Dust of Eden

To DW and JNW.

Prologue

Part I. Seattle, Washington

Part II. “Camp Harmony”
Puyallup Assembly Center, Puyallup, Washington

Part III. Minidoka Relocation Center
Hunt, Idaho

Part IV. Minidoka Relocation Center
Hunt, Idaho

About the Japanese American Internment

Imprisoned in here for a long, long time,

We know we’re punished tho’ we’ve committed no crime,

Our thoughts are gloomy and enthusiasm damp,

To be locked up in a concentration camp.

Loyalty we know and Patriotism we feel,

To sacrifice our utmost was our ideal

To fight for our country, and die mayhap;

Yet we’re here because we happen to be a JAP.

We all love life, and our country best,

Our misfortune to be here in the West,

To keep us penned behind that DAMNED FENCE

Is someone’s notion of NATIONAL DEFENCE!!!!!

DAMNED FENCE!

— Unknown poet from Minidoka Concentration Camp

We held our breath for three years.

We did not have anything to call

our own except for the allowed number

of bags: two. We did not have anything

except for a rose garden my grandfather

made from hard earth and spit.

We lived behind a barbed wire fence

under a stark blue sky that could break

your heart (as it did break my grandfather’s).

We lived under a sky so blue

in Idaho right near the towns of Hunt and Eden

but we were not welcomed there.

Through Sears & Roebuck catalogs

we lived outside of America.

Dust came through Eden, dust went

through our barracks, toward the sky,

westward, back to our home by the sea

in the city by the sea, in Seattle.

The house is surrounded by roses

of all names: Bride’s Dream, Chicago

Peace, Mister Lincoln, Timeless, Touch

of Class. The house is surrounded by hues

of red and white: red like an azure-sun,

red like the sunset over the Pacific Ocean,

red like Grandpa’s fingertips,

white so transparent they call it Tineke,

the kind of white that looks like Seattle on a rainy day.

The living room is a mixture of East

and West: Grandpa packed a little of Japan

when he came here across the sea—a sword,

a photograph of himself as a small boy,

dolls for future daughters he never had—

memories of his once-ago life.

Grandpa is a rose breeder.

He calls roses
bara
; he calls them his
kodomo—
children.

My father sometimes helps out Grandpa,

though most of the time, he works in an office

downtown writing articles for a newspaper.

Mother sits in the kitchen, always singing.

My room upstairs is All American: a bed,

an old desk, white lace curtains my mother sewed,

pictures of Jamie and me on the wall.

My brother Nick’s room next to mine is filled

with trophies he won in track races.

Grandpa calls me by my middle name,
Masako
,

and he calls Nick
Toshio.
He never speaks

English; says that he lived longer in Japan

than he has in America, and that there’s no more

space for another language or culture.

He speaks to us in Japanese, my parents speak

to him in Japanese, and Nick and I speak

some words in Japanese, but mostly in English.

Just like our breakfast, rice and pickled

plums with milk and potatoes, they all mix together.

I was singing with the Sunday school

choir, practicing our Christmas carols,

all our mouths opening and closing as one

to sing the next note.

We were singing “Silent Night, Holy

Night,” and just as the boys hit

their lowest key, the door burst

open like a startled cat dashing.

The next note lay waiting

under Mrs. Gilbert’s finger; our mouths kept

the
O
shape, when a man yelled,
the Japs bombed

Pearl Harbor
. The world stopped.

The next words got lost.
Oh, oh, oh,

someone wailed, until I realized that it was

coming out of my mouth,

my body shaking, trembling.

And the world started again

but we were no longer singing as one.

Jap, Jap, Jap
, the word bounces

around the walls of the hall.

Jamie, my best friend, yells out, “Shut your

mouth!” but the word keeps

bouncing like a ball in my head.

As soon as I get to my Language

Arts class, the entire class gets quiet.

Mrs. Smith looks down

like she’s been talking about me,

or maybe she doesn’t see me.

She clears her voice; she calls

out our names, one by one; she pauses

right after Marcus Springfield.

She clears her throat, calls out
Mina Tagawa
.

And instead of calling out Joshua

Thomas, she starts to talk

about what happened yesterday.

My face becomes hot and heavy; I look

at my hands, then at the swirling

pattern on the desk. I look at my hands again,

yellowish against the dark brown

desk, and Jamie’s hair, golden,

right near it.
Jap-nese
, Mrs. Smith

starts.
Jap-nese
have attacked Pearl

Harbor.
Jap-nese
have broken

the treaty.
Jap-nese
have started the war.

Even the newspaper that Father works for screams in

bold letter headlines:
Japs. Japs. Japs.

I feel everyone’s eyes on me. I hear

Chris Adams snickering behind me, whispering

Jap Mina
.
I’m not

Japanese
, I want to yell.

