Part 2 Transforming generational sorrow and shame

Tender healing and reconciliation


This is my story of emerging forgiveness and lovingkindness with difficulty and discomfort-a sacred and necessary journey for me, for my ancestors.

Kyoto, Japan  Fall 2016

-A continuation of a story of remembering, to a place called Hyde Park, New York in the summer of 2016. 

I am a descendant of peaceful, resilient, incarcerated people.

I am a descendant of the issei and nisei, the first and second generations of immigrants from Japan.

Nakatomi Grandparents, circa 1900

I am a descendant of the east and west.

I am allowing tears of sadness and gratitude to flow of unresolved grief and sorrow for and of my parents and grandparents to surface and release.

Mom and Dad's wedding, circa 1948

I can do that much for them. I am here because of their lives, their choices, their actions and their deep desire to survive the conditions of forced incarceration. They remained loyal and steadfast. To stand on the ground at Hyde Park is a kind of sacred healing. I feel like I carry the scars and pain of thousands here. I can be steadfast here. Now. On behalf of those no longer able, I can walk and breathe and offer healing and forgiveness. I can begin to heal the patterns of war, of hate, of paranoia, and misunderstanding. I can pause and be peace here and now.  

It's late July 2016, only a few weeks since the pilgrimage to Tule Lake. My husband and I made a plan to visit FDR's family estate and presidential library in the Hudson River Valley, New York. 

FDR estate Hyde Park, New York

I made a commitment, shared with my 92 year old mother, that I intended to reconcile for our family, some of the heaviness and generational scars of incarceration and offer a meditation on forgiveness while on the grounds of Franklin Roosevelt's family estate.

Mom and me

I carry the weight of my relatives, my ancestors. I intend to lighten the load by releasing, walking intentionally on this vast estate and find a way to offer forgiveness. This is not easy because it begins with me.

I intend to continue to forgive myself for holding on to shame, anger and underlying fear of allowing to be a victim of incarceration, different and marginalized.

I walked under the same wide and open summer sky as FDR, often touted as one of our greatest presidents who ushered in The New Deal. I breathed in the fresh, sweet air of the Hudson River Valley and our shared history. 

Although this journey to Hyde Park was neither smooth nor light, it was a valuable step in healing painful, deep wounds.

Kyoto, Japan  Fall 2016

Feelings we ignore and don't talk about for decades, and in many ways there are no words to have your rights as a citizen stripped away, to have your government betray you, to lose your livelihood, your home, all your possessions because of wartime paranoia, discrimination, and deep seated racism.

Tule Lake, California

 I felt responsibility to carry through with my commitment. Although it was lofty to commit to offer forgiveness, I needed to be bold and courageous in reverence to the ways my ancestors were able to continue on in 1942 and beyond build their lives after incarceration. 

Tule Lake, California, circa 1942

I felt a sense of freedom and openness because of their sacrifices, my ancestors secured this moment for me to arrive, walk the vast estate of the man who changed my family's history.

"May the injustices and humiliation suffered here never recur."

One action did not define this president but it did affect hundreds of thousands of people for generations. Did FDR have any opportunity to know someone of "Japanese ancestry"? Did he foster a respectful relationship with anyone of color, of a different class, of a different religion? Would it have influenced his decision?

  

I made a second commitment to walk for Eleanor Roosevelt and to offer lovingkindness.

Eleanor boldly disagreed and tried unsuccessfully to sway FDR's decision to sign Executive Order 9066. The first lady made a decision to visit a concentration camp in Gila River, Arizona where my mother remembers meeting her when she was still a teenager. She remembers a range of conflicted and difficult emotions when learning the first lady was to make a visit to one of the barracks at Gila River. http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Eleanor_Roosevelt/  

Mom in high school, a cheerleader

Eleanor Roosevelt visits Gila River, Arizona

Girls Scouts  Tule Lake, California

Lovingkindness, Metta in Pali,(Maitri in Sanksrit), is a Buddhist compassion meditation to offer from our heart an end to the suffering of all beings: May all beings be filled with lovingkindness. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be free from suffering. Many believe an honest and dedicated Metta practice can be an antidote to fear.

We walked into the cottage called Val Kill where Eleanor Roosevelt lived and worked independently from the family estate. 

