A Japanese-American Journeys to His Ancestral Land

It was a brilliant spring day. While trade wars dominated the news in Tokyo, my parents and I journeyed into the rural heart of our ancestral homeland to find a past we had lost so long ago.

For the first time, we were meeting relatives who live on the rice farms our ancestors have owned since the feudal 18th Century.

Amazingly, they’ve preserved the tradition of handing down the family homestead, the honke , from generation to generation, from parent to eldest son. In modern Japan, this custom is vanishing like snow after a long rain.

My interest in our heritage comes as Japanese-Americans enter a new era. The passage last year of the redress bill ended the saga of my parents’ generation, which was imprisoned in internment camps during World War II.

Redress led to a searching of the soul, a bid for something more, something deeper. Now that our loyalty to this nation is no longer questioned, where are we headed as Americans of Japanese ancestry? And how can we strengthen our cultural legacy?

A sense of urgency prevails for my young generation. Our grandparents, the pioneering immigrants, have passed away. And many of our retired parents are dying now.

My father, Phillip, my mother, Midori, and 16 relatives spent the war years behind barbed wire at Manzanar and other camps. The internment is a horror I had never fully grasped.

Despite my parents’ wish to keep their ugly memories buried, I explored our family history. My quest led us on a spring pilgrimage to the desolate Manzanar site in the Mojave Desert. As we walked amid the camp ruins, the ghosts were powerful. But I found no neat, easy answers.

I realized I must delve deeper into my family’s history to gain a sense of what awaits me in the future. In my embrace of the past, I began a search for new meaning.

On the crowded train ride to Wakayama, a mountainous region south of Kyoto, my mother gossiped in Japanese with an elderly in-law, Takako, who was escorting us to the distant village where the Iwata family began five generations ago--our origins.

Everyone, everywhere, looks like my parents, or my late grandparents. Except for differences in fashion and body language, the Japanese are reflections of our reflections in the mirror. As the train clattered along, I noticed I’d dropped my guard, the psychological armor that racial minorities wear to ward off the unwelcome scrutiny of their skin color.

Feeling confident, I practiced chatting in Japanese with Akiro Ueno, a friend and language teacher who insisted on working for free as my translator. Frustrated by my poor Japanese, I started jabbering in English. Every head in the train turned like a chorus line to stare at me.

“You look like us,” said Ueno, laughing, “but you speak with this funny accent.”

As our train rumbled out of the city, the crowd of businessmen thinned. We entered the countryside, and laborers and noisy schoolchildren climbed aboard. Grimy houses and factories vanished, replaced by rice fields and eel ponds that glistened in the morning sun.

We passed a train station at Koyaguchi (“Entrance of Koya Mountain”). A sweet, tropical fragrance filled the air. Pine, cedar and bamboo trees draped the green hills. Tiny figures stooped in the rice fields, planting the new season’s crop.

Two hours later, our near-empty train slowed at an old station--WAKAYAMA, a wooden sign announced.

A small knot of people waved at us across the railroad tracks. They smiled and stood close together, as if posing for a first-ever snapshot for their American relatives. We walked shyly toward them.

A short, handsome, gray-haired man grinned broadly and extended his calloused hand to me. He is Masao Iwata, the head of toshu (“who represents the house”) of the Iwata family, my grandfather’s nephew.

“Hello, Masao,” he said, calling me by my Japanese name, which means “righteous boy.” We laughed at the coincidence of our names.

After a round of bows and introductions, we drove through town. Hills flanked the village. A calm river ran parallel to the road. Soon we arrived at the small home of the Noguchis, the family of my grandmother, Tatsue Iwata, who died four years ago.

Our relatives seated us at a low table and served green tea. I rubbed my sore knees, unused to squatting on a tatami mat. Takashi, an in-law who is also a rice farmer, lifted his beer for a toast. “To your coming from the United States,” he said, “for health and good fortune-- kanpai! “

Michiko, who was the closest of our Japanese relatives to my grandmother, described her as “a beautiful person . . . very intelligent.”

Grandma often wrote to her relatives in Japan from Los Angeles and Manzanar. She ended her letters with graceful lines of tanka and haiku poetry, using the kanji characters of a learned man.

Like De Tocqueville, she penned vivid descriptions of hardships in the strange new land. She was a “picture” bride betrothed to my grandfather, an immigrant farmer. She feared her children would lose their Japanese values. And she alluded to her new religion, Christianity.

I told our cousins that Grandma Iwata was introduced to the Methodist Church by a Japanese missionary. One day the zealous missionary, quoting Exodus (“Thou shalt have no other gods before me”), snatched Grandma’s small Buddhist altar from the bedroom dresser and burned it in a field.

Our relatives nodded. Pained looks crossed their faces.

I asked, “Did obasan write why she no longer believed in Buddhism?”

No, not at all, said Michiko, shaking her head. We fell silent.

Our afternoon ended amid a flurry of snapshots. We held up the Noguchi family crest, which was emblazoned on a large cloth banner. I gave Michiko a book of poetry that Grandma Iwata wrote 50 years ago.

She bowed and thanked us profusely, cradling the book to her chest as if it were a precious gem.

