e Wakatsuki Houston Notable Asi

in the field of education in 1989.

" by San FTI D Nikkei in Edu-

Hongo has written for numerous publications, includ-ing the history chapter in Strength and Diversity: A StudyGuide for Elementary Schools on Japanese American Women(1990) and "Shattering Myths: Japanese American Educa-tional Issues" in The Education of Asian and Pacific Ameri-cans, published in 1982. She was general editor of JapaneseAmerican Journey: Tlie Story of a People, published by JACP in1985.

JACP, which changed its name to Asian American Cur-riculum Project or AACP in 1994, continues to be the vehi-cle through which Hongo teaches. "I can always callFlorence when I need a resource or a book," said CarolHayashino, associate director of the Japanese AmericanCitizens League. "If we are to appreciate edinic and cul-tural diversity in America, we need people like Florence.She and her organization will ensure that the Americanpublic understands the history of Asian Pacific Americans."

Hongo, Florence, telephone intervieMay 1994.

Japanese American Curriculum Project. "FlorenceHongo." Biographical materials and press releases.

—Sketch by Steven A. Chin.

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston(1934-)

Writer

One day in 1971, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's nephewcame to visit. He was taking a sociology course at the Uni-versity of California at Berkeley and wanted to know moreabout the concentration camps that had incarceratedapproximately 120,000 Americans of Japanese descentduring World War II. The nephew, who'had been born inone of the camps, Manzanar, asked to know more aboutthe family's experiences. "Whenever my family gottogether and we happened to talk about, camp, we wouldjoke about the lousy food, the dust storms or the commu-nal showers, or we talked lightheartedly about recreationalactivities. I reiterated the same stories to my nephew in thesame superficial way," Houston recalled in an autobio-graphical essay she wrote in 1992 for Contemporary AuthorsAutobiographical Series, The nephew wanted more answers."'Aunty, you're telling me all these bizarre things. I mean,how did you feel about being locked up like that?"1 he

prodded. Houston was stunned. "He asked me a questionno one had ever asked before, a question I had neverdared ask myself. Feel? How did I feel? For the first time Idropped the protective cover of humor and nonchalance.I allowed myself to 'feel.' I began to cry. I couldn't stop cry-ing," Houston wrote in her essay.

Houston realized that the camp experiences were toodifficult and too painful for her to talk about. "[PJerhaps Icould write a memoir, a history—just for the family,"Houston considered. That history became Farewell toManzanar, a haunting recollection of the Wakatsuki fam-ily's memories of three-and a half years of unjustifiedimprisonment. Co-written with her husband, James D.Houston, who is also a writer, Farewell to Manzanar was abreakthrough accomplishment. For the first time sincethe actual event, the Houstons1 book gave voice not onlyto the Wakatsuki family, but to the thousands of JapaneseAmericans who had silently endured similar experiences.In the more than two decades since its publishing, Farewellto Manzanar remains an invaluable contribution to theannals of American history.

An Ail-American Family

Bom on September 26, 1934, in Inglewood, California,Houston was the last of ten children born to Ko and RikuWakatsuki. At the time, Ko was a farmer on the outskirts ofLos Angeles. When Houston was two years old, he turnedto commercial fishing and moved the family to OceanPark, a predominantly Caucasian, small coastal commu-nity whose main attraction was an amusement pier. Hous-ton fondly recalled in her essay, "The pier was my nurseryschool, the amusement attendants my sitter. The neigh-borhood kids and I spent most of our days there."

On December 7, 1941, when Japanese planes bombedPearl Harbor, Houston was just seven years old. Thatnight, her father burned the flag he had brought fromHiroshima, Japan, thirty-five years earlier. He burnedpapers and documents and anything else that might sug-gest a connection with Japan. His precautions proved tobe in vain. Two weeks later, he was picked up by the FBIand arrested under false charges that he had delivered oil

tody and shipped to an unknown location. The familywould not see him again for almost a year.

With the family's patriarch gone, Riku Wakatsukimoved the family out of the racially isolated Ocean Parkto Terminal Island, a nearby island fishing communityfilled with Japanese Americans. "[T]he island was a coun-try' as foreign as India or Arabia would have been," Hous-ton wrote in Farewell to Manzanar. "It was the first time Ihad lived among other Japanese, or gone to school withthem, and I was terrified all the time." In February of1942, the U.S. Navy decided that having so many Japa-nese, even those who were American-born, living so closeto the Long Beach Naval Station was dangerous and theisland was cleared completely. Forced to move again, the

Notable Asian Am Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

nily went briefly to Boyle Heights, another minorityghetto in downtown Los Angeles. They did not stay long.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Rooseveltsigned Executive Order 9066, which called for the incar-ceration of 110,000 Americans of Japanese descent tosome thirty concentration camps throughout the West. ByApril, the family was again forced to move. After selling orabandoning their possessions, the Wakatsukis were piledinto a bus heading east. Their new "home" for three and ahalf years was Manzanar, a barbed-wire, fenced-in, bar-racks-filled compound in a scorching, fiercely dusty desertsomewhere between Los Angeles and Reno, Nevada.Approximately 10,000 Japanese Americans were impris-oned there during World War II.

