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TraumasKen Ikeda
Otsuma Women's University
Email <ikedak@otsuma.ac.jp>

I DVNVWXGHQWVZKRHQWHUP\VHPLQDURQ$VLDQV·(QJOLVKODQJXDJHLGHQWLWLHVWRWHOO about themselves on a
Google Form I have prepared, and also write their English language histories. Language learning histories
serve as not only recounts by learners but also as potential for learners and teachers to constructknowledge together (Mercer 2013). My interest in having students recount their personal history withEnglish language learning comes not so much from a pedagogical approach but more with my nascentinterest in history. In a recent conversation with one student, I was surprised to learn that she was born in
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them? I think these omissions go beyond a lack of vocabulary. As I ponder, I wonder if a similar sort of
thinking might have been at work, when I think about experiences of my father, a Japaneseimmigrant to the United States. I have regarded his life as one extended struggle to be recognized asa person with legitimate status and voice, one which connects his identity in relation to time andlocation and volition. I must admit that I have no particular theory in mind as I write this, but I wish
to situate his experiences which at times intertwined with mine to leave residues that I liken to
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What official documentation there was with my father did not capture who he really was. His
QDPHRQKLV$PHULFDQSDVVSRUWZDV´0LNH,NHGDµEXWWKDWZDVQRWKLVRULJLQDOQDPH+LVRFFXSDWLRQZDVZULWWHQRQWD[IRUPVDV´JDUGHQHUµEXWKHPDGHKLVOLYLQJQRWUDLVLQJSODQWVEXWPRZLQJODZQVWhen I requestHGIURPP\IDWKHU·VKRPHWRZQYLOODJHRIILFHLQ-DSDQWKHkoseki touhon ( ᡞ⡠ㅞᮏ )ZKLFKLVDGRFXPHQWWKDWOLVWVGHWDLOVRIIDPLO\PHPEHUV·ELUWKVGHDWKVDQGPDULWDOVWDWXVHV 1HODQ2017) in order to verify my Japanese ancestry, it revealed his citizenship was still Japanese (his namewas not crossed out). This showed my father had never informed the local authorities that he had
become a naturalized United States citizen.
Initially, I knew my father Shizuo was born in Takagi Village in the southern part of Nagano
Prefecture in 1927 and from the age of four his family moved to the Japanese-occupied area innortheastern China known as Manchukuo (Manchuria). His mother died there, and his junior highschool days ended when he was drafted into the Japanese army during World War 2. After the war,
his family was able to flee back to Japan, but he was left behind in a Soviet war camp, from which
later he broke out and made it to Japan before immigrating to the United States. He had a fondness
for WW2 movies, The Great Escape being one of them. For many years, we had no idea why, otherthan the actor Steve McQueen looked cool on a motorcycle. When we asked dad about his WW2

