The End of the Beginning

April 3, 1972

They say that the truth is sometimes best left unspoken. 

But if you do so, when will you ever speak?

 -------------------------

Although thirty years have lapsed since I first stepped into the Manzanar desolation, a queer familiarity echoes throughout the uninhabited despondence. Yet, a fragile hope suspends itself on the thinnest  tenacious cobweb, as if alluding to the precarious fate isolated in this now forgotten memory. Listen, the wind cries feebly, listen for me. Only even the memories reluctantly elude my defeated vicinity. Time has become decrepit  in an interim too brief, revering the only bond that I had once shared with venerable sky and earth, perpetual wind and water.

But then I see the shadows, the silhouettes of laughing men and women, walking an endless breadth of hope.They are like the ghosts of the living dead, a sentry of a realm beyond recognition. 

Silence steals the air. 

I had chased a dream once, but the revelation of its utter futility came at a turning point too late. Yet, I gathered a solace within me, that perhaps someday I would unclasp my bitter restraints, and life would undo itself for me to follow the fate that was meant to be.

Too late, too late.

Little did I know of the lamentable truth, that when time evades a flippant grasp, it will never reincarnate again.

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"Mama?" I whisper desperately. "Papa?"

Gazing across the empty firebreak, a wave of remorse rages spontaneously within me. I lie in a bed of wayward mist - of distinct nothingness. The throne hovers above me again, so wretchedly close to my palm, yet so hopelessly far away.

"Jeanne?" A timid voice flutters in the breeze.

"Mama?"

Then I see them, an image of yesterday, but the inextinguishable flower of tomorrow. A silver baton lurches gracefully across a glittering blue sky, and laughter rings from the nearby cafeteria hall.Children swarm about the Manzanar internment school, conversing passionately of their future ideals, their hopes and desires.

But most importantly, I see the daunting figure of Papa, an unnatural smile curled dolefully across his lips. Even when submerged beneath his unbreakable oblivion, he held his streak of defiance, his cane of indefatigable conduct. And it was this that eventually led to my understanding of Manzanar and what it truly stood for.

I know what you can only say when you've come to truly know a place...

...Farewell.

 

The Door that Links Dream and Reality

 

April 18, 1951

As the years wore on, heritage continued to trod upon my toes, sometimes to overwhelm me completely. Unlike middle school, high school poised itself on a more elevated podium, and the term "belonging" often forced you to quickly undermine the righteous path.

Before long, the intimate friendship between Radine and I crumpled and fell apart.  While she began to enter sororities and become a part of a whole, I had the pleasure of observing the sidelines, waiting for the miracle that would never unfurl to the alienated Japanese.

In my senior year, Papa moved the family to San Jose and returned to his farming expertise. For me, it symbolized a chance to rewrite old stories, untie obstinate knots, and live by my own accord once more.

By spring, I had received the acclaim of the entire student body, and became one of the fifteen girls nominated for Carnival Queen on voting day.

Playing a demure smile, I had walked along the procession in a flower-print sarong, only to be greeted by a thunderous encore. Yet, the teachers bristled at the idea of an Oriental queen and attempted to stuff the ballot before my friend Leonard caught them in the midst of their act.

However, the moment my name echoed on the intercom for the Carnival Queen announcement, my eyes turned somber, and I became a callous statue amongst my cheering classmates. Somehow, the
memories had caught my footsteps once again.

Papa seethed with rage when I mentioned the news that night, admonishing me for portraying my body in such an un-Japanese like fashion. Mama, however, understood my need for belonging, and immediately bought me a gown to don for the Carnival Queen procession.

Soon, I found myself walking the length of bedsheets stretching across the auditorium floor in a frilly uniform that withheld every inch of my body.

Suddenly, my feet slurred with every painful step. The throne appeared to be a mere landmark signaling the distance, an utopia I could never reach.

In my revelation, I witnessed the hopelessness of my situation. I had become a dream that I did not possess, and now it was too late.

Too late for the daydreams of youth, too late to become an odori dancer for Papa. In the near distance, the throne never sidled any closer, but I did not know of a truer destination to follow.

 The Manzanar internment camp memorial.

Into the Wild

 

August 29, 1944

After the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, World War 2 closed it curtains, and  Papa took the initiative to finally echo good-byes to our Manzanar lifestyle.

