While reading my way through the recuperation from my foot surgery, I read a wonderful memoir, Kiyo's Story, by Kiyo Sato. The subtitle is A Japanese-American Family's Quest for the American Dream. Originally the title was Dandelion Through the Crack, suggesting how the spirit can bloom, despite unbelievable adversity. This book won the 2008 William Saroyan Prize for Non Fiction and should be required reading in high school history classes to give young people an understanding of how political hysteria can sweep a nation into unthinkable behavior.
Kiyo was nineteen when she and her family, as well all of the Japanese -American communities on the West Coast, were sent to an interment camp; in the Satos' case, in Arizona. Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, there was already a mindset in place: Japanese immigrants were not allowed to become citizens or to own land. Their children, however, were citizens by reason of birth. But following Pearl Harbor, and Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, anyone with 1/16 or more Japanese ancestry was suddenly declared a "non-alien". Curfews were established. They were not allowed to travel more than a five mile radius from their homes. Finally they were rounded up, and forced to abandon their homes, taking only whatever they could carry on the train to an interment camp. The Sato family, like neighboring families, were fruit farmers; their fields would be untended. Some farms were simply taken over by squatters.
Kiyo Sato first acquaints the reader with her parents' lives before this tragedy. Her father, Shinji, left Japan as a boy because of extreme poverty in his village. He labored for farmers in California, returned to Japan to wed a pretty nurse, and saved enough money that, through the help of others who were citizens, he could obtain a parcel of land. (At the time, Japanese immigrants were not allowed to own land.)
Kiyo's mother, Tomomi, worked side by side with Shinji in the fields, as did Kiyo and, later, her eight brothers and sisters. Slowly they brought the barren acreage to life until their produce was in demand and they had markets as far away as Canada. The
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Sato, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 2 of 2
By: Elizabeth Varadan,
on 7/31/2011
Blog: Elizabeth Varadan's Fourth Wish (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: flowers, Arizona, Roosevelt, spirit, citizenship, American Dream, Sato, Pearl Harbor, interment, fruit farm, barracks, Poston Concentration Camp, Japanese-American, Add a tag
By: Ann Hagman Cardinal,
on 3/29/2009
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Puerto Rico, puppies, Selena Gomez, satos, sato, luquillo, strays, Add a tag
The other day I was pleased to come across a news piece about tween-star Selena Gomez and her work with stray dogs, satos, while filming in Puerto Rico. Besides being impressed that such a young star was being photographed feeding stray dogs rather than shopping in her Uggs with a diamond-collared, pocket-sized, purebred pooch in her arms, I was also grateful to her because this is a cause that has become dear to my family’s heart, particularly after our most recent trip to La Isla Bonita.
Since I was a small child I was aware of the stray dog situation in Puerto Rico, it’s hard not to be. Each store parking lot has at least a half dozen, mangy-furred, weary-eyed critters begging for food and lying under cars to avoid the blazing midday sun. But for me it was also because opinions about the creatures varied so greatly in the Davila branch of my family. My mother was brought up to believe that dogs were livestock to be kept outside and employed as security. But her stepmother, my beloved Mamita Nivea and my grandfather’s second wife, collected stray dogs like most people collect knickknacks. There were always at least a dozen mutts ranging about the house, smalls ones barking at you from under the rattan furniture, large ones loping around t
he exterior of the house, their fur caked with the tar from my grandfather’s trucks. Nivea would sit on the porch in her rocking chair with at least three or four of them draped across her body, their eyes closed with pleasure as she scratched behind their one remaining ear. But my grandfather hated them. I remember sitting on the porch one day as he shuffled out in his pajamas yelling towards the back yard, shaking his cane and waving a gun. I screamed as he shot at a stray that was scurrying by the pool. “They’re only blanks!” he yelled at me as if I should have known, my ears ringing from the blast. The dog took off into the bushes, its stringy tail between its legs. “If I don’t scare them away that woman would take them all in until there was no room for us!” he muttered as he shuffled back to his bedroom, cane in one hand, and gun in the other.
