, Japanese Exclusion in 1924). Japanese immigrant farmers were becoming very successful despite efforts to prevent them from owning land (they bought it in their children’s names — their children being U.S. citizens). The Hearst newspaper in California was instrumental in fanning “Yellow Peril” hysteria. The bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 was the catalyst that allowed anti-Asian factions to rule public opinion. Newspaper headlines calling for internment failed to distinguish enemy “Japs”from California “Japs,” most of whom were American citizens. Without any charges, without any trials, over 110,000 Japanese-Americans had their businesses and livelihoods destroyed when they were removed from their homes and imprisoned behind barbed wire for over three years, solely because of their race. My grandparents were in their sixties when they were interned. My uncle was thirteen. How would you feel if it happened to you and your family? One of the catalysts for the writing of the story “The Loom” was realizing that I was the same age my mother had been when she was interned. (I was about 23 when I wrote the first draft of that story). I wanted to try to enter her mind and explore what it must have felt like to have grown up American, then to be betrayed by your country.
7. Do you feel that American/ European ‘pop’ culture has taken over Japan? If so, is it a good thing?
Cultural influence is inevitable — that’s why cultures continually change and mutate. I think there are always good and bad aspects — some things change for the better, and some good things are lost. That’s what I feel the story “First Love” is about. Readers often see only the humor, but to me, it is a tragi-comedy about assimilation. The image that lingers in the mind after the story is finished is of that doomed Victorian, and the old Japanese grandmother who is NOT going to have her traditional expectations fulfilled, at least not by THIS young American woman.
The Japanese tend to be influenced by many cultures, not just American/European — but they always seem to take the influence and translate it into something unique. Many of the things we probably think of as “traditional Japanese culture” today probably didn’t even exist a hundred years ago — like salarymen!
“Human brain“: Courtesy of A Health Blog. Licensed under cc by SA 2.0; “Flag of the U.S.“, “Flag of Japan“: Licensed under Public Domain under Wikipedia.
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