At Lone Pine, he committed his final act of defiance; a purchase of a car with the only paucity of funds we had retained throughout the Manzanar years. Yet, as we jolted through the Mojave Desert, a smile played upon my lips, for Papa's secret audacity had now found a corner in my heart.

However, the truth revealed itself as we settled into the unmaintained Cabrillo Homes, Los Angles. Unlike the threats that had struck or fears before, we now faced an isolation between the Americans that shared our community; and at school, people treated me not with disrespect, but with an attitude that showered an aura of invisibility. Although I had participated in just about every organization existing at our school, I wished to be known as an individual, an unparalleled identity.

Soon, with my friend, Radine, I became the lead majorette for the Boy Scout bugle corps and began to truly link myself to a name, a unique voice above the thousands that caressed me. For by abandoning a childhood marred with my cultural flaws, I gave people a new outlook into my life, one that projected only the images I wanted them to see.

Yet, my ethnicity continued to trail my footsteps, like a phantom of the living dead. In spite of the veil that now obscured my genuine identity, many could still only discern a Japanese girl, for in their eyes, they perceived a given object and not the animate mind beneath.

A Turning Point

 

August 14, 1944

 

Much to Papa's disappointment, Woody has allowed himself to be drafted into military service. Despite the anxiousness I feel for my older brother, I believe he deserves the chance to prove himself a loyal citizen of the United States; and I hope he discovers the purpose of his existence through this weighed endeavor.

Yet, matters are becoming increasingly perplexing on our hands as well. Due to Ex Parte Endo, a Supreme Court ruling that lawfully stated the government cannot detain loyal citizens against their will, all internment camps will be closed within the next twelve month, leading to the liberation of all imprisoned internees.

Beneath the truth, two diaphanous questions lie in solitude, for they own no answer.

What home is there to return to? After two years of seclusion, how can we face society once more?

Explorations and Outcomes

  A Manzanar classroom in procession.

March 5, 1943

Mama has recently relocated our family to block 28, where the barracks  rim the outer perimeter of the Owens Valley apple orchards. I suppose life has become more tolerable since this move, for I now can smell the sweetness of a new beginning.

With the start of school, I have begun to touch the feathers of new hobbies, with the hope that the explorations may give me the chance to restore my pre- Manzanar lifestyle. Of course, I do not believe I can ever start over, but perhaps I can relive the light of freedom once more.

My first project landed in baton twirling, an art I relished for  its unmistakable American tempo and march.  In a sense, I glimpsed the baton as a dream, for though it rises and falls, you can always anticipate the catch - the moment when fate finally brings the destiny that will rule above all.

Although I also attempted odori, a Japanese dance, and ballet, I never confronted another activity that could quite compete with my natural affinity for the silver bar. The endeavors that linked to a Japanese heritage did not appeal to me, for I wanted to shed my foreign appearance and become fitted for a culture greater than that of Japan.

1943 marked the high school publishing of the yearbook "Our World." Throughout the pictures and documentations, there strives a single message: even in a time of distrust, people stow their cares away, hoping that they will make turmoil more livable.

An Inevitable Confrontation

 An overall layout of the Manzanar internment camp.

December 29, 1942

As the crook of December wears on, we find ourselves a year from the blossomings if Pearl Harbor. Yet, I now find it difficult to believe that the bombing occurred in a time so far away, for it seems like yesterday we waved good-bye to the fishermen harbored at Long Island.

Yet, the December Riot brought a sense to the distance we have encompassed since that time, for it marked an anniversary for those who had been brewing concoctions to facilitate the final revenge.

On December 5, after Fred Tayama of the JACL (the Japanese American Citizens League) was reportedly beaten by six unidentified men, a young cook who had participated in the incident unjustly entered arrest after proclaiming a Caucasian had plundered sugar and meat from Manzanar warehouses to sell on the black market.

The riot did not prove to be on the scale I had expected. Although my parents prohibited me to witness the excitement, tension kissed the air the morning before the emotions accumulated between then and Pearl Harbor combusted into flames. Like a bubble, we only withhold a limited capacity for what we could consume, and sooner or later, the strifes will corrupt into violence.

The mob swarmed the blocks that night, and like a shadow, it rose and fell with the phases of the moon. By midnight, noise became an assault too weak for persuasion. The men began to thirst for blood.

An army captain soon deterred the mob as they purged onward with their "inu" chant. When the men did not abide the officer's final warning, gunshots fired into the night,

I listened to the bells that continued to ring along the sound of whistling bullets. Their chimes echoed through noon the next morning.

