Chapter One
AN ISLAND IN DARKNESS
In a corner of the United States, in the midst of the complicated jumble of waterways and land masses that make up Puget Sound, there is a small piece of rural America called Vashon Island. In the 1920s it had large-scale industrial logging, substantial greenhouse operations and farms specializing in diverse products such as poultry, dairy, vegetables and berries. Today it is more of a bedroom community with thousands of people commuting daily to work in Seattle and Tacoma. But it still has the character of a small town where neighbor helps neighbor and the sense of community is strong.
The islandis approximately thirteen miles long by sevenmiles wide. It shares the weather that Seattle is famous for. Both winters and summers are moderate, with enough rain to keep the forests green. Vashon may be only a few miles from two large cities, but it is protected from their influence by a salt-water channel that extends more than 600 feet deep. Building a bridge across these waters has been studied many times but never accomplished because of the fierce desire by the residents to maintain a particular life style. The only way on and off the Island for most people is by taking a pleasant 15-minute ferry ride on the regularly scheduled service.
It was into this setting that my parents, Heisuke and Mitsuno Matsuda brought my brother, Yoneichi and me in 1927. He was four years old, I was two. By 1936, we were one of 37 Japanese families living on Vashon Island. Like many others, we grew strawberries and lived a quiet, self-sufficient life.
I went through Vashon Grade School where there were eight grades in one building, two classes per room per teacher. The majority of the students were white but in my graduating class of 1943, there weretwo Chinese students and three of us Japanese Americans out of a class of 78. My life in that idyllic setting was one of innocence and pleasure, just being one of the kids.
Using their combined wisdom, my parents selected this place to raise their family and protect us from the corrupting influences of modern life. But nothing could protect us from the events following December 7, 1941.
I was 16 going on 17. That Sunday morning Yoneichi and I walked through light showers to the Vashon Methodist Church as we had for the past eight years. We knew everyone in the church so we always looked forward to being there, singing the familiar hymns and feeling a part of the whole congregation. As usual, we went early to dust the pews and distribute church bulletins and hymnals in the sanctuary. We stayed on and participated in the Sunday school classes and the church service that followed. The service was in English so my parents didn’t attend. This was part of the rhythm of our week in rural Vashon Island. After the service, we wished everyone a good week ahead and left for home. It had stopped raining. I looked at the Bible verse that I had received and repeated it several times on my way home so I would have it memorized for next Sunday. Later I would remember that afternoon as my last carefree day – the last time I fully believed I was an American, with all the trivial cares and worries of an American teenager.
When we got to the house, Papa san was sitting silently at the kitchen table, eyes downcast. Something was wrong. Normally, Papa san would have been working outdoors. He usually didn’t get back until lunch was ready. Mama san stood leaning against the sink looking very pale.
"Papa san, you’re home early. What's going on?" I asked. His lips were pressed firmly together, the lines of his jaw sharp and angular, a deep frown between his eyebrows. I became frightened. I had never seen this look on my father’s face before.
Lifting his eyes Papa san replied quietly in Japanese. "Mr. Yabu called. Japanese airplanes bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii early this morning." My brother whirled around and snapped on the radio sitting on the kitchen counter nearby.
The booming voice of an excited reporter burst out: “This is no drill! I repeat. This is no drill! Japanese planes and naval forces have attacked Hawaii! Heavy losses have been sustained by the United States Navy from a massive surprise attack!”
We stood in stunned silence. I stared at the radio. This couldn’t be. There must be some mistake. But the reporter came on again and excitedly shouted out more information.
“During the pre-dawn hours, Japanese warplanes bombed the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii! The USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma have been hit! An undetermined number of other vessels have been struck and countless numbers of men have been lost. The full extent of the damage has not yet been determined! We will keep you informed as further information is available...”
The loud, blaring voice of the announcer shouting in staccato phrases boomed across the airwaves. We were immobilized. I stared at the radio in shock, in disbelief. This couldn’t be true. There must be some mistake. Nothing could have prepared me for this catastrophe. As shocked as I was, I had no inkling of just how much our lives would change.
I turned from the radio and looked at my parents. They understood enough English to grasp the meaning of this announcement. Papa san sat at his usual place at the table. As the gravity of the news hit us, the color drained from his face, his head dropped to his chest, and his shoulders slumped forward. He looked defeated.
