They had everything taken from them because they were Japanese.
Fiction Excerpt | Janis Bridger & Lara Jean Okihiro | Issue 42
Excerpt from Obasssan’s Boots
There’s nothing left to do but pack. I can’t put it off any longer.
Haunted by the image of the Ishii family’s things being carried out of their home while they were driven away, we stuff everything into a few rooms in the house and put locks on the doors. The kitchen table and chairs and all the furniture, the lamps, our pots and pans, our gramophone and records, all Koichiro’s books, and our bed. We cram things into attic spaces and under porches. We put our dishes and valuables in cabinets built into the walls and then plaster them over to camouflage them. We pack things in sturdy trunks and bring them to the Japanese Language School or the Buddhist Church. Surely the church is safe.
Before they left with the first group to Kaslo last week, Koichiro’s sisters stored cutting tables, sewing machines, and irons there—the remains of Masako’s dressmaking business. There’s not enough room in our house to store it all.
We also pack everything for the move. It’s so hard to decide what to take when you don’t know where you’re going or when you’ll be back. And somehow it all has to fit into one hundred and fifty pounds each, and seventy-five pounds for children—another government rule. Only what we can carry.
I take my sewing machine and a mattress. That way, I’ll be able to make clothes for the baby and me, and maybe I’ll get some mending work. And I’m not sleeping on a dirty floor!
Of course, I’m also taking our cast-iron rice pot. The rest is mostly clothes, sheets, and other necessities. I don’t know what to do about all our pictures and meaningful or expensive items, like my wedding dress. I want to take them with me, but they won’t fit. So, I pack the dress and photos in a box and leave it with Koichiro. One day, when we recover Koichiro’s pistol and my wedding dress, we’ll pass them on to our children and grandchildren as heirlooms. I repeat this to myself like a promise or a prayer. I have to believe it’s true.
I wonder what Mom and Dad will do with Toshi’s urn and ashes. I close my heavy eyes. What painful, terrible decisions we’re being forced to make.
When my packing’s settled, I start taking things apart. I rip up our towels—blue like the sky on Sea Island—into squares for extra diapers, and I rip the seams of my waistband and undergarments. Between the layers of my clothing, I carefully place folded bills and then sew the seams back up, hiding the money inside. Everything is coming apart. But at least this, and my baby, I can keep safe.
The day we’re leaving, I go to the garden one last time. The snow peas and kiwi vines are getting taller, but their soil is dry. We haven’t had time to care for them. The mound over the pistol is still there.
Last night I left food for the black cat one last time. “Good-bye. Take care of yourself,” I said. She looked right at me. And despite my dislike of cats, I ask Koichiro—who will be here a bit longer—to keep feeding her. I tell myself it’s silly to worry for a cat when so many of us are afraid. But it still feels important. Caring for the little things feels more necessary than ever before.
I wonder what will happen to all the pets that belong to the Japanese people who live here. They can’t take them with their families to road camps or ghost towns. They can’t store animals away in the Buddhist Church.
I check the rooms upstairs. I check our bags. I’m so afraid I’m missing something we need, and that the belongings we’re leaving behind won’t be safe. I check the mailbox one more time. Still no letter from Jeanne.
When the bus comes, I kiss Koichiro good-bye. We don’t know when we’ll see each other again. I think Koki senses he won’t see his dad. He won’t stop crying. Koichiro doesn’t want to let him go. When he finally passes him to me, we hold each other close. If they took this wartime picture—the two of us with the baby nestled between—would we look like the enemy to them, or a heart breaking apart?
Excerpt from Obaasan’s Boots, by Lara Jean Okihiro and Janis Bridger, with permission of Second Story Press © 2023, p. 81-83
Janis Bridger is an educator and writer who has many creative outlets and a love for the outdoors. She lives in Vancouver, Canada, close to where her Japanese Canadian grandparents lived before being interned. Janis earned a diploma in Professional Photography (Langara College), a Bachelor of Education and General Studies (Simon Fraser University) and a Master of Education (University of Alberta), specializing in teacher-librarianship. Social justice, diversity, and kindness are paramount in her life and embedded in her everyday teaching.
Lara Jean Okihiro is a writer, researcher, and educator of mixed Japanese Canadian heritage living in Toronto. Intrigued by the power and magic of stories, she earned a Master’s (Goldsmiths College) and a Doctorate (University of Toronto) in English. Living abroad inspired her to learn about her family’s experience of internment. Lara writes about dispossession, hoarding, social justice, and carrying the important lessons of the past into the future.
Obaasan's Boots by Lara Jean Okihiro and Janis Bridger Second Story Press, 2023
"They had everything taken from them because they were Japanese."
Cousins Lou and Charlotte don’t know a lot about their grandmother’s life. When their Obaasan invites them to spend the day in her garden, she also invites them into their family’s secrets. Grandma shares her experience as a Japanese Canadian during WWII, revealing the painful story of Japanese internment. Her family was forced apart. Whole communities were uprooted, moved into camps, their belongings stolen. Lou and Charlotte struggle with the injustice, even as they marvel at their grandmother’s strength. They begin to understand how their identities have been shaped by racism, and that history is not only about the past.
“A book that so beautifully captures the intimate and ongoing effects of internment on post war Japanese Canadian families. Bridger and Okihiro fully inhabit the idea that ‘history is not only about the past’ by tracing its present-day echoes and reverberations—in gardens, at dinner tables and through everyday familial relationships.”
Kyo Maclear, author of Virginia Wolf and The Wish Tree
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