Some disputes cannot be settled by the shedding of blood, for they only create a hunger for more.

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As Christmas came to a close, the government issued a Loyalty Oath to all Japanese men seventeen or older. The outcomes become predictable; if you doubted your allegiance to the United States, you would be shipped back to Japan. If you agreed to serve the army at any given time, you would drafted into the infantry.

This often seemed like the rebound after the December Riot, a renewal of feuds all alike. For the Oath became an inevitable factor of life; whether you answered or not, you would either be corralled to Japan, the infantry, or relocation.

While Papa often attended the meetings that discussed the best approach toward the Loyalty Oath, his "inu" background forced him to linger on the unforgiving sidelines. After every rendezvous, the songs of his native country would swell our constrained barrack, and he would be lost in a distant nostalgia; immersed in the memories of a more beautiful childhood.

Of Crimes and Oddments

November 26, 1942

Ever since Papa’s return to our family hierarchy, he has culminated a determinate lust for wine. No matter what day it comes to be or what hour of revolution, he perches a thin vile on the brink of his lips, and sips until he drowns into absolute oblivion.

With the number of women that claim attendance in Manzanar, an everlasting stream of gossip slips from one mouth to another, until the line between truth and tale merges into one incredulous story. Yet, lately the rumors of the "Manzanar runs" have shifted to another bauble, only this time Papa finds himself esconced in the hushed whispers. 

In the derogatory comments directed toward him, Papa is often identified as an "inu", or a collaborator sidled with the United States. Since Papa had been released from Fort Lincoln earlier than most of the Japanese men convicted of treason, many believed he had leaked access information about his fellow Isseis in an attempt to propel his release.


When Mama casually informed Papa of the accusations aimed toward his background, his temper flared even when she tried to placate the threats that spontaneously spilled from his mouth.


"I'm going to kill you this time!" He cried deafeningly.


"Why don't you?" Mama sobbed hysterically, "No one can live like this."


As Mama gradually calmed and regained her wits, her composure plagued me with a sudden strike of fear; it seemed as if her anguish had overcome what she dreaded of death, and that her heart had finally decided to capitulate to the man she had once trusted and endeared. 

The moment of suspense hung limply in midair, and though I watched, my eyes disbelieved the truth behind this moment and what the end would bring.


At this turning point, Kiyo tore the covers off his cot and plunged straight toward Papa, his eyes widened with shock and a queer spark of sadness. In spite of our struggles to stay together, were we not a family? Did we not fight for our dreams as a whole?

When I heard the resounding crack reverberate throughout the steps of our threshold, I tilted my head up to see Papa's nose crimson with rippling blood and the tail of Kiyo's shirt as he sprinted hastily out the door. 

When the world begins to fall apart, who do you look towards? In reality, you have been isolated, and you can only weigh the impressing burdens upon yourself.

Often taunted by the Japanese as "inu," a JACL member carries cabbage from the farming fields.

Metamorphosis

September 16, 1942

In the matter of opinions, I usually settle on the former or the latter. Never has there been an incident in which I have caught myself between a game of tug-of-war, where partiality may sometimes be weighed on one facet and not the other.

Yet, in opposition to this known fact, I have struck a dilemma in the art of decision making.

Papa has returned.

Before our arrival at Manzanar, Mama had received a letter from Bismarck, North Dakota, in which Papa delineated his imprisonment at Fort Lincoln, an all-male camp for alien internees. Yet, despite the fact that we gained a measure of understanding in this subject matter, life moved on without the presence of our chief executor; and we traipsed by our own standards and intuition. 

When I reached his gaunt figure at the foot of the Greyhound bus, his eyes caught me by surprise.The memories that tormented his very existence brought shadows to an extinguished spark, and his face sagged with not wisdom, but blatant age. In his hand, a sinuous maple limb crept unobtrusively from a withered sleeve, and its heavily polished sheen radiated with a bitter glow.


To see him brought only pain, not bliss, for what had rendered him human now made him a subject of the living dead. By contrast, he had become cold and unfeeling, and for once, even his pride failed to exalt him any higher.


At Manzanar, I had indulged in the stories of catechism with the Maryknoll nuns,  for they brought me a greater sense of female resistance, of feminine opposition. Yet, the imposing demeanor of Papa gives me an inlet for discouragement, for his defiant rage has stolen the prerequisite freedom that subsists within the breath of every individual.


