BOOK INFORMATION Â Â
Title: Why She Left Us
Author: Rahna Reiko Rizzuto
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Price:
$13.00Â Â Â Â Pages: 295
Rating: 9
Original by JACOB LIAO/Daily Bruin Web Adaptation by Hernane
Tabay/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
By Sharon Hori
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The 50th reunion of Amache, an internment camp in Colorado that
housed thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II, became
more than a weekend for former internees to share their camp
experiences.
The 1992 visit became an inspiration for Rahna Reiko Rizzuto to
begin her first novel.
Rizzuto, born to a Japanese mother and a half-Italian/Irish
father, resurrected her fictional novel “Why She Left
Us” after she and her mother returned to Amache. The result
of a year’s worth of research ““ including interviews
with 15 Japanese-Americans and camp stories of former internees
““ “Why She Left Us” is a twisted hybrid of love,
fear, loyalty and abandonment during three generations of Japanese
American ancestry.
Reciting the awkward story of the Okada family could never seem
more natural at the brink of war, when the United States
precariously developed a national disdain toward its Japanese
adversaries. Rizzuto’s novel extracts the turmoil embedded in
war and its effects on family life.
Japanese tradition dominates the Okada family, since
“issei” parents Mitsuo and Kaori ““
first-generation immigrants of Japanese descent ““ were
arranged to be married before they had ever met. The post-Pearl
Harbor incarceration of Japanese Americans at relocation centers
during the early ’40s often united parents with their
children ““ but not for the Okadas.
Emi, who struggles with her family’s disapproval after
secretly conceiving two illegitimate children, becomes the center
of gossip in the community and the center of disgrace for her
relatives. After Emi’s shame is exposed and she tearfully
confesses that she gave her first child, Eric, up for adoption,
Kaori is already on a quest to retrieve him. Legality and
birthright become oil and water, and the blood of family is thicker
than the ink on the adoption papers.
The underlying lesson becomes clear: the pride that flows
through the family’s umbilical cord must be salvaged at any
cost. Yet in attempt to escape the disgrace that Emi has brought,
fleeing seems to be the only solution that will avoid conflict.
Watching the family grow up and grow apart becomes a sad
metamorphosis, almost like watching grass mutate into weeds.
Children crawl into cocoons of self-consciousness and isolation,
only to leave confused about their identities. The readers,
however, will journey through the novel and escape touched but
unharmed, changed but appreciative.
“Why She Left Us” succeeds in its endeavors to
deliver the experience of living during the war as a Japanese
American. The family maintains strict ideals of unconditional love
and loyalty, but the government proposes threats to arrest and
detain Japanese American citizens who oppose their country. The war
becomes a catalyst for the family’s demise. The real
emotional tearing happens when the strained family needs each
others’ support, but ironically the characters choose to
become more distant.
Generations are woven together in a thread of secrets.
“There are secrets that are hard to keep and secrets that are
hard to tell. And, in our family, there are so many because we
never told the truth. It was something we never wanted to do, to
understand what had happened to our lives,” Kaori
recalls.
In revealing the family’s hidden emotions and judgments,
the characters writhe in pride, shame and dishonesty. The story
moves from fictional to historical, from historical to
authentic.
Emi’s secrets are pieced together by the whirlwind of
characters most greatly impacted by her actions ““ her mother,
her brother and her two children. The four narrators help shape the
awkwardness of family life, when unconditional loyalty clashes with
unfortunate disgrace. They add honesty and insight that enhance the
novel’s completeness.
The biographical story remains least understood for Emi’s
daughter, Mariko, who cannot comprehend why her mother has secrets
so private she cannot even reveal the identity of her biological
father. Thus, a weakened Mariko is forced to grow up isolated,
later learning she was born in the internment camp, not knowing she
had a brother.
Rizzuto keeps readers captivated not by reciting the downfall of
the Okada family, but instead by allowing their ongoing conflicts
““ miscommunication, inability to admit failure or mistake
““ to remain unresolved. The story delves into the family
secrets and generation gaps that keeps their relationships
uncomfortably distant, and Rizzuto entices a denouement to bring
closure along with the war.
And it works. Rizzuto’s technique to push the limits of
comfortable living leaves no truth unturned. She weaves empathy
through the pages of her work to clothe the naked truth about a
part of American culture that brewed shame and hatred. The novel
preys hungrily on drama and history, and readers will leave
well-nourished and satisfied.