It's Never To Late To Start A New Tradition - Remembering Family

“So Dad...This Veteran’s Day we’re raising a glass in belated salute from all of us.
Better late than never. Yup. I agree. It’s really cheeky to declare you’d approve.
How can I presume to think I’d know what you’d do without asking you?"

"Well, you know, if I asked you then, you’d have said rather plainly it was not my business.
It’s really still not my business. But this is exactly where and how I take after you!
We only asked if we really cared. How about raising another toast?
To chips and blocks… Nuts and trees?"

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My family didn’t believe in making a fanfare. A low profile was preferred. Both my mother and my Dad’s sister, Anne Kazuko Aoyama, agreed that one of the important characteristics having Japanese ancestors was that we believed while one should always strive to be accomplished, you must never appear to be proud of them in public.

(So what does this have to do with Veterans Day? Hold on a minute….)

Should anyone be so forward to point or praise your accomplishments, good manners calls for you to publically minimize or even rebuke their significance. This is primarily because in the old Japan of my grandparents time in contrast to America, the group is always more important that the individual.


1. If there is going to be balance and harmony, everyone in the group must know their place and stay there.

2. Boat rockers are not admired. Individuals were frequently reminded by a popular saying “The nail that stands up will be hammered down.”

3. People were encouraged no exhorted to do their best to follow the program by making a special effort to appear and behave like everyone else.

4. Persons of quality should never appear to toot their own horn or encourage anyone to toot it for them.


What happened as a result is that good manners then called for you to basically minimize or even rebuke the significance of your accomplishments. It was also said this would also minimize the discomfort other people might have hearing about the differences between say your accomplishments and their own. We also took pride in our modesty.

(The reason I backed into this article about Veterans Day in such an awkward way, is to sort out in my mind just why as kids our family observations of the holiday and reflections didn’t consciously include him the way people in the mainstream might have done.)

Sure, we knew he was in the Army. We knew other people in the Japanese-American community had been in the military and it was a bigger deal in those families. On the other hand, those men had saw action by getting into combat during World War II. Many of those Nikkei belonged to organizations like the Nisei Veterans and were justifiably proud of their service and as well as sadden by the terrible loss of brothers and colleagues who didn’t come back from the fighting.

On the other hand we thought Dad had been lucky. He was called up towards the end of the war. He was in basic training or just left about the time Japan surrendered to the U.S. on September 2, 1945. He and several fellow Japanese-American soldiers were sent by the Army to Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. Dad braved the cold, not rapid enemy fire. And when he returned home, being part of a veterans organization didn’t seem to be his style.

Dad bought into the family virtue of being very low-key. So it’s hard to figure where one reason left off and the next may have started. Our family was so low-key that you’d never guess from their everyday conversation that any of my uncles who graduated from college with academic honors or in some cases multiple degrees or even had some higher education.

They never talked about their work, their titles and promotions and no one mentioned how they’d gotten a raise or elevated life style. As many of their generation, they were hardworking and frugal. The closest anyone got to bragging at all in my memory was the single time an uncle slipped up and complained about having a completely boring life off the job. Why? Because all his free time was going to constant efforts to keep the grass cut and cared for and clean the swimming pool.

Now that I’ve dug through our family history for a number of years, it turns out the family grandfather left behind in Japan was no different. His older brother was so discreet about his own accomplishments (a) I’m told his own children didn’t know for most of their adulthood about his considerable accomplishments as a civil engineer on the Panama Canal and (b) back in his native land later-on serving for a time within the Ministry of the Interior.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs we were a family of few words, who sprang from a community of relatively speaking few words, descended from ancestors whose native culture valued elegance and economy! My family was good at this. We got so good - that when it came to giving ourselves opportunities to celebrate, to honor and be rightly pleased about family accomplishments, that on some occasions especially this one, we shortchanged ourselves.

******

The fact that Dad and quite a number of fellow internment camp residents served is something to celebrate when taking into account the fact they'd only left the confines of the barbed wire fences guarded by men wearing the same uniform they spruced, and were supplied with guns and ammunition from the same stores only recently used to point at them! These men included Raymond Narimatsu of California, an Army buddy of Dad's who met him at Fort Lewis before they both were shipped to the frozen north.

