MY E.O. 9066: Resistance at Tule Lake
When I was a child,
I was just a little too Japanese.
My L’s and R’s
Came out as
Reft and Light
As in whenever I left my Japanese at home.
It would make me feel alright.
When I was in Math Class
I sat between two kids: a white boy and a yonsei; we looked alike
Like a line between the divide signs
He couldn’t discern the difference between the dots
The yonsei and I.
We looked alike.
But I didn’t sound like the others.
When I was bullied,
My teacher said that my sentences sounded funny.
Like how my English would flow together like brush strokes of Japanese calligraphy
I woulda left the room but it wasn’t right.
I was a model minority student.
You see I was good at math
Because that was the only homework that my mother could help me with.
The numbers just didn’t add up.
The Yonsei kid was laughing at me.
If I subtracted the accent we were the same underneath.
My father told me that I am more than the sum of my parts.
But at that point I felt more like a divide line between two points, two nations and my heart
The Yonsei told me that I was fresh off a boat.
So I resisted the urge to speak.
Because in school I was suppose to raise the American
and submerge the Japanese.
We’ve heard this story before.
Divided between Loyalty and Resistance
Too many Stories
Too Late
Stories that were never told
Questions that should not have been asked
At last we can take a moment
To look back at our collective pasts
Japanese American history is riddled with Land Mines
So make sure you mind lands.
On the point of our pens.
The point is that
Marking Yes or No
On two questions
Shouldn’t have been a mark of loyalty.
Shouldn’t have been the narrative of American.
Shouldn’t have divided our families.
Generations later we still try to do the math.
So we subtracted the parts of that made us other.
Memories fading faster
Cultural genocide disaster
My language
My kotoba
Baa-chan I wish I asked her
Jii-chan I wish he told me
Know history
To know me
No History
There’s no me
The Tule Lake resistance is still relevant
We defended the civil liberties of the immigrants
It’s time to dig up some skeletons
Here’s my Shin-Nikkei Testament.