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by Tristi Pinkston |
Nothing to Regret ∙ Chapter 1
My first book, Nothing to Regret, was published by Granite Publishing and Distribution in November of 2002. It's the story of the Japanese internees during World War II, specifically those that were interned in Topaz, 16 miles outside of Delta, Utah. (For the Topaz museum, click here.) |
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December 7, 1941 The voice of the radio newscaster droned in the background as I ate lunch with my mother and father. Although I was the only child and son, eating together as a family was a tradition we struggled to maintain with our different schedules. We weren’t paying much attention to the news; we turned on the radio more as a habit than anything. Occasionally there would be an interesting story that I could use for one of my classes at Berkeley, but more often than not the radio just provided a backdrop for our own conversations. "Now for the weather," the faceless voice continued. "No, wait." There was no sound for a moment, then the voice continued, strained and unnatural. "Ladies and gentlemen, word has just reached our news desk that Pearl Harbor has been bombed by Japanese planes." "What?" my mother gasped. "Raymond, turn up the volume." My father pushed his chair back quickly and crouched beside the radio, turning up the volume. My mother reached out and grasped my hand, her nails digging into my skin, but I barely felt it. I was numb, trying to listen to the radio, but not believing what I heard. The voice of the newscaster was determinedly businesslike as he read: "The attack came just before eight o’clock this morning, December seventh, catching our Pacific fleet off guard. We won’t have a report on the exact number of dead or wounded for some time; it is estimated to be in the high hundreds, or even more than a thousand." My father flipped off the radio. I don’t know how long we sat there, staring at our plates. I was vaguely aware of my mother clearing the table and washing the dishes. "I don’t understand," my father said, his voice breaking the silence. He stepped out on the porch, looking up at the brilliant, crisp sky, breathing deeply. I understood his need for solitude and didn’t disturb him. I could hear my mother in the kitchen, her sobs echoing from where she stood at the sink, washing the same dishes over and over. Finally, she dried her hands and sat down next to the radio, where she listened to the incoming news reports for the rest of the day, rocking back and forth. And I didn’t know what to feel or how to act. I was Nisei, the child of Japanese immigrants, and I had never known any home but California. I was American. My parents had often said that they would like to return to Japan for a visit; they had not been on their native soil for thirty years. I had always been interested in Japan, wanting to learn more about the culture and history because it was part of my heritage, but I had felt no desire to go there. And now the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. They flew across the ocean into our territory and bombed us. I felt no kinship with Japan. I felt betrayed that those who were supposed to be my own people could do this. We didn’t do much that day. We received a few phone calls from friends and family, who called to share in the tragedy, as friends like to do. We didn’t eat well, although Mother tried hard to rally us with her good cooking. When I went to bed that night, I couldn’t sleep. I was too stunned. Colonel Beaumont was on our doorstep before breakfast the next morning, refusing my mother’s polite offer of tea. We had known the Colonel since I was three when we moved to Oakland and became his next-door neighbors. He was now semi-retired and had taken up gardening as a hobby. He was always telling me that he was going to see to it that I enlist right after college and become a top military leader. He knew of my life-long passion for airplanes, and he had seen nearly all my aviation experiments as they flew over his backyard, one of them crashing into his orange tree. He laughed long and hard that day, but as he sat in our living room the morning after Pearl Harbor, there was no smile. He cleared his throat. "Last night, several Japanese men were dragged from their beds and taken off to jail for questioning. Over 1,300 were arrested. Raymond, they wanted to come and get you too, but I put in a good word for you." My father blinked. "What did the police want with me?" The Colonel looked uncomfortable, running a hand though his sandy hair. "It is believed in certain circles that there are Japanese living here in the United States who are spies." "Spies?" my mother questioned. "My husband is not a spy!" The Colonel hastily assured her. "I know he’s not, Mrs. Sugihara. Your family has been very good to me over the last twenty years. I don’t suspect you. But there are others ...," he paused, looking every bit his fifty-two years. "There are others who would like to see every Japanese person in this country shot." "We didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor!" I exclaimed. "We had nothing to do with it. We are just as horrified as everyone else." "I know that, Ken. I’m just trying to prepare you for some of the reactions you may receive." "I am an honorable woman and my family members are honorable also. There is no reason for anyone to doubt us," my mother said staunchly. "Well, at least you’ve been warned," the Colonel said as he stood to leave. "You’re good people, and I would hate to see anything happen to you." That said, he left. None of us really understood what he was trying to say, so we put it out of our minds and went about our daily routines. When I walked into my first class at 9:00, I was caught off guard. Hisses arose from every corner, screams of "filthy Jap" and "murderer" were hurled at me, and a book was thrown and caught me in the corner of my eye, turning it black and purple. These were my fellow students, some of them my friends. Why were they doing this to me? The professor at the front of the room had been yelling and waving his arms for some time, and finally was heard above the din. "Students! Students! Sit down! I know you are upset, but there is no reason for this kind of behavior!" No one paid much attention to him, but then he threatened grade reduction, and there was quiet. I was allowed to take my seat, and the professor continued. "We are going to try to put the trauma of the past weekend to the side and not allow our personal feelings to affect our interactions with each other. Any more comments that arise will be met with an immediate failing grade." I was left alone the rest of the day, in fact, ignored. Some of my fellow Nisei students came over to me at lunch and we ate together. Each of them related that they had been treated pretty much the same as I had been. We figured there was nothing we could really do. The vast