As explored in a few other blogs I’ve written on this website, a certain amount of self-editing was taking place. Whether or not the family and community experience of World War II is partly to blame or fully to blame cannot be fully concluded at present. Low-key presentation, modesty and minimization may have had a place in the family at one time.

It could still very well reside in the larger tangle in our minds when people such as myself declare we are proud to be Nikkei (Japanese-American). However, my family is going to venture into new territory by taking what looks to be a very small step.

For when we've become so quiet we no longer hear our own voices, low key no longer serves us. Tradition must change and a special effort needs to be made to take necessary time to celebrate what's important, to allow ourselves to include our own in the gratitude, and take pride in what ought to have been enjoyed.

My father sadly, won’t be around to celebrate with me or even scold me. He died twelve years ago at age 67. So no repeated cautions about standing up, popping off, or saying anything remotely critical about the family or community in a public place. Wherever he may be, I'm certain he doesn't have to look over his shoulder anymore.

And the fortunate truth is I haven’t stopped learning more about Dad, just because he's no longer with us. Like so number of my peers, I’m learning a great deal more about my father as the years go by. I'm even willing to venture that were Dad still with us he’d approve!

....What was that? Dad, is that you? Dad?


(Note: This blog was originally posted under the headline "Art Lessons: Veteran's Day - When To Break With A Tradition" at the internet website for The News Tribune, a daily newspaper in Tacoma, WA on 11/11/07 at a reader-generated section entitled: "In Your Neighborhood.")

Dad's Japanese-American Army Buddy Helps Fill In Priceless Blanks of Family History

With today's digital cameras and all, folks like me think nothing of taking a dozen or more shots of one object alone just because we can. I have a camera in the cell phone I carry. In Dad's day ordinary people had to be more frugal with the quantity of pictures they took and might merely laugh at the idea soneday their kids and grandkids would have carry-along phones with cameras they answered a full twenty-four seven.

Above:; (from left to right) Frank (Baby Frank) Aoyama, and a "Lieutenant Johnson" photographed in Adak, Alaska about November 1945. Photo collection of Mizu Sugimura.

My family will long be the happy beneficiary of the fact one of my father's Army buddies, a nice man by the name of Ray Narimatsu took and developed the candid of Dad shown here. Then, a few years after my father's death in 1995 at age 67, I started corresponding with Ray to learn more about this period in my Dad's life. Ray was kind and generous to share the candid of my late father and several other snapshots shortly after. It's a gift I'll never forget!

Above: A youthful Frank S. Aoyama. Photo collection of Mizu Sugimura.

Ray told me that Dad was considered youthful looking even for a Japanese-American man. In fact, in his group of friends he was known as "Baby Frank." The headshot that runs just above this paragraph is a good example. At the time the men were deployed Narimatsu related, their commanders had no more concerns about a possible U-boat attack. So everyone packed their bags, then boarded a reconverted hospital ship - the George Washington Carver, which was setting sail for Adak Army Base in the frozen north of Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

After a day of sailing, everyone in this small group of Nikkei men got sick except my Dad, who got up the next day and ate breakfast in the mess hall while the others stayed below and were sick. So he stood out a second way. "The other thing about Frank that caught our eye," Narimatsu related "was he was blind as a bat without his glasses, but we had a ping pong table at the bow of the shop and no one could beat him. We used to call him Radar Vision. He really could play."

During this same voyage, an earthquake occurred somewhere in the Pacific and their ship had to pull into the harbor at Seward, Alaska in order to allow the men to disembark and march out of harm's way if the wave should come their way. Fortunately, this did not occur he said. Once in Adak, the small group of men consisting of Narimatsu, Dad, Lou Hirakawa, Hideo Hori, Lewis Iwata and Robert K. Sun were split up.

My father and another man were assigned to the Signal Corps. Ray and several others were put in what he said was the anti-motorized torpedo boat division nearby. Narimatsu recalled that he saw Dad occasionally at the mess hall, when they did K.P. duty together and relaxed at a sports facility called the Tunderarina which included a bowling alley. One of the men, assigned as a company cook, made it possible for them to get together on more than one occasion and enjoy a few bowls of hot steamed white rice - a food when even served alone would whip up almost any Asian-American man's memories of their mother's home cooking.

Above: Ray Narimatsu dries prints in Adak, AK. Photo collection of Mizu Sugimura.