He knew enough to be afraid. Papa san knew what could happen if public opinion turned against him. Shortly after his arrival in the United States, my father and several other Japanese men were working in the coalmines in the Klondike, Alaska. One day a white friend sought him out and said, “Harry, there’s a bunch of guys who don’t like you fellows and they are planning to raid your camp tonight. You’d better get out of town right away.” The men scrambled to gather their things, hurriedly broke up camp, left their jobs and escaped before the vigilantes arrived. I could imagine his initial fear being replaced by the relief of escaping. At the time he told us about this incident, he also talked about learning first hand about prejudice and how important it was to develop good relationships with everyone wherever he went. Now all those good relationships with neighbors and business associates would be tested.
My mother, Mitsuno Horiye Matsuda, was the perfect Japanese wife, obedient and devoted. She had been cooking fried chicken for our Sunday meal. But now it was set aside and forgotten in the midst of the unfolding crisis in the nation and in our family. Ordinarily she was lighthearted, gracious and very practical about life. The pride she felt in Yoneichi and me was something we understood even though she always modestly protested whenever others complimented us. Her eyes filled with tears as she sank into the chair. I heard her whisper to herself in Japanese, “This is terribly distressing. What will happen to us?”
Yoneichi and I looked at each other, stunned. We still couldn’t believe what was being said on the radio. I felt suffocated by the blaring, bitter news report, but I couldn’t keep from listening. What could the Japanese have been thinking? Were they insane, coming thousands of miles from Japan to attack United States territory? Why did they do this? What was their reason? How could they manage such a thing? And what effect would the attack have on us because we were Japanese Americans?
We were all afraid. Even though Papa san had lived in America since 1898, and Mama san since 1922, they could not become naturalized citizens because of the adoption of anti-alien land laws in many Western states. For this reason I felt their vulnerability immediately. We had lived here in our home for eleven years. We had cordial relationships with our neighbors. Yoneichi and I had been born in the United States and thus were American citizens. We were sure this would protect us, but still, we were afraid.
As the news sank in, Mama san remarked thoughtfully, "Now I understand why my brother, Moichi-san, wrote me those letters urging us to come back to Japan. I wonder if he might have suspected that something like this was going to happen."
Still in her faded tan pants and blue shirt, Mama san moved aimlessly about the kitchen, touching different items on the counter. She came and stood in front of the kitchen sink and looked with unseeing eyes out the window at the front yard. Her usually erect body sagged. Her eyes, which were always bright and generated smiles from others, looked sadder this day than I had ever seen them. As though trying to remove cobwebs from her face, she moved her hands across her eyes and over her graying hair as she sighed.
Papa san continued to sit at the table and stared blankly at the teacup that he kept turning around and around with his right hand. The crease between his eyes deepened. Periodically I would see him take a deep breath and turn his sad eyes out the window at the sky beyond.
As I observed my parents’ reactions, I felt anxious. I had never seen both of them so self-absorbed and troubled. There was a big knot in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t believe that such a thing like this could possibly happen, but it had. And what would be the consequences?
I remembered what my parents had repeatedly said to me, that what I thought about myself was not nearly as important as what other people thought about me. Every once in a while they would ask me what image I thought I was projecting and what people might think about me as a result of my behavior. They were thinking about my future. Now I had a gnawing feeling of guilt – of guilt by association. I didn’t want to think about the possibility that American people would consider me as the enemy.
I picked up our cat, Kitty, and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. I hugged her close to me and petted her over and over again. Our dog, Frisky, sensing that something was amiss, came in and looked up into my eyes with that searching gaze. He could sense that something was terribly wrong and he wanted to be near me. I reached down and patted him on his head and rubbed his ears. He turned and licked my hand. I felt comforted when he sat down and leaned his body against my legs.
Yoneichi was a fresh high school graduate and was working on the farm as he thought about his future. Now he moved restlessly about, going in and out of the kitchen, then coming back in to listen to the radio. Whenever he did sit down, his right leg kept jiggling up and down as though he couldn’t keep it still. His lips were pursed, his brows knitted in a perpetual frown. He kept raising his right hand to rub his neck as though he had a pain there. I looked at my family and thought what beautiful people they were. What would happen to us now?
