December 7, 1950
Somewhere outside of Mojave, James is lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the highway, and I follow close behind him.
I awaken when the car begins churning gravel under its tires. I blink, momentarily blinded by the glare of the afternoon sun on the snow.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”
From the driver’s seat, Taichi smiles at me.
I push myself upright. “How long did I sleep?” I can tell from how groggy I am, it was no catnap.
“Over an hour. James is still out.”
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have slept that long.”
He gives me a long look. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. I’m dragging you and James all the way out here—”
“You know I wanted to come too.”
“Well.” Taichi turns and looks out the rental car window. “We are here.”
Now that my eyes have adjusted, I realize there isn’t much to see. Where are all the buildings?
“You’re sure this is it?”
“I drove by it once and had to turn around, but look.” Taichi points.
Now I see the sign. MANZANAR WAR RELOCATION CENTER. Beyond it, the rickety remains of a guard stand. The fence is still there too, just none of the ugly barracks that I remember from my one and only visit to this place.
A gust of wind rocks the car and sends several tumbleweeds careening past. We both turn and look at James, who sleeps undisturbed across the back seat of the car.
Taichi reaches over and rests a hand on my round stomach. “It’s hard to believe that this time next year, there will be two kids back there.”
I settle my hand on top of his, and for a few minutes we just sit there. Staying in our mostly-happy present instead of slipping into the heartache of years gone by. Taichi lingers a suspiciously long time. He’s stalling.
“Do you think the car can handle the old road?” I ask. “We could drive it while James sleeps.”
Taichi holds my gaze, and the look on his face is reminiscent of when we were seventeen. Shame mixed with fear.
And just like when we were seventeen, there’s only so much I can do to alleviate what he’s feeling. I squeeze his hands. “It will be fine.”
His mouth quirks. “Normally that’s my line.”
But with his jaw set, Taichi shifts into drive, and the car eases forward and through the dilapidated gates of Manzanar.
When we knew we would be in California to visit family and friends, Taichi had written to his friend from camp, Ted, to ask if he’d ever gone back to Manzanar. Ted said he hadn’t, but heard there wasn’t much there anymore. Veterans from the war had lived in the former staff housing for some time, but otherwise all that remained was the cemetery, the orchard, and the high school, which had been built after Taichi’s time. After the war ended and the camps emptied, the government had sold whatever they could.
“Maybe it’s senseless,” Taichi had said to me, pacing the small kitchen of our near North side home in Chicago. “But I just want to see it again. I want to choose to go there, and I want to choose to leave.”
“Then let’s go,” I had said. “We will make it work.”
That had sounded fine in Chicago, but now as pain etches Taichi’s face, I wonder if I should have talked him out of it. Maybe in a few years . . . what? When will the pain of the evacuation ever not feel fresh and raw? Seeing Manzanar again for the first time never would have been easy.
We tacked the trip onto our visits in southern California. First we’d stayed with Tony, Mary, and their kids, and then Diego and his wife, who just welcomed baby number three. As our James and their oldest played tag in the yard, Diego had winked at me. “Didn’t I tell you we would get here someday?”
Something about it made my eyes go misty, a mix of sadness and gratitude that he and Taichi had both come back from war safe and whole. Diego still struggles with blue periods, understandable after his three weeks in a POW camp before a prisoner exchange. But his wife, a sweet former war nurse, said Diego’s sad times seemed less severe than they once did.
From here, we’ll head to San Francisco to visit Mama and Daddy. I will also get to meet Gia’s new husband and baby, which I’m looking forward to. She mourned Lorenzo and his death so bitterly that for a time her parents had raised Lorenzo Junior, but Gia’s strength and stubbornness finally served her well when she determined to break free of her grief. A year ago, she married a bookstore manager, who my mother says looks at Gia as though she hung the moon. They welcomed their first child just before Thanksgiving.
And I’ll have a whole week to soak up time at home with Mama and Daddy. Plus they’ll come to Chicago in a few months when the baby is born. Five years ago, when we told them we intended to settle in Chicago where Taichi’s family had all found jobs after the war, I thought they might be mad. Good lawyer that I was, I had armed myself with all the arguments about how Taichi had job opportunities in Chicago, and we didn’t face the prejudice in the Midwest that we did in California.
Instead, Mama had laughed about me somehow finding my way back to my roots. “Maybe you will be able to argue some of my nephews out of jail.”
No matter how many times I explain that civil rights attorneys don’t handle criminal cases like that, they never seem to understand. But they do always seem very proud.
Taichi points out the window, drawing me back to the present. “We played baseball over there. You’d never know it now.”
The car bumps violently over the neglected road, and James sits up, rubbing his eyes. “Time to get up?”
“Perfect timing, buddy,” Taichi says over his shoulder. “We’re getting out of the car.”
He stops at a tall, white obelisk with Japanese writing. The stone looks as though it’s a monument of some kind.
“What does it say?” I ask as Taichi rummages in the back for our coats.
“This wasn’t here when I was.” Taichi studies it a moment as I put on my coat. “I think it says soul consoling tower.”
Together we get out of the car, a gust of wind assaulting us and drawing tears to my eyes. How in heaven’s name did all those residents endure the wind whipping through the gaps of their homes? James buries his head against my shoulder as I follow Taichi out to the cemetery.
Though he never said this was why we came, I’m not at all surprised that this is where he drove to first, and that he walks along the stones until he finds the one for James Kanito. Taichi tucks his hands deep into the pockets of his wool coat. I lean against him, silent.
Not until we married did I realize how haunted Taichi had been by the death of James Kanito. On our honeymoon, he asked me if we were to have a boy, could we please name him James? Even after everything Taichi experienced while away at war with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, when he had nightmares it was always James’s name that I heard.
“Nineteen.” Taichi speaks the word as though it tastes bitter. “A senseless waste.”
The wind stops, and James squirms to get down. He wanders aimlessly near us, singing a convoluted version of the ABCs.
Taichi fits an arm around my shoulders. “How will we ever explain this place to him?”
I watch James pick up a rock, his silky black hair slipping forward. I wish I could freeze him at this age. When he doesn’t know racism or hate. When he doesn’t notice what an oddity he is, half-Japanese and half-Italian.
“We’ll find a way,” I say as I lean into him. “We always do.”