majority of the school was against us, and it was taking quite a lot of threatening from the professors to maintain any kind of order in the classrooms. We would simply have to bide our time, and hope that after the shock wore off, we would be accepted again. ******** When I arrived home from school, I found my mother sitting at the table, a bag of groceries on the floor beside her. A rank odor filled the air and I saw that her hair was full of manure. "Mother! What happened to you?" "I went to the grocery store. I thought a nice meal would help cheer us. Some boys in the produce department threw tomatoes at me. When I complained to the manager, he told me to pay for the tomatoes. I didn’t want to cause trouble, so I paid for them. Then, when I walked outside, three women threw manure at me." Her English gave way to Japanese as she expressed her hurt and anger. "I have never been treated so badly. They called me terrible things, some words I don’t even know. Kenichi, what will become of us?" I held her hand as she sobbed. I wished there was something, anything, I could do. "Father will know what to do," I soothed her. "He always knows." But Father didn’t. When he came home from work, he told us that he had seen storekeepers putting signs in their windows, "No dogs or Japs allowed." He was disheartened, and had no words of comfort for my mother, only a pat on the shoulder. "We have all had a terrible day," my mother said sadly. "Let’s try to have a pleasant evening." She went off to the bathroom to scrub her hair and bathe, and I unpacked the groceries. Bits and pieces of manure had fallen inside the bag, and I threw them out the back door, trying to fling my frustrations away also. At the bottom of the bag, I found a scrap of paper that read, "Go home, you filthy Japanese wh—." I froze when I saw it, then charged out of our home and down to the corner store where my mother always did her shopping. I shoved the piece of paper in the face of the cashier. "Did you put this in my mother’s bag?" I demanded. "Why, yes, I did," she smiled sweetly. "How dare you do such a thing," I glared at her, hoping to scare her insipid smile off her face. The manager approached and I whirled on him. "Your employee put this piece of trash in my mother’s shopping bag." The tall, thickset man glanced at the paper. "This store does not take responsibility for the actions of its employees. Now I suggest that you leave my store and tell your mother that if she ever dares to come back —" He did not get the chance to finish his sentence; my fist connected with his nose and I felt the cartilage give way with a glorious crunch. "Why you ..," he sputtered and fumed as the blood rushed down his face. His hand was also becoming stained as he held it tightly over his nose, trying to stop the bleeding. I attempted to leave the store, but was detained by a few of the male customers. The police arrived within minutes and I was led away in handcuffs. The sergeant on call didn’t care about my reasons for hitting the store manager, only that I had done it. I was put in a cell toward the front of a long corridor. A stale, damp smell filled the building, and I hunched down in the corner of the bunk and tried to make myself invisible. I had never broken the law before in my life. Much to my relief, I was rescued the next morning by Colonel Beaumont. "You’ve just got to be more careful, Ken," he admonished as we rode home in his Army-issue vehicle. "More careful? Colonel, this is my mother we’re talking about. How could I let them get away with treating her like that?" "I don’t like it any more than you do, but that’s just how it is. Listen, Ken. I’m being shipped out tomorrow, and I won’t be here to keep an eye on you and your family. You’ve got to lay low and stop taking chances." Why should I be warned against standing up for what I knew was right? But I didn’t say anything more. It was hard to argue with a man like the Colonel. When I arrived home, I told my mother I had gone to the store to get her money back for the tomatoes and was arrested for stealing. I didn’t tell her about the note. I just couldn’t. My father came home that night, looking grim. "The bank has frozen our credit," he told us. "I cannot withdraw any money. Thank goodness we have a good job to depend on." "Don’t worry about the money, Raymond," my mother told him. "I have for some time been hiding a small amount here in the house, adding to it each week. For some reason, I felt we should have a reserve." My father read the newspaper as he rested and waited for dinner to be ready. "Listen to this! Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese American Citizen’s League sent a telegram to President Roosevelt reading, ‘We are ready and prepared to expend every effort to repel this invasion together with our fellow Americans.’ Surely they will see that we are as upset as they are." This quote from the newspaper was inspiring to me, and after discussing it with my parents, I headed downtown the very next morning to enlist. I stood in line in front of the Army Recruiter’s office, a line that threaded out the door and down the block. As I waited, those young men who were in front when I arrived came out the large glass doors, looking pleased with themselves. Each of them announced to the crowd which day they were to leave, and every announcement was greeted with a loud cheer. I stepped confidently forward, prepared to go and serve my country. Around me I heard the other men talking to each other, and caught words like "traitor," "what’s he doing here," and the like. I didn’t realize they were talking about me until I entered the building and was picked up and thrown out onto the sidewalk. A burly lieutenant was down in my face, screaming at me. "Get out! Get out! You don’t belong here! Don’t you ever come back! I’ll shoot you on sight!" "How would you know it was him, Lieutenant? They all look alike," came a voice from behind. "Yeah, you’re right. I guess I’ll just have to shoot every Jap I see from now on!" The lieutenant gave a hearty laugh, kicked me once, then walked away. No one made a move to help me onto my feet. The other men waiting to go in just looked at me as I rose and struggled to catch my breath. I heard one of them say, "Who does that Jap think he is, trying to enlist? He really should have known better." Then they turned their eyes away and refused to look at me. Once at home, I studied myself in the bathroom mirror. I had one slight bruise on my cheek, put there by the lieutenant’s boot. But most of the damage was on the inside, to my sense of being, to my sense of right. Looking at my straight black hair, my brown almond-shaped eyes, my slightly olive skin, I was just as Japanese in appearance as I could be, but my thoughts and feelings were American. I didn’t see how they could justify hating me based on my appearance alone. Copyright 2002 by Tristi Pinkston Buy Now!
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