Ray and my dad also shared a mutual interest in photography and learned how to use the developing equipment on base, a skill which my father used with a little bit of imagination about seven years later after joining his parents and several siblings in the Midwest to snag himself a wife. to snag himself a wife. When their deployment in Alaska was over, Dad and his group were shipped to back to Fort Lawton and then to Camp Beal by Marysville, CA.

After returning home, Day and Ray exchanged Christmas cards, a practice which continued for years after they both married and had kids. When Ray's son choose to attend school in Seattle, his parents came up and were tickled to discover after their arrival that Frank's wife would be one of the librarians at the college his son attended.

Narimatsu is an excellent writer and good correspondent. He has been a good friend to me as well! I have had the utmost pleasure exchanging brief correspondence with him for a number of years following the dad's death. I think both Dad and I were lucky to have met him. his lovely wife Grace and their children. They've all been blessings!

(Note: This blog was originally posted on Sunday, November 11, 2007 at a reader generated site at The News Tribune, Tacoma, WA. under the headline "Father's Japanese-American Army Buddy Shares Priceless Pictures."

Ripples - Pass On Your Family Values In A Short Story & Craft

(The following blog was originally posted at the internet website of the The News Tribune, a daily newspaper in Tacoma, WA in a reader-generated section on 9/11/07 entitled "In Your Neighborhood". The version below was re-edited for improved readability and content.)

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From the time when I was very young, the adage “He’s a man of few words” could be liberally applied a wide swathe of the men in my family. When compared with people outside our ethnic community, a great many of the women as well are on the less verbose share-it-all side. And the family I married into? Not really a surprise!

There are times I think the whole clan is as spare with the English language as Ebeneezer Scrooge was with money. As far as a rich heritage of fondly told and much-repeated stories and anecdotes, you can imagine in a family such as mine that there would only be the smallest handfull.

Fortunately, one of the few we have provided some positive inspiration for a cute little make & take art project that I designed for an event at the Wing Luke Asian Museum (WLAM) which took place last spring on Saturday, April 21, at the Pan-Asian American community site in Seattle, WA.

It is part of a wonderful on-going series of monthly events for parents and kids called “Family Day At The Wing” at the museum located south of downtown in the heart of the International District. So how did I get involved?

Artist Mizu Sugimura (center) provides encouragement to guests during Family Day at the Wing.(Photo courtesy of the Wing Luke Asian Museum)

The backstory is that there's a number of parents out there like myself raised in the 60’s by folks who relied on offerings through resources like the Seattle Parks Department to give their children an affordable well-rounded introduction to reading, organized sports and the arts. My resourceful mom took advantage of programming at Beacon Hill's Jefferson Park Community Center. When I became a mother myselk years later, she made it a point to tell me to look around my locale to see what was offered.

That was fifteen years ago. To find the variety I wanted then, it became necessary for me to look beyond my area. I saw a blurb in a regional ethnic community newspaper about offerings for kids at the WLAM. I took my son and we had some fun. So it's with particular pleasure that I was finally able to return the favor!

Back in April, a story my dad’s mother told the kids which I’ve titled “The Ripple Effect” provided a perfect frame for the overall theme. The ripple effect is basically about responsibility and taking care that the consequences of the actions you take are the sort of which you intend. The story points out that each time a choice is made, it is like dropping a pebble into the waters of a still pond.

When the stone pierces the surface of the water, the impact of the descending rock causes ripples to form. The ripples continue to spread in an outward manner long after the initial pebble has disappeared or long after the initial event has been forgotten.

I especially enjoy this story because it is a beautiful way to gently reinforce the concept that no matter how young we are or no matter how old we are, that each of us is responsible for our choices and what we do all eventually matters.

A group of children and parents who came to make & take a handmade book at the WLAM.(Photo courtesy of Wing Luke Asian Museum)

The day’s project ? A small handmade book with a pre-stamped cover. A few ideas for possible cover decoration were shared after the story was told and then guests were invited to decorate their own covers using art supplies on hand. By the end of a two-hour period about twenty to thirty children and adults started a book.

Coincidentally, the following month of May was Asian-American History Month. Saluting the upcoming celebration as well, participants were reminded that each of us also participates in the history of our communities as ordinary citizens especially through the choices we make. Great communities don't just happen. They evolve piece by piece from the choices made by the good people who come to live and work there.