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watched Daichi no Ko (኱ᆅࡢᏊ) which was a TV mini-series originally broadcasted on NHK (1995), about aJapanese boy left behind in China, did my father start to open up on his past.
His Japanese army unit was captured en masse by the Soviets on the last day of the war. The campwhere he was incarcerated was designed to starve everyone to death. He told me that he and otherinmates would fight for scraps of food. He fled in an organized escape but the prisoners found few places
to hide. He said that they sought refuge in a swamp, but the Russian soldiers bayoneted each victim andkilled on the spot those who screamed. He was stabbed in the thigh but kept silent and motionless. His
nails bore the marks of frostbite. During his period as a fugitive, he joined the Chinese Red Army which was
engaged in a civil war with the Nationalists and left after a battle to board a ship destined for Japan.
7KDW·VZKDWKHWROGPH0\ZLIHWROGPHWKDWKHZHQWGRZQWKH.RUHDQSHQLQVXOD 7KHIDPLO\registry kept at the municipal office where my father was born showed he had an older brother and an
older sister, but to others he told he had others in his family, one who died in infancy, and another who
was killed in the South Pacific. Why did my father change his story to suit his listeners? Why did he not try
to rectify his facts? I suspect it may be because his wife, my mother, failed to show much interest. When I
and my wife arranged a trip for my father in his last years to visit his childhood haunts in Manchuria, hetold me she never wanted to visit there. Perhaps she sensed that asking about it would bring out his
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making him relive such memories.
According to my brother, our father spent seven years in Hashima City in Gifu Prefecture where hisfamily had relocated. One day, he spotted in a newspaper that Japanese who had been in war-torn areas
were eligible to immigrate to the United States. His account matches the conditions for young malerefugees known as nanmin seinen (㞴Ẹ㟷ᖺ) (Minamikawa p. 34) who repatriated from Manchuria andKorea and could be accepted under the conditions set by the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 signed into action
by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Thanks to documentation provided by his father who had training as anotary, he was able to enter the United States through Angel Island in San Francisco. He spent several
seasons in the San Joaquin Valley picking strawberries and being a short order cook in the offseason. Thenhe was taken to Los Angeles by a Japanese Christian evangelist, where he met my mother who came from anearby village in Nagano Prefecture as a picture bride in a marriage agreement. Despite a near ten-year
gap in ages between them, my mother was deemed the most suitable one for my father because of her
prowess in English, it being her favorite subject in high school.
My father coming to America seemed overly anxious that his name would be too difficult for theimmigration officers to understand when he arrived there, which explains why his original passport read as´0LNH,NHGDµ2QO\ODWHUZKHQKHUHFHLYHGKLVQDWXUDOL]DWLRQSDSHUVGLGKHLQFOXGHDPLGGOHLQLWLDO6WR
stand for his Japanese name. I met a man with the same surname whose name was Michael and he asked if
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simple tastes befitting a blue-collar man, one who seemed interested only in beef, beer, action movies,
and local sports teams.
The defining moment between my parents and I was when I was seven years old (Ikeda and Shiba
2020:37). My elementary school teacKHUEHFDPHFRQFHUQHGWKDW,ZDVPL[LQJP\(QJOLVKZLWKP\SDUHQWV·
language too much. She held a parent-teacher conference and told them that I was in danger of failing thesecond-grade (this is what my mother told me). The teacher ordered them to stop speaking the heritage
language at home so that I could concentrate on English. My language conundrum was solved in a matter oftime. But the damage was done.
I quickly lost my ability to speak in the Japanese language, a shocking development which persuaded
my parents to enroll me in a Japanese-language school on Saturday mornings. Besides that I was no longerⷵ剡劔ኤኀ኶ዊኴኾዐእ䪣䴅捷↩ <http://ld-sig.org>

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able to watch the cartoons that were on TV at the time, I viewed my schooling as largely futile
EHFDXVH,GLGQ·WEHFRPHIOXHQWLQWKHODQJXDJHXQWLO,Fame to Japan. Another fallout from thatparent-teacher conference was that my conversations with my parents were halved, to those only
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to use their native language again. My father stopped speaking to me altogether. The possible
UDWLRQDOHIRUWKHGUDVWLFGHFLVLRQP\SDUHQWVPDGHFDQEHVXPPHGXSLQRQHSKUDVH´kodomo notameµ ´IRUWKHFKLOGUHQµ 7KHVLOHQFHEHWZHHQP\IDWKHUDQG,GHHSHQHGRYHUWKH\HDUV I jokedwith my classmates that my father Shizuo lived up to his name as a quiet person. One friend I invited
to my home saw my dad mowing our front lawn and asked me if it was worthwhile to greet him. I
must have said no. But my father did not forgive the slight. He told me I could never bring that friend
to our place again.
If my father and I talked, our utterances to each other were likely monosyllabic. One episodethat lingers was when natto was served at my family meals. I resisted eating it because of its smell
and texture. My father finally could take no more of my resistance and pointed at me, exclaiming,´2KP\VRQµ,ZDVVFDUHGDWKLVRXWEXUVWDQGEHJDQHDWLQJLW:KHQ,VWDUWHGWHDFKLQJLQ-DSDQ,
recounted this episode to teachers of English humorously. But one of them asked me how was it
SRVVLEOHWKDWP\IDWKHUNQHZKRZWRFKDQJHWKHH[FODPDWLRQIURP´2KP\JRGµLIKHGLGQRWKDYHDIDFLOLW\ZLWKWKH(QJOLVKODQJXDJH,UHDOL]HG,KDGPLVKHDUGP\IDWKHU/LNHO\KHKDGVDLG´OmaesanµZKLFKJRHVEH\RQGVLPSO\´<RXµWRLQFOXGHDVHQVHRIIUXVWUDWLRQOnly after my mother passed away did my wife persuade me to talk to my dad. I initiallyresisted, saying he should take the first step and that my Japanese language/Nihongo was too bad for
him to understand. But she insisted I do so because he looked so lonely. I guess he and I stomachedour hesitations and the ensuing talks we had made up for all the years of silence. My dad would tellme that I reminded him so much of his wife, my mother. But the tragedy remains that my mom neverheard these conversations during her lifetime.
My father was a man of his generation and no doubt his near-death experiences shaped how heregarded life. He was a survivor and pragmatic; possessions mattered almost nothing to him. An
episode illustrates his attitude. After it was decided that my father would move out of our family
home and live with my brother, he asked me to put my most cherished stuff in a box that I would
take back to Japan. But while I was out with friends, he threw the box in a dumpster. When I foundout what he had done, he then asked me if I wanted to keep my remaining belongings. I think Marie.RQGR·VPHWKRGVRINHHSLQJZKDWLVFKHULVKHGZRXOGEHQRFRPSDULVRQWRKLVDSSURDFK$QRWKHU
episode was whHQ,VWD\HGDWP\JUDQGPRWKHU·VP\DXQWVKRZHGPHDSKRWRRIP\GDGZKHQKHZDV
four years old. I was excited, because I had never seen any featuring him as a child. When I told mydad, he asked me to do him a favor: steal the photo and bring it back to him. I was shocked andasked where he would keep it. No, he would burn it. Needless to say, I did not oblige him.
,QKLVODVW\HDUVKHZDVREVHVVHGZLWKUHQHZLQJKLVGULYHU·VOLFHQVH%XWWKHFLW\ZKHUHKHOLYHG
GLGQ·WKDYHD-DSDQHVHYHUVLRQ%HFDXVHKHFRXOGQ·WUHDG(QJOLVKZHOOHQRXJKKHZDVFRQVWDQWO\failing the paper test. He told me that one test examiner remembered him coming often to the
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form with the answers marked on it and told to remember them. After some time, he was given a
WHVWDQGLWZDVWKHVDPHRQH:HFDQ·WLPDJLQHWKDWWKLVFDQKDSSHQLQRXUVRFLHW\EXWWKLVPD\demonstrate that where there is a way, compassion can happen.
I noted how my father kept in his room a healthy interest in prewar Manchuria shown incountless videotapes and books. I suggested the idea of going there, which he quickly waved away
given his age (over eighty years old) and failing health. But I persisted, and in August 2010, my
brother arranged to take my father to Japan, where I and my wife escorted him to where he had

