A view of the Alien Reception Center in Manzanar, nestled in Owens Valley. Manzanar opened as a Japanese relocation center in 1942.

I grew up knowing I was half Japanese. But it was always more of a quiet detail in my otherwise American identity. 

I celebrated my Japanese heritage in small ways, like eating kuromame, a sweet soybean on New Year’s Day to ensure good health in the coming year. I occasionally attended services at a Buddhist church. But that was about it. My Japanese grandparents, born in California in the 1930s, were proud Americans who had lived what many would consider the American Dream.

It wasn’t until middle school that I learned about Japanese internment in a history unit. Then through questioning my grandparents, I learned that they both had spent more than three years behind barbed wire, imprisoned as U.S. citizens. The lack of prior explanation of their experience shocked me.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

When Executive Order 9066 forced over 110,000 Japanese Americans into incarceration camps in 1942, my great-grandparents lost everything. They had spent their lives building a photography business in Sacramento, and the internment immediately stripped their business away. When they were released, they received just $20 and a bus ticket. Their livelihood was gone. My grandparents grew up poor after the war in Berkeley, facing what they described as their biggest obstacle, Americans mistrusting of them.

So they adapted.........

© San Francisco Chronicle