Living Room -Val Kill

I imagined Eleanor Roosevelt writing her first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as her role as delegate to the United Nations General Assembly here. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights 

Forest near Top Cottage

As we hiked up the hill through the tree-lined forest, to FDRs private cottage, the discomfort lifted as I gained my stride and hiked for my parents whose commitment to democracy and love of this country didn't falter. I carried my grandfathers and grandmothers with me.

View from the porch, Top Cottage

Sitting in silence, breath grew longer and stronger. I sat on the porch at Top Cottage because of the causes, sacrifices and resilience of my ancestors.

There are a host of complicated and uneasy feelings to forgive with an honest, full and open heart. What does feel honest, strong and crystal clear is my dedication to healing and transforming fear discomfort, sorrow for myself and for future generations. 

In my quest for photographs of forced incarceration, I stumbled upon a quote by FDR that cut and stung. The roots of misunderstanding and placing others in a separate box ran deep for this man before he became president. Decades before he signed Executive Order 9066, he held deeply seated beliefs and views that laid a foundation to minimize "Asiatic" people. 

 "Anyone who has traveled to the Far East knows that the mingling of

Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. . . . The argument works both ways. I know a great many cultivated, highly educated and delightful Japanese. They have all told me that they would feel the same repugnance and objection to have thousands of Americans settle in Japan and intermarry with the Japanese as I would feel in having large numbers of Japanese coming over here and intermarry with the American population. In this question, then, of Japanese exclusion from the United States it is necessary only to advance the true reason--the undesirability of mixing the blood of the two peoples. . . . The Japanese people and the American people are both opposed to intermarriage of the two races--there can be no quarrel there." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1925

My sweet son at 2 years

My children are multi-ethnic. Phrases like "mingling blood", "repugnance", "exclusion", "undesirability" ignite sadness and heartache. There's a reason I stumbled upon this quote, to offer sincere, deep forgiveness and lovingkindness I need to know all the painful, racist and ignorant beliefs.

My sweet daughter at 12 years

But then I flash on a memory of the Tule Lake pilgrimage- I was standing in line at the cafeteria.  As I waited my turn, tray in hand, I remember thinking this could have been my parents' experience-lining up in the mess hall for dinner 75 years ago. In that moment, I panned across the expansive dining hall and watched extended families sharing a meal, new friends engaged in conversation, the room pulsating with tears and laughter. It was a shared moment with my entire family, a snapshot of oneness in time, my heart was restored.

Tule Lake mess hall

Mess hall-Idaho

I felt a connection and the strength of my community at Tule Lake. I felt supported, strong and stable. I held the warmth of my Tule Lake community during the hard moments at Hyde Park and after discovering FDR's shocking quote.

 I gathered the energy of my community that provided me with hope while offering forgiveness to FDR and the causes and conditions of the time.

Tule Lake pilgrimage 2016, memorial

The energy of togetherness at Tule Lake and the community of hundreds that felt like my family, helped me to feel more grounded, able to know that hope can rise, love can rise, healing can blossom. I rise from my ancestors and my beloved community. 

I can be one of the many who can work, continue to love, understand and practice forgiveness. To quote Angeles Arrien, cultural anthropologist and author, I can be "one to bring forward the good, true and beautiful ways and break the harmful family and cultural patterns." 

Breaking harmful family patterns of holding old emotions and pain are a significant part of healing and reconciliation for me. Looking deeply and facing my truths are crucial to breaking the cycle as it feels like I'm letting in air and light to the places too painful for anyone to touch. Around 1994, I was shocked and amazed to watch televised portions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. It was an authentic, painful, gritty practice of healing the gross human rights violations of apartheid. To listen to survivors of torture and abuse walk for miles, sometimes days, to speak of their egregious suffering and tell their stories in a public forum was a practice of healing and restorative justice that still resonates for me. Bearing witness to deep pain and suffering ended up being a necessary catalyst in making democracy possible for South Africa.

Can I bring the qualities of truth and reconciliation forward like the people of South Africa, with some of their courage in a healing way? Ever hopeful, I believe I can. By telling my truth, I can heal, I can be peace and reconciliation. I can be one of many who can continue on "to bring forward the good, true and beautiful ways." Eleanor Roosevelt and President Roosevelt are a part of my history, we are interconnected.


In part 3, I complete my pilgrimage on a journey to Japan to meet relatives for the first time in Fukuoka and Hiroshima and unravel my connection to the atomic bomb site, to my heritage and history that I can fully embrace.