iffageek falls

(**Posted in haste, this morning. Aplogies for any errors.)

I

Fifty and some-odd years ago, it was,
when my grandparents –
three of them younger than my own twenty-four years –
Had to choose the parts of their lives
important enough (and small enough)
to fit in a single suitcase.

It was going to be almost three years,
but who could have known that at the time?
How do you pack for a trip like that?
Their homes, their livelihoods, everything,
taken away with a single, swift stroke
of a presidential pen.

And though it may be their right,
(or at least it would be understandable)
they are not bitter, or angry –
At least not that they have let us see.
Perhaps a little sad –
regretting a family interrupted, a lifestyle uprooted;
but even that was not shared with us until
we could understand the difference.
There was no subtle indoctrination of resentment,
no protests against what was done to those
holding congenital citizenship,
all in the name of safety, and security.





II

I didn't really know anything unusual happened
until we studied it in grade school. First, it was an
autobiography I had to write, when a gap in
residency had to be explained. I had dates,
and the names Tule Lake and Minidoka;
That was all.

Then, a year or two later, a book,
about a girl named Jeanne, and a place called
Manzanar, raised more questions.
The discussions about the book, and the
outraged protests against injustice
that my classmates put forward
filled me with a similar outrage
on behalf of the people I loved.
So I went to them, asking to hear
the truth about what had happened. I heard
about belongings now cherished only in memory.
I heard about intramural sports events and
races and wrestling matches, barefoot in the dust.
I heard touching stories, and funny ones,
I had a few more dates, a few more names.
That was all.

Seven years later, if I listened long enough,
I heard some of the sadness as they discussed things with friends:
Hard work for little or no pay.
Too many people crammed into tiny spaces.
People who never saw freedom, people dying unnecessarily.
(I remember that people were never killed, they merely died.)
But even then, the stories would quickly turn
to other things: small moments of pride,
first meetings, exploits of friends.
If I tried to ask questions, most of the time
I would be diverted by stories of graduations,
by family anecdotes of people I knew as
grandparents, acting like the young people
they were then. Every once in a while, I might get
a few more dates, a few more names.
But that was all.

Now, when I visit home, if I listen long enough
to the stories and the memories that come out once in a while,
I can hear empty spaces where anger might once have been.
The anger of the young people they were
never really allowed to be, but only because I know them,
and only because they permit me to.
But the anger that might once have been is gone, and in its place,
acceptance, and maybe a little sadness, and touchingly funny stories.
And that is all.

And so, instead of anger, and resentment, and outrage,
I learned honor, and pride, and courage --
things better shown by example, not taught by words.
And once in a while, when I read a new book,
or hear a new statistic, I feel a bit of outrage,
but that is my conclusion, not somebody else's.
If my grandparents have taught me anything,
it is a desire to succeed, to quietly prove my worth
and my strength to myself.
And that is all.




mm
07/23/00