Abstract
Nobuko Miyamoto's early memories are juxtaposed by being both a child and a perceived “enemy,” a birthright citizen, and an unwelcomed laborer during a period of intense anti-Japanese hate in the U.S. during the 1940s. The retraumatizing memories of World War II incarceration and post-war resettlement in Los Angeles ground her critical reflection on the complexities that history, experiences with racism, and questions of her ethnicity have on her life trajectory. At the heart of this autobiographical novel is the story of Nobuko's talent for the arts that becomes her pathway into activism. As these two areas merge, Nobuko finds strength and purpose in actively pursuing civil rights for oppressed, minoritized, and marginalized groups.
The book is described through movements, attesting to the varying forms of activism in her life. The first movement begins with her origin story of resistance, where her paternal grandfather from Japan worked on the transcontinental railroad -- a part of history often ascribed to early Chinese immigration. Her paternal grandmother, a White woman from a small town in Idaho, married her grandfather — despite anti-miscegenation laws, thus foreshadowing Nobuko's subconscious societal resistance and legacy. Her family's maternal side emigrated from Japan just before the exclusion act concerning Japanese immigrants is enacted. The passage of this law constitutes a moment of consciousness raising for Nobuko. This explicitly racist law forced her to become fully alert to the intergenerational trauma and mental illness suffered by generations of women who were physically separated from their homeland and families of origin and who experienced the loss of loved ones — all in the spirit of seeking prosperity for their families in a new land.
At the outset of WWII, Nobuko's family was able to avoid incarceration by moving into a labor camp in Montana where her father picked sugar beets. The foreman's hometown connection to her paternal grandparents afforded the family an opportunity to move to the Idaho family farm where her father grew up. After 1945, however, the family returned to California and were met with job and housing discrimination targeting Japanese Americans. This bigotry led to the close juxtaposition in Los Angeles neighborhoods of Japanese Americans, Mexican Americans, and Black communities. As a child, Nobuko became aware of the unspoken ways Whiteness pervaded her community without having or fully understanding the language to call it out.
Nobuko found an emerging neutral space through performance arts where ability and skills — and working twice as hard — could overcome her marginalized race and ethnicity. While racial barriers continued to persist in the arts, Nobuko made headway through successful attempts to “cross the color line” in film and on stage. These moments were also filled with shame: landing her parts that perpetuated stereotypes as a spy, geisha, and concubine. Perhaps in the moment of further hiding her identity, Nobuko makes a stage name shift to JoAnne Miya. A pivotal moment arrived when she was approached to participate in an anti-war protest in 1967. This activity moved her from many years of restraining her expression of beliefs into an opportunity to transform her attitudes into action.
The second movement is one that physically moves Nobuko from the west coast to the east coast, as she is re-introduced to New York — this time it is not through performing on Broadway, but assisting a radical Italian documentary film maker, Antonello Branca, in filming the Black Panther's movement for social justice. Nobuko learns of the ways members of the Black Panthers and Young Lords (Puerto Rican liberationists) empower themselves and push back against systems oppressing them. Highlighted is a fight for the most pressing needs: access to education and food. Learning about alliances within and across communities of Color is credited to Mary Nakahara Kochiyama, a.k.a., Yuri Kochiyama, a Nisei (second-generation) Japanese American woman who has lived and breathed social justice since her experiences of WWII incarceration in Jerome, Arkansas, and during her and her family's subsequent life in New York. By contrast with Nobuko's name change, Yuri adopted a Japanese first name to connect back to her roots.
Alliances or allyship meant having a connection with one's own ethnicity and community in order to leverage its economic and social capital to effectively work with other communities. For Nobuko that meant building a connection to the Japanese American community — a bond that she hadn't fully explored previously -- the ability to connect with like-minded people that she found necessary in pursuing justice. During this pursuit Nobuko meets Mfalfe, through Yuri's introduction, a Black nationalist who served as Malcom X's bodyguard. The bond Mfalfe and Nobuko shared was cemented through the words of her song, “We are the Children,” raising awareness of marginalized groups. Nobuko used songs as way to carry this powerful message to a wider audience.
Entering the third movement, Nobuko circles back to her roots in California and finds solace in the Japanese American community. By becoming actively engaged within the Japanese American Buddhist church by teaching dance and continuing to create songs of resilience for a greater audience; Nobuko is well-prepared for exerting her power to resist and to avoid compromising the authenticity of her work.
At first, her identity is attached to her son, Kamau, and realizes there is much more for herself and for her son to explore in navigating his heritage of being raised Black and Japanese American. It is no surprise that, as a young adult, Kamau finds his own path, that includes love, and pursues his faith in Islam in spite of the negative societal reception for Muslims in the U.S. following September 11, 2001. Nobuko seeks her own journey to Japan — a place that is foreign to her but somehow also familiar. She reconciles her fears of and assumptions about her extended Japanese family as she discovers a welcoming family that accepts her interracial marriage — a contrast to the world she pictured of her paternal grandparents. Society's changing perceptions in addressing social justice issues is evident in Nobuko's support of Black Lives Matter and young people seeking ways to participate in the movement of change.
