In May of 1945, my mother received a last v-mail from Harry:
The miracle has happened! I’m being sent back to the States. Right now I’m in a depot in Naples waiting to catch a boat or airplane back to the States. There’s about 65 of us from the 100th and 442nd being transferred to Military Intelligence School at Camp Ritchie, Maryland…
After leaving the army, Harry spent some time in Chicago, where he met his future wife. Her family was living in Los Angeles, and they eventually moved back to the West Coast and raised three children. So Harry lost his entire family at a young age; but in a display of resilience characteristic of so many Nisei (second generation Japanese American) of his generation, survived to create his own.
Suisun to Los Angeles, via San Francisco, Italy, and Chicago: the trajectory of a life shaped by fate, a random act of kindness, racial discrimination, and wartime.
About the contributor: Ruth Sasaki was born and raised in San Francisco after the War. The Takahashis, her mother’s family, were incarcerated in Tanforan and Topaz. A graduate of UC Berkeley (BA) and SF State (MA), she has lived in England and Japan. Her short story “The Loom” won the American Japanese National Literary Award, and her collection, The Loom and Other Stories, was published in 1991 by Graywolf Press. She shares her more recent writing via her website: www.rasasaki.com.
Copyright 2018, R. A. Sasaki. All rights reserved.