I now recall memories of my family as a whole, the times when we used to laugh together and cry in unison. For it is only in these recollections that I can relive gaiety and sorrow without a disparaging regret, and gather the secrets that have long been forgotten.


There will be countless tomorrows, but I pine only for the one taste of yesterday.

There Comes a Chance

April 15, 1942

Woody’s attempts at uplifting Mama’s spirit have all seemingly ended in vain. Yet, although I can perceive the pain he extracts from Mama’s intractable unhappiness, his inexhaustible smile continues to gleam with the rise of every day.

Although the necessitates they provide for us in the internment camp will never quite meet our standards, I hope we will be able to cope through the rougher times and welcome the new in ecstasy.  For beneath the inadequate provisions and crudely constructed encampments, I believe there are lessons to be learned and places to be going. 

Though I must admit the cafeteria's sweetened rice now clings to my throat and Mama's detest for the bathroom's lack of privacy is understandable, a certain joy finds its way to my heart whenever I see families put away their own cares aside for the community - the greater good.

Manzanar, as the camp calls itself, challenges its inhabitants to new levels by creating a atmosphere of incompetence and inability. Yet, if one withstands the barriers and plants her seeds along the obstinacy, there will come a time in which even the expected becomes unexpected.  

A Welcoming

March 28, 1942

Interestingly enough, we awoke this morning to find ourselves caked in a fine layer of sand and dust. I do not believe Mama found this at all amusing, for she confronted the issue with a look of sheer repulsion.

It is strange to find myself now four months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and yet I have not gleaned a greater understanding of this particular topic. Of course, we soon constituted the attack to a naval base situated in Hawaii, a series of islands straying a few thousand miles from the Californian coastline. But it has proved difficult to delineate the occurrence in only numbers – the dead, the wounded, and the living – for the stories beneath the well-disguised façade illuminate with a more revealing light.

Soon after Papa eluded our grasp, Mama proposed to move our family to Terminal Island, where we expected more Japanese that we could associate with culturally, though not in the way we expected. Like Liesel’s entrance into the Hubermann household, I found myself in a new setting of a book, where even a species of your own kind can result as being a creature increasingly gruesome.

Although Terminal Island promised our family a niche amongst Orientals after the racial isolation we encountered in Ocean Park, I harnessed a secret fear for the proud and vulgar natives, especially the children that eventually became my classmates at the local school. Unlike the sweet innocence expected from peers of such a young age, they proved to be the direct opposite; and day after day my older brother Kiyo and I would gauge a new and unexpected route home from school, desperate to detain an ambush from the foreigners we became so unaccustomed to.  

To my relief, we soon gathered our belongings and relocated to Boyle Heights after the navy arrived upon our white-washed shorelines, for they believed the island’s intimate closeness with the Long Beach Naval Station would somehow establish into a growing threat. Yet again, I was confronted by a new tension existing between Americans and Japanese, a sudden turning point veering from the incisive trauma of Pearl Harbor. In my opinion, however, I see a futility in their aimless fumbling; you cannot lead man on a righteous path, for he will always, at heart, elude you.

Boyle Heights welcomed us as a minority ghetto harbored in downtown Los Angeles, and there, my brothers colluded every possible minute on how we could possibly stay intact when Executive Order 9066 swaggered into law. In an attempt to regain the life we had once lived, Mama and Woody began to package celery at a local produce dealer, and Kiyo, my sister May, and I enrolled in the local school.

The memories I obtained in the vicinity of Boyle Heights reveal a great transition in our relationship with the United States, a change in the state of mind. Where tolerance once resided, fear corroded the remaining trust and friendship, until we became aliens to the country we once called home.

In spite of the lassitude that hovered above our family at this time, soon the government informed us that we would be shipped out of our temporary confinements. Although it brings a visualization of an invitation to an unspoken prison, my family took this as a chance to relive our  own traditions and an escape from the desperate turmoil now contaminating old tranquility.

As the bus carried us into the heart of the Owens Valley, I watched the flurries of sand against our window pirouette in their versatile dance, and I observed the way they twirled above us with only the moan of the breeze as a faded melody. In the distance, fate almost came as a tangible substance, only it eluded my palm as the upturned gale flew away.