Later that day, we drove to Masao’s large home and Japanese-style guest house with gabled roofs. This is the Iwata honke --where our family began. A century ago, my late grandfather, Yasujiro Iwata, was born here, as were his father and grandfather.

The Iwatas had started planting this year’s crop of rice seeds, but a light rain kept us from touring the muddy fields bordering the 200-acre farm--huge by Japanese standards.

My parents rushed indoors. I lingered outside, standing in the country road, breathing the humid air. I tried to grasp this moment, sear it in my memory. I wished I could somehow embrace the quiet thrill as if it were a lover or a Christmas gift.

Tired and dirty, we soaked ourselves in the o-furo , a Japanese bath in the main house. I lay in the hot bath for a long time, listening to the patter of raindrops on the roof. I could die naked and happy in Wakayama.

Masao and his gracious wife, Akiko-san, cooked us a princely meal. Besides the sukiyaki , we gobbled down o-kayu (soft rice cooked in tea), jako (a local fish), gobo (burdock root) and other country-style dishes I haven’t eaten since my grandmothers died.

Later that night in the living room, we pored through pages of the family history. Portraits of Iwata ancestors hung near our heads. One photograph was of a relative who died as a pilot in the Imperial Army during World War II.

Grandfather Iwata was a smart, serious young man. He was among a handful of villagers who wrote in English. Books in hand, he studied daily with Buddhist monks at the old Shingon-shu temple a block away. He was also a natural farmer who had “a good sense of the land,” Masao said. Relatives recalled Grandpa, tall and gaunt, trudging through the rice fields from dawn to dusk.

Wakayama, like much of rural Japan in the 1800s, was struck by poverty. There were always shortages of rice and other crops. As a side business, the Iwata family raised silkworms on their farm and sold raw silk.

Grandpa Iwata was distressed by the poor state of his village. Vowing to return after striking it rich, the wide-eyed young man sailed to the United States in 1898.

Ultimately, my grandfather used his farming knowledge in the dry soil of the San Fernando Valley. Japanese immigrants and white bankers sought his help to start orange orchards.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Grandpa and Grandma were forced to sell their small farm when the military “evacuation” order was issued.

Grandpa Iwata never returned to Japan. And no one recalled him ever writing. But the Wakayama villagers still spoke proudly of him. “Yasujiro was the best farmer in Wakayama,” said Masao, nodding. “We also hear he was the best farmer in Los Angeles.”

Before we left Wakayama the next day, our relatives took us to two cemeteries. We must see the family gravestones before we return to America, Masao insisted.

One cemetery, a Shinto graveyard, was hidden on a hillside in a dark bamboo grove. We hiked along a rice paddy and a muddy trail to reach it. Red-aproned little statues, symbolizing the gods of dead children, guarded the entrance. We poured water over the family headstone to purify it, clapped twice and prayed.

The other cemetery was behind the Buddhist temple where Grandpa Iwata worshiped. Our family tombstone, a large gray slab, sat in the middle of the graveyard. My great-grandfather rests here.

“In our world, he was known as Matsujiro . . .” read the kanji chiseled into the stone.

I told my stoic dad, “Grandpa is here.” He touched the gravestone and nodded without a word. My father never met his grandfather until now.

Hundreds of miles away in Okayama, at another sacred place of worship, we prayed for the souls of my mother’s ancestors. The Kunitomis, I learned, have a proud history spanning three centuries.

We went to the Kannon Shrine, one of the oldest Shinto shrines in Japan. The spirits of ancient emperors watch over the 1,600-year-old hillside site.

“This is where your grandparents’ spirits are at peace,” said our relative, Kusuyuki, a short, impish man and a rice farmer. “I always prayed here for your Grandma when she was in America.”

The Kunitomi family has worshiped at this revered shrine for generations. After Grandma Komika Kunitomi’s funeral six years ago in Los Angeles, half of her ashes, hair and nails were sent here.

In prewar Los Angeles in Little Tokyo, Grandma Kunitomi taught her children to be proud of their name. She also told colorful stories about her girlhood in Okayama, catching fish and crayfish in the creek behind her house. But the tales always circled back to our ancestry.

“You come from a fine family,” she told her kids.

One of our cousins, Kiyoshi, a high school principal, started tracing the family lineage. His decade of detective work led him from local graveyards to government archives to temple and shrine records.

“Our family tree is not forged like many other genealogies,” said Kiyoshi, relaxing at the rice farm of Kinichi Kunitomi, the head of the family on my mother’s side.

Kiyoshi believes 12 of our ancestors fought for Lord Ikeda and Lord Togawa, two barons who ruled feudal Okayama in the 18th Century. Two ancestors were low-ranking officers: Genzaemon helped command soldiers armed with guns, while Chuzaemon led a horse brigade.

For their years of loyalty, the two Kunitomi officers were rewarded with large rice payments and plots of land. One of the lords also gave his faithful retainers a surname--a rare honor in that time. Kunitomi means land of wealth.

“These kinds of stories give us pride,” Kiyoshi said.

