Dust of Eden Read Online Free PDF Page A

the right
    thing either. He speaks
    Japanese like a five-year-old;
    I can’t imagine why he wanted
    to go to Japan. Father says that
    it’s unconstitutional to lock
    people up without due
    process ; Nick thinks we need to
    prove ourselves.
    Our school year started,
    and still there’s no library,
    no gym, just the same ol’
    walk, the same ol’ classroom
    with no real desks.
    We have a new teacher, though—
    Miss Straub, not at all like
    Miss Claredon. She sort of
    reminds me of a bird,
    that albatross like the one we used to see
    on the wharf, remember?
    So big but so beautiful in the sky.
    She says that she’s going
    to call us by what we want
    to be called. She didn’t pronounce
    “Masako” like teachers back home,
    but pronounced it like Grandpa,
    each sound weighing the same.
    She said that it was a beautiful
    name; she said that Mina was beautiful.
    She says that
    we have to study hard
    because this isn’t going to
    last long, that we have
    to think of tomorrow.
    She also brought us lots of books,
    she practically started
    a library for us.
    I get the feeling
    that this year is going to be
    different, maybe better
    than last year.
    Your best friend, Mina Masako

October 1943
    Grandpa kneels
    in his garden,
    readying the roses
    for winter.
    He sings quietly,
    a tune without words,
    words lost somewhere
    between Japan
    and here,
    left behind
    in Seattle.

November 1943
    Mina Masako Tagawa
    November 16, 1943
    Miss Straub’s 9th Core
    Civics
    “What It Means to Be an American”
    What it means to be an American is the question I have been asking myself for the past year and half. I am sure that other Americans of Japanese ancestry who have been moved from the West Coast to ten concentration camps in the United States have been asking the same question, too.
    My father was arrested right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was put in prison, and lost a lot of weight during his imprisonment. Even today, we are not sure why he was arrested. But he was also not the only person who was arrested. There were many men like him all over America, Americans just like my father, who were arrested and imprisoned without the proper procedure of law.
    When we were first moved to Camp Harmony in April 1942, we were told to pack only what we could carry. We were given name tags to wear as if we were no longer human, but were luggage, or animals. The government took away our names, our houses, and most importantly, our dignity. We had to live in former stalls where horses used to be; we lived in less than acceptable living conditions. When they moved us again in August 1942 to Minidoka, where we are now, we did not know what would happen to us. There were all kinds of rumors: that we would be shot; that food they served us on the trains would be poisoned.
    It was very hard when we first got here, but things are better now. Everyone helped in building real bathrooms, a swimming pond, irrigations, and now, a beautiful farm full of vegetables and fruits. It is not the same as Seattle, where it rains and where it’s warm and so green. But we are trying to get as close to what we left behind as we can. I am not sure what it means to be an American but I am learning.

November 1943
    Nick comes home
    his eyes shining like
    Basho’s when he comes
    home with a tuft
    of feather
    in his mouth.
    Nick, without saying
    a word, sits down
    next to Father. And he
    looks at his hands
    for a long time,
    like he is thinking,
    like he wants to
    say something
    but words are hiding
    somewhere inside
    of his throat. Then
    he coughs. Dad , Nick
    says, there’s an Army
    unit for boys like me,
    the U.S. Army created
    a unit just for Japanese
    boys so that we can fight
    the Nazis and fascists
    and maybe the Japanese.
    Dad, I’m going
    to volunteer as soon
    as I turn eighteen
    in January.
    Father stops
    polishing his shoes.
    Mother stops
    mending a pant leg.
    Father looks slowly
    at Nick.
    Nick looks down
    at his hand again.
    Nick, if you ever