NISEI

This is a book of light and shadows, of black letters and the white space between them. "Nisei", in Japanese, means "second generation." The term usually refers to Japanese Americans born of immigrant parents. As I came to know Natsu, a Japanese American woman, I realized that I, a Jewish-American woman, born of immigrant parents who had escaped the Holocaust and pogroms of Europe, was also a Nisei. Even the authentic cadence and rhythm of the way I speak and write is infused with the flavor of my heritage. Natsu and I came from different cultures, but we were born and raised in the embrace of America. Our parents spoke different languages, and part of our lives were spent masking our differences so we could be accepted into the mainstream of American society. Because of our early experiences, such as Natsu's four years spent in Japan and her forced evacuation from the coast of California during World War II as a result of being Japanese, and my early experiences with grandparents, parents and friends steeped in our rich, Jewish heritage, ss well as years of persecution, we retained our authenticity. I spoke Yiddish before I spoke English. Natsu never stopped seeing the beauty of color and texture in manifestations of nature, a product of her Japanese esthetic. There are many other ways Nisei are similar. Through our friendship, our poetry, dance and music, we forged a bond, and embarked on a spiritual journey to better understand ourselves, Nisei, and the world in which we found ourselves. I ended up embracing the way of life of an orthodox Jew. Nisei embraced the artist that always lived inside her. These poems, musings, and shikishis (copies of our original Japanese picture poems) are creative children of our journey. After 10/7/23, a pivotal moment in Jewish history, when Hamas, an extreme Islamic group, barbarically murdered, beheaded, raped and tortured 1200 mostly Jewish men, women, children and babies because they were Jews, while much of the world blamed the victim, I found myself reflecting on another convergence of the Jewish and Japanese experience. During World War II, President Roosevelt and his administration viewed Jewish and Japanese Americans, even if they were good citizens, as racially incapable of being absorbed into the mainstream culture. Because they were perceived as enemies, Japanese Americans were forced to evacuate from the West Coast, leaving behind their livelihoods and homes. They were herded into internment camps, and later resettled in small groups throughout the country. European Jews, desperately trying to escape the Holocaust, and enter the United States, were subject to horrendous bureaucratic challenges as well as quotas, resulting in the murder of millions by the Nazis. Yet, both Jews and Japanese kept believing in the American dream. Natsu said she doesn't consider herself spiritual, so I asked her, "What do you define as spiritual?" She could not come up with a quick definition. So, as usual, I put words in her mouth. "Do you mean you don't follow ritual?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "I have never found I needed it. On Sunday mornings, my husband Ikuo and I would go to a beautiful place to play tennis. Nature was all around us, trees and flowers. We were so happy in this place, we said, 'This is our church'. It was a reverence we felt for everything living."