December 7, 2010
December 7, 1941
Pearl Harbor, 69 years ago in a little village in Hawaii:
Under the rising sun
The enemy came
Wearing my face.
Immediately after, a new word was added to my childhood
vocabulary:
Eh Jap
It claws my spine
Tearing skin.
It enters my body,
To devour who I am.
what do you do
With Eh Jap
On your face?
Spit it out! Bull’s eye!
Today, I see myself in the photos of children in the news media. The enemy continues to wear the faces of children who will add new words to their vocabulary. We live our double-edged lives. My face is their face and so it will always be. Unlike my grandmother, who could not separate herself from what had become the face of the enemy, I had a choice to make.
My name is either Hideko Frances Kakugawa or Frances Hideko Kakugawa, depending on what document I am holding. My birth certificate carries the name my parents gave me and tells one story. My Social Security card bears the American name first and tells another. Either way, the history of the young girl I would have become is gone. The only face that was left for me to wear was my own.
Portrait
A crayoned flag
Of Red, White, and Blue
Waves from a chopstick
Clutched in my hand.
In the other,
The Emperor’s chrysanthemum
On a rice paper fan
Covering half my face.
from my collection of short stories titled: The Enemy Wore My Face
What an interesting dichotomy between our two posts today. I approached mine from a macro point of view, global, encompassing two nations at war.
Yours delves stright within, focusing on the intensely personal combat you fought by yourself, for your self.
It would seem that Hideko has come to an amicable, even sustaining peace, with Frances.
See JW Nicklaus’ blog post on December 7 at:
http://avomnia.wordpress.com/