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At the age of 6, I discovered a jar of brightly colored shells
under my grandmother's kitchen sink. When I inquired where they had
come from, she did not answer. Instead, she told me in broken
English, "Ask your mother. " My mother's response to the same
question was, "Oh, I made them in camp. " "Was it fun?" I asked
enthusiastically. "Not really," she replied. Her answer puzzled me.
The shells were beautiful, and camp, as far as I knew, was a fun
place where children roasted marshmallows and sang songs around the
fire. Yet my mother's reaction did not seem happy. I was perplexed
by this brief exchange, but I also sensed I should not ask more
questions. As time went by, "camp" remained a vague, cryptic
reference to some time in the past, the past of my parents, their
friends, my grand parents, and my relatives. We never directly
discussed it. It was not until high school that I began to
understand the significance of the word, that camp referred to a
World War II American concentration camp, not a summer camp. Much
later I learned that the silence surrounding discus sions about
this traumatic period of my parents' lives was a phenomenon
characteristic not only of my family but also of most other
Japanese American families after the war.
At the age of 6, I discovered a jar of brightly colored shells
under my grandmother's kitchen sink. When I inquired where they had
come from, she did not answer. Instead, she told me in broken
English, "Ask your mother. " My mother's response to the same
question was, "Oh, I made them in camp. " "Was it fun?" I asked
enthusiastically. "Not really," she replied. Her answer puzzled me.
The shells were beautiful, and camp, as far as I knew, was a fun
place where children roasted marshmallows and sang songs around the
fire. Yet my mother's reaction did not seem happy. I was perplexed
by this brief exchange, but I also sensed I should not ask more
questions. As time went by, "camp" remained a vague, cryptic
reference to some time in the past, the past of my parents, their
friends, my grand parents, and my relatives. We never directly
discussed it. It was not until high school that I began to
understand the significance of the word, that camp referred to a
World War II American concentration camp, not a summer camp. Much
later I learned that the silence surrounding discus sions about
this traumatic period of my parents' lives was a phenomenon
characteristic not only of my family but also of most other
Japanese American families after the war."
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