But he is looking down from heaven in dismay as my beloved Tía Georgina has taken after Mamita Nivea rather than him. From the day she moved out of my grandfather’s house and on her own she has grown and nurtured her own brood of disheveled but well-loved hounds, her real estate choices dictated by the now thirteen dogs that live with her. The back of her SUV always contains two large bags of dog food and a container of water. Over the years while traveling with her around the island we’ve stopped by the road on the way to El Yunque to feed the strays that wander by the road, on a side street in Humacao, and every trip to the supermarket includes a meal and fresh water for the parking lot’s canine residents. I always smiled and accepted this as an integral part of this woman I loved, but an
odd one. But it wasn’t until this February that she managed to pull me and my son Carlos into her efforts…it wasn’t until then that I really began to understand.Needless to say, we went back the next day. And the next. By the end of the two weeks, the boldest one would stand near as we poured the food, his brother and sisters a few feet away. As
we cooed over them, my aunt offered to ship them to anyone who might want to adopt them stateside. Carlos and I lamented our asthma, our allergies. Otherwise, we would have taken at least one home. Carlos’ favorite part of the vacation was not the hours of body surfing at the beach, the shopping in old San Juan, or even the generous gift of a Nintendo DS from Titi, but rather the daily ritual of feeding the puppies. We talk about them often, even now, realizing with not a small amount of sadness that they will be full grown by the time we visit next year: that is, if they survive. A sato’s life span is not a long one, and our only hope is that the efforts of people like Georgina will pay off in no-kill shelters, and more comprehensive neutering plans. And the press attention that Selena Gomez’s visit brought is sure to help, but there is a long way to go to change the society’s perception of the canine species. But until then, when we visit the island, we will always have a bag or two of dog food in the back of our rental car, and though I’m not sure my mother would understand, Mamita Nieva is looking down at her great grandson Carlos and smiling. 
Nice review about a book by a lovely woman. It's on my list. I'll move it up now.
I've just made a note to share this book with my mom, who I know will love it. I had read other books about this topic while writing my Civil War novel to get a feel for how the unscientific hatred of a group of people has manifested itself through the ages. I wish I had read this book at that time but will certainly do so now. Thanks, Mitty!
Thanks for sharing the review.
Wow, this sounds wonderful, tears and all.
:)
I was moved halfway through your review of this. What an excellent read. Thanks for bringing it up.
A while back I read a beautifully written book on this subject, a true-life story. This one also sounds wonderful. Thanks for reviewing it so I could learn about it--and for stopping by my blog today, which got me here!
Ann Best, Author of In the Mirror, A Memoir of Shattered Secrets
Thanks all of you. I'm glad the book and it's subject matter appeal to you. It's such a worthwhile read; just brings one back to what is most valuable and enduring in the human spirit, despite so much heartache that goes on in the world.
This sounds a deeply moving book, and I especially like how you say it's not just about the sadness but the deeper recognition of how they triumph over hardships. I'll look out for this one, thank you.
I alwawys enjoy your book reviews, Elizabeth. Sounds like a great book.
Hi Mrs seraphina, another Elizabeth I see, though I spell my name with an 's'.
I'm here via your comment to Jim. This is a terrific review. I know something of the treatment of so-called enemy aliens.
We did a similar thing in Australia to German people during WW2, regardless of how long they had lived here.
It's a crazy madness takes over during times of war. And it's happening today to some extent between so-called christians and muslims.
It's scary, this wish to polarise into good and bad when life is never as simple as that.
I'm pleased to meet you.
Hi, Rachna, i was so moved my it. Normally I'm not a big memoir reader, but this chained my mind.K
Hi, Elizabeth, nice to meet you. I have another friend in Australia who is an expert on kangaroos and helped me with a children's story about kangaroos. As for the treatment of German-descent Australians, the same thing happened to quite a few Italian-Americansq on the East Coast here in the States. Something comes over people. It's terrible.
Oh, dear, I meant to spell that with an s. Years of habit! :-)
I gave you a shout-out on my blog today.
Just so you know. :)
Wandered over from David's blog. *waves*
Hope your foot's doing well.
Thanks, Donna. And thanks for following me. I took a peek at your blog, too, after seeing his post. Foot is doing fine. The pin comes out tomorrow, and then soon I'll be up and running around again. I am so ready!
Great review. Sounds amazing.
www.rebeccabany.com
Hi, Rebecca, thanks for stopping by, and thanks for following me. I visited your blog, and I see you're published through Create Space. That's who I went through for my book.
Hi Elizabeth!
Wonderful review. I'm moving the book over to my TBR list as we speak :)
Love the blog too. I can't wait to keep following you!
Nice to meet you, Kelley. You have a nice blog yourself. I'll be reading more of your posts.