Nisei Daughter

Very nostalgic and many mutual experiences and shared neighborhoods. Keep me turning pages until I finished. Well done!!!

As a real Japanese daughter in Tokyo of Today, I very much enjoyed Ms. Sone's narrative. This is a story about prewar Seattle and the life of Japanese-Americans, as well as her identity struggle during the war time. With the eyes of an observant Nisei girl, Ms. Sone tells us about people around her, and school life, both local and Japanese, in a positive (somewhat humorous, sometimes sappy..) way. This is amazing. No one told me such an interesting story like this. Travel guide books only show us lovely views or baseball stadiums. Japanese school textbooks NEVER mention Japanese-American history and heritage. What a waste. We could share their feelings... I could have been a Nikkei(JA) daughter if my great-grand parents had emmigrated to the West Coast. (Actually, they once lived in Manchuria instead.) Since I found this book, I also have searched my heart and wondered where I had come from... It's so stimulating. ARIGATO, KAZUKO-san ! Seattle does not only mean Ichiro Suzuki.

This is the story told by a daughter of Japanese immigrants growing up in pre-World War II Seattle. She was in college when Pearl Harbor struck. I think the best parts of this memoir deal with the description of Japanese culture and the conflict between the Americanism of the Nisei and their Issei parents most of whom heavily maintained Japanese customs. Perhaps the funniest part of the latter in the book takes place during the wedding reception held for her brother Henry and his bride in their camp in Idaho during the war. I'd have to say that the best written, the most vivid part of the books is the family trip to visit relatives in Japan where her little brother Kenji fatally contracted dysentery. I'm guessing that this trip must have taken place around 1929. The author gets released from camp mid-way through the war to go live with some former missionaries in Chicago who are very nice. She works for a dentist who is, however, a real pain in the butt and she eventually quits. She then gets the opportunity to go attend Wendell college in Indiana where she lives with a nice old widow and she says that this college was full of alot of diverse foreign students. She made many close friends. During her post-camp period, her faith in American democracy was largely restored because she met so many nice white Americans who weren't racist louts. The book ends on a sort of patriotic note which I can't follow completely. In Chicago she was often mistaken for Chinese and people told her how much they respected the Chinese people, America's ally and she was sometimes mistaken for various Chinese celebrities. It's obvious, that the author, who at the time of this 1979 edition, was still a clinical psychologist, knows how to write. She is a very gifted descriptive writer, though sometimes she lays it on too heavy. She tells her life story with a great deal of sentimentality; at times I think she pours it on a little too sweetly. But heck it's her story and she crafts it very well.

This book by far beats all the other books about the American tragedy. I also recommend you get Farewell to Manzannar if you enjoy this book.