1965 or 1966

MARIE MUTSUKI MOCKETT

Here is my mom, at around twenty-one, studying opera in Italy. It’s 1965 or ’66. She’s one of very few Japanese girls to have left her country and gone to Europe. See the confidence and style? She learned German, Italian, and French. She will forgo her career and turn her energy to me. She will teach me everything she can about her homeland, about beauty and art, and she will tell me every day, no matter how sick she becomes—and she becomes very sick—to never give up.