I pushed my way through a jungle of helium-filled balloons and potted plants to find Ken Nakamura, pale and drawn, propped up in his hospital bed. Moonbeam was spoon-feeding him a creamy yellow substance.
“You look wonderful,” I lied as I cleared some magazines off the only vacant chair. Why do I always feel it's necessary to say that to someone in the hospital? Usually they look like they're on their last legs. Ken wasn't quite that bad, but he didn't exactly look “wonderful,” either.
His right arm was in a sling, his chest was wrapped up like a mummy.
“I wish I could give you a hug,” he said, “but that'll have to wait. Moonbeam told me you saved my life.”
“I didn't do anything,” I said truthfully.
“No need to be modest, young lady. If you hadn't thrown me to the ground, the next shot could have been fatal.”
Although I had no recollection of doing that, I decided to relax and enjoy the glory. There would be time later to tell him what really happened, that I'd bent over to pick something up, didn't recognize the sounds I heard as shots until I saw him drop to the ground covered with blood, and that someone else had called 911.
A nurse bustled in, took his vital signs, told him he was “looking good,” but should not allow his visitors to wear him out. “You're the heroine who saved him, aren't you?” she said to me.
I started to shake my head, but stopped when she continued, “The EMTs told us he'd have bled to death if you hadn't kept pressure on that chest wound. That was quick thinking on your part.”
How about that? Maybe I did deserve some of that praise, after all.
After Moonbeam had finished feeding him his tapioca, she turned the crank to lower the head of the bed, then said to Ken, “Dad, at your house I saw your family scrapbooks and a notebook with Japanese writing in it. Tori said you might have been interned during the Second World War. Is that true?”
Ken sighed. “Yes, dear, it's true.”
“Why didn't you ever tell me?”
He closed his eyes, and I saw how frail he was. “For a long time I tried to forget. Now, I realize I am old, and Tamsin needs to know. That's why I got the books down from the attic-I plan to translate Masao's journal after I retire.”
“Who is Masao?” Moonbeam asked.
“My brother.”
“I didn't know you had a-”
Ken interrupted her. “Masao died in 1943. Time has blurred the details, but his journal brought back my memories of the most shameful chapter in our country's history.”
He leaned back, eyes closed, and for a moment I thought he'd fallen asleep. Moonbeam looked question-ingly at me. I put my finger to my lips. “Wait,” I mouthed.
With his eyes still closed, Ken began to speak. “My father came to America more than one hundred years ago after the Meiji government took his family's land. I'll tell you his story someday. After a series of adventures, he ended up in Long Beach, California, where there was an established nikkei community.”
Moonbeam looked at me for translation. “People of Japanese ancestry,” I explained.
“We had a good life there. My father owned several fishing boats. We were very comfortable. My mother never had to work in the canneries. There was even enough money to send Masao to Japan for his education. A child of ten when he left us, he returned a man of twenty, shortly before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was an American, but thought as a Japanese; he told me he felt like a stranger in his own land.”
“I can understand that feeling,” I said.
“Yes, I think you can. May I have a sip of water, please?”
Moonbeam held the straw to his lips for a moment. He continued, “President Roosevelt signed an order in 1942, which gave the government the right to confine potentially dangerous people from military areas. That ‘military area’ ended up being the entire West Coast. Anyone of Japanese descent was considered to be a security risk and was ordered to report to a camp.”
Moonbeam's voice was pitched high with indignation. “But you were American citizens.”
“Masao and I were citizens because we were nisei, born in America, but our parents were issei, Japanese-born, and excluded by law from becoming citizens. Besides, citizenship made no difference. The order included anybody with even a drop of Japanese blood. More than a hundred and ten thousand of us on the West Coast were considered to be security risks, even the small babies. Some of them were actually sansei, the second generation of Americans, but we all were sent to relocation centers.”
“How many camps were there?” I asked.
“Ten, I think, not including some prisons. My family was sent to Topaz in Utah, a place that we called the ‘jewel of the desert.’ ”
“Why didn't the Japanese Americans rise up in protest? Contact the media? Do something to stop it?” Moonbeam asked indignantly.
Ken smiled. “We were loyal to our government, no matter how badly it treated us. It's a trait called on in Japanese. And there is also the Japanese belief that difficult situations must be endured, represented by the phrase shikata ga nai.”
“It must have been awful for you, Dad.” Moonbeam stroked his good hand. “How long were you there?”
“Myself-less than a month. The American Friends Service Committee arranged for some of us to go to eastern colleges, and I was one of the lucky ones. My brother couldn't go, because he was a kibei, a Japan-educated nisei, and considered to be a greater security risk. I joined the army in 1943.
“I have felt great guilt over the years for leaving my family when I did-wondered if I'd stayed with them would things would have ended differently? You see, they were moved to Tule Lake in California when Masao became a ‘no-no man.’”
“What was a no-no man?” I asked.
“There was a questionnaire that all internees had to fill out, and everyone was expected to answer yes to two ambiguous questions at the end of it. The questions were ridiculous. They called upon the issei to swear allegiance to America, which had refused to give them citizenship. The kibei, like my brother, thought they were trick questions; if they answered yes, they would be acknowledging a prior allegiance to the Japanese emperor. If they said no, it would be considered an admission of disloyalty to America. My brother, like many of his Japanese-educated friends, and my father answered ‘no-no’ to the two questions to show their outrage at what America had done.”
“How dreadful,” Moonbeam groaned. “I had no idea…”
“Over eighteen thousand people were jammed into the Tule Lake camp. Soldiers with machines guns stood guard in turrets, and tanks patrolled the perimeter to prevent people from escaping.
“The camp was overcrowded, the sanitation deplorable, the food insufficient, and the living conditions impossible. My mother tried hard to keep family customs alive. She even taught Japanese dancing to the little girls there. But my father lost the will to live. Masao's journal said he sat and smoked all day and wouldn't talk to anyone.
“Finally, kibei youths rioted, and the army moved in to squelch them and took over the entire camp. The young rebels were locked up in the ‘stockade.’ They were cut off from their families by a twelve-foot-high wall and denied medical care. Masao died there, of pneumonia, after being beaten by the guard in charge of his barracks. Not long after, my father died of a broken heart.”
“And your mother?” Moonbeam asked.
“She stayed at Tule Lake until 1946, because she had nowhere else to go.”
It was Ken who was now stroking Moonbeam's hand, trying to still her tears. “Don't cry, my dear. They are at peace. And you, my dear daughter, will share everything I tell you about them with your daughter, who will tell her children, and our ancestors will never be forgotten.”