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he became, casting aside his cane and strolling around the premises with confidence. His eyes lit up as herecounted his surroundings and we rode a train that he said was on the same route as in the 1930s.
Afterwards, I asked him what he would remember the most, and he said, it was the evening sun there.
True to his survivalist urges, upon his return to his room back in the U.S., he discarded all of his
memorabilia. When I met him again, he pointed to his head, saying everything he needed to remember wasin there.
,QP\IDWKHU·VODVW\HDUVKH often wondered aloud if his life had been worthwhile. I and my siblings
would always tell him that he had raised three robust children who carry on his legacy.
Besides the fact that I am glad to have written these reflections about my father, I feel I have cometo entertain a more open perspective as to why students may not reveal all that is expected. I should wait
for their revelations in their own time. Hopefully others will be inspired to share their recollections of theirparents or loved ones who might have struggled with expressing themselves in an acquired language. I close
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May we regard and treat others around us with consideration in our teaching.
Special Thanks
I express my great thanks to my siblings for refreshing my memories.
References,NHGD. 6KLED6  $QDUUDWLYHLQTXLU\LQWRODQJXDJHDFFHQWWUDXPDLQD0DVWHU·VWKHVLVsupervision relationship. In S. Little & M. Golledge (Eds.), The Learner Development Journal Issue 4:
Exploring the Supervision Process Across Diverse Contexts: Collaborative Approaches (pp. 32-46). Tokyo:
The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) Learner Development Special Interest Group.
Kawamura, M. (Producer) (1995). Daichi no Ko [኱ᆅࡢᏊ]. NHK.
Mercer, S. (2013). Working with language learner histories from three perspectives: Teachers, learners andresearchers. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 3(2): 161-185. DOI
10.14746/ssllt.2013.3.2.2
Minamikawa, F. (2018). Refugees in Japanese America: Immigration, gender, and wartime memories during
the 1950s. Ritsumeikan Gengo Bunka Kenkyu 29(2): 29-44. http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/re/krsc/lcs/kiyou/pdf_29-2/lcs_29_2_minamikawa.pdf
Nelan, T. (2017). Family register: Koseki tohon translation. Japanology Translation.
https://www.japanologytranslation.co.uk/post/family-register-koseki-tohontranslation#:~:text=The%20Koseki%20Tohon%20is%20a,member%20of%20the%20family%20only.
2QGHUNR.  ´7UDXPDGHILQHGµ8Q\WH https://integratedlistening.com/what-istrauma/#:~:text=Trauma%20is%20the%20response%20to,range%20of%20emotions%20and%20experiencesⷵ剡劔ኤኀ኶ዊኴኾዐእ䪣䴅捷↩ <http://ld-sig.org>

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