Are You Aware? Face Value
This is part IV in our Awareness Wednesday series on the Asian American Experience. Read the other posts in the series here.
As we anxiously awaited the birth of our daughter, I found myself, as countless parents before me, wondering about my baby and her future. What would she look like? What would her personality be like? What traits would she gain from us and our families? However, I also spent time thinking about how my baby girl would see and be seen in the world — how would she self-identify in terms of race, and how would others define and perceive her because of her appearance.
In 1941, another first-time mother was preparing for the arrival of her baby boy in California. My Japanese grandmother, Ida Hiraga Watanabe, was having her baby in a foreign land during tumultuous times. I now think about how she must have felt and what she must have thought during this period in her life. She was born in the U.S. while her father was working here, but the family returned to Japan when she was about 5 years old. She was raised and educated in Japan, and she returned to America after her marriage to my grandfather, Hikomune Watanabe. They worked hard on a celery farm in Venice, California, and looked forward to the birth of their first baby.
My uncle, Fumihiko, was born in Los Angeles on December 2, 1941, five days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. My grandmother was still in the maternity home during the attack and as the U.S. Congress entered the war on December 8, 1941. There were restrictions on travel for the Japanese. My grandfather had to transfer from car to car to see his wife and son in the maternity home, and a neighbor had to bring them home.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 by “prescribing regulations for the conduct and control of enemy aliens.” My grandparents and uncle were forced into incarceration centers in April 1942. (Note: Many people use the term internment, but others find this term misleading as they were, in reality, detention, concentration, or prison camps.) The family tried to sell as many of their belongings as they could beforehand, only getting cents on the dollar for their items. Each person could bring two suitcases, and this had to include everything for the baby. Years later, my grandmother still remembers how they bought expensive boots that they never wore because they were told of dangers such as snakes.
Ida, Hikomune, and Fumihiko were first sent to an assembly facility at the San Anita Racetrack, where they stayed in a former horse stall that had been converted into barracks. They were then sent to Manzanar in Central California — near Death Valley. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. The wooden barracks were covered with tar paper and there was a gap at the bottom, allowing sand to blow in. My grandmother could not put the baby down because of the blowing sand.
The War Department and the War Relocation Authority (WRA) created a questionnaire to assess the loyalty of interned Japanese adults in 1943. Informally known as the “loyalty questionnaire,” answers were scored according to a person’s “Americanness” or “Japaneseness.” The two most infamous questions asked if the person would: 1) declare loyalty to the United States of America and 2) renounce allegiance to the Emperor of Japan. After two years at Manzanar, my grandmother, who was an American citizen by birth, answered “no” to both questions. Those who did the same, often referred to by their “no, no” response, were deemed disloyal and sent to the Tule Lake camp near the California-Oregon border.
My grandparents and uncle were incarcerated at Tule Lake until 1946. They decided to remain in the U.S. but opted to move somewhere that would be more accepting of them. They lost everything and had to begin again. It was hard work, and my grandparents had conflicting feelings of hurt, anger, and frustration. I remember my grandmother talking about some of these experiences and saying, “I was treated differently because of my face.”
News and media of all types are bringing to light stories of mothers, children, and families wondering about how they will be treated, judged, and perceived based on their faces. As a mother to a multiracial child in a predominantly white area, this is something I think about often. My father is Japanese American, and my mother is white. My ancestry includes doctors who served the Samurai and Mormon pioneers from Europe who crossed the plains. Growing up, my parents made sure I connected with my Japanese heritage because that is how many would perceive me. I was proud of my heritage, and yet, I still had experiences where I definitely felt othered or discriminated against.
My husband is a Black African man who learned early to navigate a very different reality than mine. He often had fewer resources and had to do much for himself growing up. As parents, we strive to help our daughter understand and embrace our different backgrounds. Our hope is for her to feel confident and supported by ancestors, family, and society — proud to be herself with her lived experiences, dreams, and aspirations. This is the hope I have for all of us — that we can move beyond the “outward appearance” to focus as the Lord does and “looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
Lynne Midori Watanabe Kganetso is an assistant professor in the David O. McKay School of Education at Brigham Young University. She strives to provide young children with meaningful literacy experiences through her teaching and research. A former kindergarten teacher, she holds degrees in early childhood education, teacher education, and educational psychology. Lynne and her husband, Donald, are the proud parents of 3-year-old Maatla who is the joy of their lives! The Kganetso family is committed to a life connecting and advocating for their communities both in the U.S. and in Donald’s native Botswana.
Photo credits:
1. Kganetso Family: Ashley Tebbs Photography.
2. Exclusion Order: National Archives, 196319. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs, 1882-1962.
3. Manzanar National Historic Site by jericl cat is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
4. The so-called “Loyalty Questionnaire” (ddr-densho-72-4). Densho Digital Repository.
5. People leaving Buddhist church, winter, Manzanar Relocation Center, California, by Ansel Adams.