I am an American
, I scream

in my head, but my mouth is stuffed

with rocks; my body is a stone, like the statue

of a little Buddha Grandpa prays to

every morning and every night. My body is heavy.

I don’t know how to speak anymore.

We are not Americans, the eyes tell us.

We do not belong, the mouths curl up.

We are the enemy aliens, the Japs,

the ones who have bombed

Pearl Harbor, killing so many soldiers

who were enjoying their Sunday

morning in Hawaii, who were waking

up to their breakfasts of oatmeal and toast.

Death to Japs
, they say. The voice

from the radio says
Jap-nese
,

a pause between
Jap

and
nese
, just like Mrs. Smith.

Mother walks down Main Street with her head

up, her back straight, though

men spit at her and women hiss

at her.
Masa-chan, Onnanoko rashiku

sesuji o nobashina-sai.
(Masako,

keep your back straight like a

good girl), Mother says as she pulls

on the whitest kid gloves,

one by one, stretching her fingers

straight to sheath each finger.

Masa-chan, tebukuro

hamenasai. Amerika-jin wa

sahou ni kibishii kara.
(Masako,

put on your gloves. Americans

are strict with manners), Mother says

as she straightens her jacket.

We pass by the stores that sell

oatmeal and toast and go to Mr. Fukuyama’s shop:

Patriotic Americans,
says a sign on the window.

She buys a bag of rice and
umeboshi
and bonito

flakes. If I could, I would keep

only my first name,
Mina
, my American name,

and tear off
Masako Tagawa
like the

pages of journals I tore out when I found

out that Nick Freeman liked Alice

Gorka. I would change my hair color into a honey

blond that changes into lighter

shades of almost white during the summer,

just like Jamie’s. If I could change

my name, if I could change my parents,

I could change my life: I would be an American.

But I already am.

We’re best friends, no matter what
, Jamie

says as we sit under the Christmas

tree together.
We’re best friends until

we die
, I say.

She hands me a small packet wrapped

in a bright red wrapping paper.

Open it, open it
, she urges. Mr. Gilmore’s humming

drifts in from his workshop in

the backyard, and Mrs. Gilmore’s baking

smells of cinnamon and nutmeg.

We sit under a big Christmas tree lit by small twinkling

lights like lost fireflies late in summer.

A package the size of my palm, so light like a butterfly;

Jamie chanting,
Open it, open it!

I undo the ribbon gingerly, then unfold the red

paper, one corner at a time. In the middle,

a jagged half of a heart. She pulls her sweater

down,
See, I have half a heart, too.

And whenever we are together, we have a whole heart
.

Only then do the two halves become one.

When I come home, the house is quiet.

Basho is outside, looking confused.

Mother is not home, where she always is,

waiting with a cup of green tea between

her hands and a glass of milk for me.

Everything is turned inside

out, rice scattered all over the kitchen

floor, all the drawers wide open

with cloth strewn all over the floor

like garbage the day after the circus

left town. A note,
I will be back soon
,

in Mother’s beautiful and careful handwriting

pinned to the door like a dead butterfly.

It is only later, too late for dinner,

too late for a glass of milk and cup of tea,

when Mother and Grandpa come home

looking like they are carrying the night

on their backs, their bodies heavy

from the weight they drag through

the door.
Men came this afternoon,

they said they are from the government;

your father had to go with them so he can

answer some questions,
Mother says quietly

as she sits down on the sofa, heavily

throwing her weight down.
When is he coming home?

I ask. Basho mewls, climbs next

to Grandpa, pressing his body so close that his tail

curled around the bend in Grandpa’s

skinny body.
I’m not sure, honey, I’m just

not sure,
Mother says quietly.

Grandpa takes his owl-like glasses off slowly,

presses his eyes with the palms

of his hand like he was pressing down the dirt

around his rose trees, and leans back

on his rocking chair. Mother leans back, too.

I sit, the word
war
ringing

through my head, forgetting about milk,

forgetting about dinner, forgetting about

history homework, thinking only about Father

in prison.

This year, there wasn’t a

Christmas tree, or dinner with

our neighbors.

There weren’t any New Year’s

festivities this year,

no mochi—sticky rice—

no giving of money or playing games.

Without Father’s face red as a beet

from sake, and Grandpa

singing as he plays

the
shamisen—
the three

stringed lyre made out

of a skin of virgin cat—

there is no laughter, no joy.

Mother hurries from the dining

room to the kitchen,

sleeves of her kimono

fluttering

like a humming bird’s

wings. All is quiet in this

house, with its small

ornament of bamboo

and pine branches

Grandpa left hanging

on my door.

Happy New Year it is not.

Father looks small

sitting behind the bars,

surrounded by

soldiers towering

over him. He smiles,

then coughs, once,

twice. He asks me

how I am, whether

I’ve been a good girl,

and have obeyed my elders.

He squints his eyes,

his eyes bigger without

his glasses.

Mother gives him
nigiri

—rice balls—and he smiles,