We spent the rest of the day near each other, tense and silent, trying to brace ourselves against some nameless premonition of trouble which we each intuitively knew would overtake us. My parents and I sat and numbly listened as the announcer bellowed out more information of additional ships destroyed, more human casualties, more disasters wrought. Yoneichi kept going outdoors to search the sky for any evidence of airplanes. In time, the rest of us joined him, unable to listen further to the devastating news that kept hammering away at our eardrums. Our telephone was ominously quiet that day. We had very little appetite for dinner. Each of us spent a restless night.
The following morning I reluctantly went to my classes at the high school. I felt guilty, ashamed that the Japanese government – to which I was tied by my parents – had done this terrible deed to our United States. As I went through the halls from one class to another, every time anyone looked at me, I imagined hatred in their eyes. I assumed that everyone was prejudiced and didn’t want to have anything to do with me. In one of my classes, I began to cry, as much from confusion as frustration. I was an American and yet I didn’t look like one. I was Japanese but ashamed that I was. I awaited an unknown penalty, not knowing what or when or how it would be carried out. I cried because there was nothing else I could do. Even though all of my classmates and teachers were kind and behaved the same, I felt that everything had changed inside of me.
My crying wasn't in response to anything spoken or done by my classmates. They shared my fear of the future and the shock of the sudden turn of events, but no one did anything to single me out or blame me. One of my classmates even came up to me and linked her arm with mine as we went into our English class together. But it was my perception that had changed. Ever since the third grade, when one of the white kids called me a “Jap,” I'd known I was different. But still, I'd gotten along pretty well. Now though, I felt very different. I suddenly felt like an outsider. My classmates treated me the same, only things weren't the same. I was grateful for my classmates’ silent support.
All the years we lived here, our parents had stressed the importance of our being good citizens of the community and nation, that America was a country made up of people from all walks of life from many countries of the world. The equality of all of the people, and tolerance, were keys to living peacefully together. We had tried so hard to promote favorable relations between the Japanese community and our neighbors. But I assumed that all our efforts had been ruined. My parents had taught us to be stoic, brave, serene, respectful of authority, and in total control of our emotions. But on that Monday after Pearl Harbor, in place of my usual serenity, I felt incredible tension building inside of me. I felt afraid and helpless. I couldn’t do the thing that I most wanted, which was to change things back to the way they were. I just knew that all the wonderful parts of our family and community life would be changed forever.
That night, as we were having dinner, we heard an announcement on the radio by the Civil Defense Authority: “Beginning this evening at 7:00 p.m., a complete blackout is required in the entire Puget Sound area to prevent an attack on our defense industries. This blackout will last until daylight every night until further notice. The complete cooperation of the entire community is mandatory. For additional information call your local Civilian Defense office.”
We remained at the dinner table while we discussed what we would have to do to make sure that no light would be visible outside of our home. Mama san got up from the table and said to me, “Mary san, help me gather up some blankets to cover our windows. We’ll have to bring out the old kerosene lamps, too.”
My hands felt cold and my arms heavy, and I had a lump in my throat that wouldn’t go away no matter how often I tried to clear it. Mama san quietly commented, "Kowai desu ne, this is frightening, isn’t it?"
Yoneichi came along with a stepladder and helped us drape the blankets over every window. He voiced what was running through my mind. "I wonder what will happen next. You don’t suppose more Japanese planes will come over and bomb us here, do you? And what about us? Surely it will make a difference because we have been good citizens in our community, and Mary and I are Americans, not Japanese, won’t it?” His questions trailed off into the air. No one could answer them.
A few days later when I was in the living room doing my homework, I overheard snatches of conversation between my parents. They had lingered at the dinner table long after we had finished our meal together. I heard Papa san say with a worried tone. “I wish Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor. Our lives will certainly become more difficult.”
“Yes, I’m afraid they will,” Mama san replied. She sounded distressed too. “It’s hard to tell who will still be our friends and who will turn against us. I hope our neighbors will still be friendly.”
“I won’t feel as comfortable coming and going as I have in the past,” Papa san confessed. “And doing the business for our farm will become more complicated, I’m sure. We’ll just have to wait and see how things unfold to know how to proceed.”
“Yes, I agree,” Mama san said. “Even though you and I have never been able to become citizens, we’ve raised our children to be good members of the community. We must have faith that this will all work out eventually.”