In the greater world beyond the familiar boundries of our homes, families, schools, businesses and communities you can just imagine the invisible ripples of the “pebbles” we drop daily into the waters of life are furiously crossing and re-crossing by the minute. As an example, if the water in your area is really choppy out there it might be that way for a good reason.

Kid's should know a bully’s ripples radiate as swiftly as the would-be keepers of the peace. Telling someone to go to a colorful place may be honest, but exactly what kind of ripples are you actually launching? It's certainly something to think about.

The children and their parents at WLAM were encouraged to write down in their finished books examples of those actions they had taken which may have resulted in the kind of positive outcomes of which they could be proud. For example, t was noted that in the can of food donated to the food bank and the tree planted at school can really make a difference in the life of another and this is how each of us can make similiar positive contributions to history.

Reflecting the longstanding draw and appeal of past programs at the museum, partipants were not limited to traditional audiences of Asian-American ancestry. Special thanks are also in order to the WLAM for permission to use a few photos of the event taken by a member of their staff and to program coordinator Vivian Chan and her great helpers who made the program such a success! For more details about programming at WLAM go to: http://www.wingluke.org/

I have no doubt many of you readers have some equally wonderful stories of your very own to share that beautifully illustrate those beliefs and values that your family endeavored to pass on. Whether they're generations old or were only recently created, it would be SUPER to hear those short stories you would like to share.

So feel welcome to post your stories and comments at the end of this blog! You never know, one day we could have so many, they could fill an entire book! Let's just wait and see what will happen....

Making A Memory & A New Friend At The Movies

Last week I was invited by a female acquaintance of mine to accompany her to the University of Washington's Tacoma campus for an evening screening of two films on the forced relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

This topic had a special interest for me because both my American-born mother and father and their families were part of this unique and unprecedented chapter of history. With a stroke of a pen when then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law Executive Order #9066 on February 19, 1942. Mom turned 17 years old the month before. Dad was all of 14 years. Their lives would be changed forever.

E.O. #9066 made it possible for local military commanders to designate areas of the United States military areas as exclusion zones from which "any or all persons may be excluded". When this was applied to American's of Jpanaese ancestry in a fifty-sixty mile deep area from Washington State to California some 112,000 persons living up and down the West Coast were forcibly removed from their homes and communities by military authorities acting on behalf of the federal government.

Shown that night were the films: "Take Me Home" a dramatization which depicted the evacuation of families from the viewpoint of a small child, and a documentary entitled "Resettlement to Redress" directed at older audiences which which followed the story from the dispursement of all camp residents at the end of the war to the eventual hard fought but successful drive during the 80's and 90's for a governmental apology and monetary redress.

Several segments of videotaped footage from the Seattle, WA hearings held by the US Congressional Commission on the Wartime Internment and Relocation of Civilians at Seattle Central Community College in 1981 were featured in the second film.

The screening in turn is part of a larger series of films on Asia Pacific Cultures sponsored as a result of a partnership between the Tacoma's Asia Pacific Cultural Center (APCC) and the Urban Studies Program at University of Washington Tacoma, with suppport from the Cultural Diversity Resource Center.

As it turned out, I got far more than I originally bargained for that evening. As a young woman in my twenties, I had the pleasure of serving as a representative for the Lake Washington chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League on a ongoing redress committee which met a number of times prior to the Congressional hearings stop in Seattle.
But until recently I had never seen any footage from this event. So it was a complete and delightful surprise!

Memories of having a bird's eye view of some of the proceedings and sitting next to some of the principals shown in the film including Washington State's former son Gordon Hirabayashi, born & raised in Thomas, Washington at other meetings came drifting back as the picures on the movie screen flashed by.

Hirabayashi, whose Supreme Court challenge from that era now forms one an important trio of cases whose impact has had more far-reaching consequences than one merely and ostensibly temporary decision affecting a small minority in a war rapidly fading from our view, was a personal hero of mine for years prior to the hearings. So meeting him in person back then had been a real thrill and it still is.

As a result, the invite to the movies became a truly unexpected treat. My hostess is rapidly making the transition between an acquaintance and a good friend. We started out with a shared interest in art. Now I have proof she has excellent taste in film. If I am lucky, the day will come when I can make a similiar impression in return.

In the meantime, the two of us have made ourselves one good memory...