When we arrived, I only perceived the limitless rows of barracks crossing the open desert, like hovels filed in a desolate prairie. People milled about the tires of our bus, their eyes wayward as they trekked a boundless silence. I closed my one window to the world and crossed the threshold into a stranger realm.

-------------------------

Now, as I watch the rise of the sun with dust saturated throughout my hair, I linger in another dream. There is a chance it will never be fulfilled, and yet I pursue it anyway; for in the distance, whether near or far, a beginning sleeps with the hope that it will someday be awaken.

 The sign that welcomed Manzanar internees.

The Beginning of the End, The End of the Beginning

December 16, 1941

Although I have encountered much inexplicability throughout my life, I still question the heavy distribution of misery in the lives of the most kindhearted people. Tragedy has its way of destroying us in utter clandestinity, and yet much of it unfurls without a secret; only the inevitable sorrow. Despite these conclusions, I have always considered it implausible for afflictions to spur in our family, though it is ludicrous to condemn any of my relations “perfect.”

Yet, I feel despicable when I say time has lagged by my bedside, when in fact it has propelled the world too quickly, wrecked systematic procedures in lapses too brief. But I often believe a great deal of my happiness lies in the past, where memories glowed brighter and things never did seem so bleak.

With the scant amount of understanding I retain within myself, there exists the last good-bye before life welcomed the end of the beginning, or perhaps the beginning of the end. Through this window, though tarnished and broken, I see a vision of normality before the curtains came crashing down. It involves Papa’s thin silhouette perched upon a white fishing boat and much yelling fluttering in unprojected destinations. Most importantly, there flit the faces of Bill and Woody as they struggled with demand after demand, though strangely, in their hearts, bearing the capacity to complete everything to be done. In a sense, the process revolved around a cycle, with Papa’s dictate, my brothers’ hustling footsteps, and the sea behind them that stood as a silent, ambient mediator.

Women and children would huddle about the sun-drenched Long Island wharf, faring the fishermen good-bye as their boats tore away from the only ropes restraining their hulls, bequeathing them the liberty to traipse across endless waters, to unshadow cryptic lands. The vision of Papa donning his skipper’s hat, with eyes thoroughly aglow as he stood aboard The Nereid, now strikes me as the ideal fantasy. Beneath all of my fear, confusion, and ambivalence, I hope if I am ever to reunite with him to see his face with the light that presides in this memory, the pride that has never succeeded to dim.

Perhaps the reason this day brought so much of the change people dread to ever see comes from the innocence it began with – the tranquil, almost lovely colors it wore as the sun glinted from a hedge of silvery clouds. I remember watching Papa, Bill, and Woody drifting gently away from the women swarmed about the docks, the sky casting glittering scintillations that sifted amongst the ripples distorting the soundless ocean. This morning would someday be pulled from my memories known simply as “December 7,” and yet it stands as a day of defeat for the Americans, a moment of triumph for the Japanese, and an end to the beginning for those caught in the middle.

“Good-bye!”

“Have a good trip!”

“Hope you come back soon!”

Even as the fishing boats dissolved against the unscathed horizon, Mama and Bill and Woody’s wives continued waving until the smudges suddenly brought their momentum to a halt. Worriedly, Mama observed the enlargement of the boats as they began their return trip, her eyes thoroughly bewildered.

“Why would they be coming back?”

“Maybe there’s a storm coming.”

“But the sky is perfectly clear.”

Then, as if to answer their call, a man came sprinting from the nearby cannery, informing us that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor.

“What is Pearl Harbor?” Mama cried, though her question remained unanswered as the messenger flew off once again, feeding the news to another women beside her.

That night, Papa quietly collected the possessions that linked to his Japanese heritage and burned them in quiet seclusion. In spite of his effort, he knew that the FBI would soon corner him, and he knew there would be no escape.  

They found him soon enough, just a few days ago. To my surprise, he crossed our threshold with no struggle, only a wordless dignity. His silence spoke enough.

Bill and Woody tried to divulge anything to be known about Papa, but all attempts have ended in vain. In the end, we discovered he had been taken into custody and shipped out to a location they would not disclose.

I have witnessed countless strange phenomena, from undeserved happiness to tears in a time of gaiety. But how can a bombing, just another attack people continually have the capacity to collude, culminate so much panic and animosity?

Although the impact of Pearl Harbor has dawned a great deal of  grief upon young and old alike,  it has also contributed to the final formation of my character, and corroborates to the legacy of the American future.