A TASTE OF SNOWbyJeanne Wakatsuki Houston
Jeanne Wakatsukiis a native-born American. She was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp—with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. This is part of her story and what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United States.
I first saw snow one Christmas when I lived in the high desert of Owens Valley,California. I was nine years old. It was during the Second World War, the first winter myfamily and I spent at Manzanar. When the crystal flakes floated down, like translucentcoconut chips dancing in the breeze, I ran out into the clear area between the barracks,twirling and dancing and opening my mouth to catch the powdery ice. The snow remindedme of cotton candy, wispy and delicate, and gone with one whisk of the tongue.
I was surprised by the sharp coldness of the air and somehow disappointed that suchbeauty had its price to be paid--icy feet and hands, and uncomfortable wetness when thesnow melted upon contact with my clothes and face. Still, the utter loveliness of this newphenomenon was so overpowering I soon forgot my discomfort.
Other people began coming out of the barracks into a transformed world. Some carriedbrightly colored Japanese parasols and wore high wooden getasto raise their stockinged feetabove the snow. It was odd not to hear the “kata-kata” clatter of wooden clogs scrapingacross sand and gravel. The blanket of snow muffled sound and thickened the thin planedroofs of the barracks, softening the stark landscape of white on white. It was strangelysoothing to me, silent and tranquil. I found myself moved to tears.
This particular imprint in my memory is easily explained. Before being sent to Manzanar, we lived in Ocean Park, on Dudley Avenue, a block from the beach. Ocean Park Pier was myplayground. All the kids in the neighborhood played ball and skated along the wide cementpromenade that bordered the beach from Ocean Park to Venice.Memories of Ocean Park are warm ones of sunshine, hot days on the beach, building sandcastles, playing Tarzan and Jungle Girl, jumping off lifeguard stands and spraining ankles.
Fourth of July was a balmy evening of crowds milling around the pier waiting for fireworksto spray the sky with luminous explosives. Easter was as colorful as the many-hued eggs thelocal service club buried in the sand for the kids to uncover. And Christmas was just anotherversion of this type of buoyant, high-spirited celebration my family enjoyed before the war.
In my memory Christmas morning seemed always sunny and clear. Strolling along thepromenade in my new orange-flowered dress and white high-topped shoes, pushing the dollcarriage Santa had left under the big tree in our living room, I proudly displayed myself andmy gifts as did the other children of the neighborhood. My oldest brother Bill, who was thenin his twenties, walked with me and helped me feed popcorn to the pigeons warbling andpecking around our feet. Then he rushed me off in his old blue roadster to visit his girl friendMolly who played the violin while he sang, and I slept.
Like a story within a story, or a memory within a memory, I cannot think of onememorable Christmas, but of these two. They are yin and yang, each necessary to appreciatethe other. I don’t remember Christmas trees in Manzanar. But we gathered driftwood fromthe creeks that poured down from the nearby Sierras and across the high desert. With thesewe improvised. In my mind’s eye they co-exist: a lush, brilliantly lit fir tree; and a baremanzanita limb embellished with origami cranes.
To this day, when I travel in the high country, I can cry seeing nature’s exquisite wintergarb and remember my first taste of snow.