At the Kannon Shrine, the names of several Kunitomi ancestors are engraved on the cracked walls. The souls of benefactors and leaders are preserved in this fashion.

Why is it so important to trace the family history? I asked Kiyoshi. Does it really matter, whether we descended from revered warriors or nameless peasants?

Kiyoshi, a stern gruff man, smiled in mild disbelief. “Americans . . . ,” he muttered, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses.

“We learned about the importance of family from Confucius,” he said, as if lecturing one of his students. “It is very important to respect one’s ancestors. It is important to hand down that respect to the next generation.”

Do you expect me to help carry on this legacy? I asked.

“You and your parents are Japanese inside,” said Kiyoshi, cutting the air with his open palms. “It takes time for Japanese who leave Japan to become real Americans. . . . Maybe 100 years or more.”

Kiyoshi’s words echoed in my mind. Did he really believe I am Japanese in my kokoro --my heart and spirit?

His thoughts clashed with my perception of myself. Throughout our journey I’d felt like a schizophrenic creature. The strong-minded American inside was fighting to crack through the Japanese shell of conformity and reserve taught to me by my parents.

During a talk with another cousin, I impatiently pressed him for more detail and color. The Western journalist in me circled like a hawk sighting his prey. My translator, Ueno, finally lost his patience.

“Your blood may be from Japan, but you are still a foreigner,” he snapped at me. “You cannot expect your relatives to do more for you.”

Humbled by my friend, I felt like an outcast. An exile. A fake Japanese like the doctored family histories that tout a samurai ancestry. I wanted to vanish.

Late one night in Okayama, I regained my sense of family and belonging. We were trading stories in Kusuyuki’s small farmhouse.

The man is a born ham, a Japanese Mickey Rooney. He showed us old pictures taken during my grandmother’s trips to Japan on Buddhist pilgrimages. He proudly brought out the family crest that he paid $500 to have framed and gold-plated.

Kusuyuki worried about the fate of the Kunitomi land. He’s getting old. And the younger Kunitomis, who’ve left the farm, don’t want to return. Eventually, he said, “he’ll sell the rice fields to developers.

“It’s a pity,” one old cousin, Masatoshi, had said as he recalled festivals that celebrated the rice crop and the passing of seasons. “Young people do not think about these things anymore. Do young Japanese-Americans think about these things?”

My relatives aren’t romantics yearning for a lost nostalgic past. They’re proud farmers in mourning over the slow death of their rural culture, a culture that is increasingly out of step with Japan’s new role as banker of the world.

Suddenly Kusuyuki stopped chatting and looked sternly at me. “Your parents’ era is ending,” he said. “You must keep coming back to Japan to maintain the tradition.”

I promised him I’d return soon.

A second translator, a young woman named Yoshimi Kai, joined us. At my urging, she read old letters mailed to our relatives by Grandma Kunitomi and my Aunt Choko after they settled in Los Angeles.

“The mountains in America are bare, not green,” wrote Grandma to her family in the village of her birth. “I miss Okayama very much.”

One gloomy letter came from Aunt Choko a few years ago. Grandma Kunitomi had just died of illness and old age at a nursing home in Boyle Heights near East Los Angeles.

“I’m clearing Bachan’s things away and keeping busy,” writes my aunt, who cared for Grandma in her last years. “But when things are quiet, I get very sad.”

My mother listened quietly, her lips trembling. She had never read these letters. Kai, her eyes tearing, asked for tissue. “Your aunt uses the kanji for kareru, which means dying away ,” said Kai. “It is a sad word that gives an image of loneliness and emptiness. She wants to say the Kunitomi family was once very prosperous. And now, years later, that is all fading away.”

In the darkened airliner, my mother and father slept like children. Their chests rose and fell gently to the drone of the jet’s engine. I draped blankets over their laps to fend off the chill.

Throughout our stay in Japan, I saw my mother’s face glow with pride. She used her Japanese in an unashamed manner. For the first time, she felt the grace and power of a language that drew stares of curiosity or racial hatred in America.

I saw my father, bored by retirement and losing his sense of purpose, rediscover his wonder of things. His gait and posture straightened. He spoke often in Japanese, joining conversations with a new vigor. In his sleep he even talks in Japanese.

As for myself? I feel proud, whole, more complete. My family history was not destroyed by the injustice of the internment camps. Our tales, our memories, stretch back generations.

Moreover, I’m thrilled that Japanese kangaekata , or ways of thinking, reflect feelings and values I’ve inherited from my parents and grandparents. Clearly, I’ll never blend fully into the Japanese world with my clumsy American armor, but in small ways, I’m kin to the Japanese.

My hands cup several faded photographs of my ancestors. Clad in kimono and hakama (male skirts), they pose like clay figurines for the camera. Their gazes cross the reigns of emperors to reach an American descendant in the new Heisei Era, Year One.

The jet lurched. I was suddenly hit by an onrush of sorrow. I rubbed my moist eyes and breathed deeply. But I could not fight off the feeling of sadness and loss, nor hold back the sharp pain.

On our last night spent at his home, Kusuyuki had invited me back to Okayama. “Come live with us for a year,” he said. “You will learn everything.” I thought: Not nearly enough.