Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil

Harvest Son is a fantastic memoir. While Dandelion in the Crack (retitled Kiyo's Story: A Japanese-American Family's Quest for the American Dream) recounts the Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) experience, Mas Masumoto tells the story of his Sansei (third generation) experiences growing up in the Central Valley. Unlike most Sansei, Mas returned to the family farm after going to college and grad school. Although some his experiences are uniquely Japanese American, there are many parallels to the changing fortunes of family farmers throughout the Central Valley. It is a must read book for those interested in the Japanese American experience and those that lament the rise of new varieties of peaches will not bruise after bouncing on concrete. If you are a refugee from a family farm, like me, you may find scenes in the book that mirror your experiences. Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm is next on my reading list. Vignettes from the book (stop reading here if you want it to be a surprise): There is also the story of his sojourn to Japan to learn of his ancestors he never knew. A journey into the countryside to visit relatives leads to Mas working and living on a Japanese family farm. Back in California, he works the land, decides to farm organically and to continue farming an "heirloom" variety of peach. Mas anguishes over a late season storm that destroys a year's labor. He worries about how to preserve the Japanese American heritage of his community as fewer young Japanese Americans remain. And, finally, there is the story of his grandfather that closes the circle.

A third generation Japanese-American, agriculturist David Masumoto farms peaches and raisins. He celebrates nature, savoring seasons when "The air is filled with the smell of drying grapes - a caramel fragrance mixed with an earthy aroma." He is a champion of hard work, viewing calluses as "badges of honor earned only after years in the fields,...The hands tell a story of worth..." And, as evidenced in his affecting memoir, Harvest Son, he is an author whose fluid pen scrolls as gracefully as kanji, the ancient Japanese script in which each word is a picture. Evocative descriptions of abundant harvests and the delicately limned shade of a near-ripe peach are lyric testimony that farming is not only his occupation, it is his modus vivendi. Writing with spare yet lustrous precision, Mr. Masumoto traces his life's journey in flashbacks, exploring the past to chart his future. Having learned that in 1942 his grandparents, along with some 16,000 Japanese-Americans were relocated to internment camps, Mr. Masumoto embarked on a painful quest, searching the Arizona desert for traces of the Gila River Relocation Center, his family's four-year home. "A few low cement pillars sunken into the ground" and "a pile of broken thick white dishes" were the only remnants of those interrupted lives. Another pilgrimage was to Japan, where he found his grandmother's brother. Held hostage by rice paddies, his uncle's farmhouse "looked like the face of an old man with wrinkles and age spots." The floor was of packed earth..." But, blessings of all blessings, there was the "ofuro" or Japanese hot tub, which "Following a day in the fields, ...tempered worn and broken spirits. The soothing water fostered a benevolence and a feeling of optimism." Mr. Masumoto eventually returned to the California valley of his childhood, where he found satisfaction and a connectedness in tending the vines planted by his grandfathers. From the author we learn a Japanese word "shoganai" meaning "it can't be helped." This is a word borne of forbearance, we are told, as despite their painful past Japanese-Americans accepted their new country "with a bow of humility. Not weakness but silent strength." When a surprise hailstorm destroyed what promised to be a bumper crop, Mr. Masumoto asked himself why he continued to farm. His answer may be "shoganai." Today, Mr. Masumoto is a leader in his local Buddhist community, one of the few sansei or third generation Japanese-Americans who remain in the farmland that nurtured them. It is left to him to serve as chairman at many funerals, as one generation honors another. Harvest Son is a joyful, poignant reminder that it is both duty and privilege to do so.

After reading EPITAPH FOR A PEACH, I hungrily hunted down HARVEST SON. This is nature writing at it's finest! At once a touching and poetic account of family life on an organic peach farm and vineyard. The reader is likely to run the gamut of emotions as Masumoto describes losing a crop of peaches to a damaging and wicked storm, makes a pilgrimmage to Japan to learn of his family's history and culture, or has a blast while fertilizing young peach trees "by hand" - his wife and son riding with him on the back of a wagon throwing organic fertilizer at the trees with old coffee cans. His 10 year old daughter jerks them along as she learns to drive the tractor. HARVEST SON is a warm, funny and insightful book that will not disappoint!