Houston's first experience with books occurred in thebeginning months at Manzanar. In an open area betweenbarracks was a two-story high mountain of books that hadbeen donated by charities for a camp library that had yetto be built. At first the children used the mountainous pileas their playground, sliding ;md scrambling over the scat-tered books. Walking by the pile one day, Houston passedan opened book whose pages were fluttering in the wind.The story of long-haired Rapunzel came to life in gilded

ton. That afternoon, she read every story in Hans ChristianAndersen's Fairy Tales. She returned to the mountain againand again, always in search of a new literary adventure."Books became my major form of recreation, my channel

to worlds outside the confined and monotonous routine ofcamp life," Houston wrote in her autobiographical essay.

A New Life

At the end of the war, the family was relocated to thehousing project Cabrillo Homes in Long Beach, just a fewmiles from Terminal Island. "What a different world!"recalled Houston in her essay. "From a racially homoge-nous one-mile square community, I entered a multi-racialand cultural matrix, a ghetto where our only commondenominator was poverty. It was my first experience living

In seventh grade, Houston first considered the idea ofbecoming a writer. She won a place in the school's newjournalism project on the strength of an essay she wroteabout one of her happiest memories from before thewar—hunting grunion fish with her family on full-moonnights and the beach barbecue that followed. Houstonsoon became the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper."[T]his experience in junior high school was one of thecrucial events in my life. That I could write was clearly pro-grammed in my mind by a wise teacher who knew aboutvalidating youngsters, about directing them to highergoals—even when circumstances did not seem to supportit. In the late '40s, with the Second World War barely over,who would encourage a young Japanese American girl liv-ing in a ghetto to work toward becoming a writer? Only anidealistic, fair-minded person. I was lucky enough to havemet such a person in junior high school, my Englishteacher," recalled Houston in her essay.

Throughout high school, Houston continued to writefor the newspaper. During the summer before her senioryear, in 1952, the Wakatsuki family moved again, this timeto San Jose where Ko tried one last time to make a living at

State University, where she majored in journalism duringher first two years, and dreamed of being an Asian BrcndaStarr, a comic strip character who was a glamourous news-paper reporter. Discouraged by the department adviserfrom completing her degree in journalism due to the lackof opportunities for women journalists—especially the

the field—Houston changed her major to sociology andsocial welfare. After graduating from college, Houstontook a job at Hillcrcst Juvenile Hall, a detention hall inNorthern California where she worked as a group counse-lor, supervising teenage girls brought in for violating pro-bation, running away from home, and sometimes more

On Valentine's Day 1957, the year after graduation,Houston received a card from fellow journalism student,James D. Houston, whom she had dated through college.Inscribed in the card was a marriage proposal. Within amonth, the (wo were married on the beach during a par-

ing at the time.

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Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

Almost immediately after che honeymoon, the new cou-ple moved to England, where Jim was stationed with theU.S. Air Force in fulfillment of his ROTC responsibilities.While living amidst the East Anglian fog, Houston devel-oped an especially close relationship with a photographer,Bertl Gaye, who had fled Austria in the 1930s and whosefamily had been killed in Hitler's death camps. A staunchbeliever in peace, Gaye proved to be a beacon of toler-ance from whom Houston drew great knowledge andlearning. Houston wrote years later in her autobiographi-cal essay: "I now see my time with Bertl taught me to be anactivist of another kind. I, too, believe in peace and abhornuclear weaponry. But Bertl's greatest lesson for me was

France, the Houstons returned to California in 1961. Theylived in Palo Alto while Jim attended graduate school atStanford University and moved to Santa Cruz soon there-after, where they continue to live today.

A Writer at Last

With three children, being a wife and mother became afull-time job for Houston. It wasn't until years later thatshe would remember her initial life goal, to become awriter. Being asked by her nephew how she felt about theyears of her family's incarceration was the impetus tofinally bring her back on the path to becoming a writer. "Ihad not written for years. 1 tried to begin. But I foundmyself in tears, unable to concentrate. Was I having a ner-

question, a question he had a right to ask, had opened awound I had long denied ever existed," Houston recalledin her essay. She turned to her writer husband for helpand guidance. In her essay, Houston wrote, "Throughtears I told him what I could. I was emotionally honest forthe first time. I remembered the feelings—of loss, ofshame and humiliation, of rage, of sorrow. [Jim] sat qui-etly listening. Then he said, 'I have known you for almost20 years, married to you for 14 ... and I never had anyidea you carried all this around. This is not something towrite just for your family. It's a story everyone in Americashould read.'"

What began as a personal memoir proved to be one ofthe most important postwar historical texts, still taught inclassrooms throughout the country. The Houstons spent ayear working on Farewell to Manzanar, interviewing familyand other internees and researching in libraries. Whenthe book was published in 1973, Houston's life changeddramatically. She recalled in her essay, "I reclaimed pridein my heritage. I rediscovered my ability to write. I real-ized I could no longer hide 'in the country of my hus-band's shadow.' With Jim's encouragement and support, Ileft the comfortable safety zone of domesticity and ven-tured out into the open field. I began to write again."Houston commented to Terry Hong: "It was not until Iwrote about the camps that I realized my own self-image as

a woman, and as an Asian American woman. That was all

unscramble all that so I could start writing again."

More than two decades later, Houston has continued tofulfill her seventh grade dream. She is the co-author ofthree books and a contributor to more than ten others. Sheis also a writer of at least three screenplays and countlessessays, ardclcs, and reviews for such diverse publications asCalifornia, Der Spiegel, Mother Jones, and Reader's Digest.

In 1994, Houston was at work on a novel, tentativelytitled Fire Horse Woman. "Women born in the Chinese yearof the Horse were considered very dangerous. They werewomen who always outlived their husbands. What that allmeant was that she was a very strong woman," Houstonexplained to Hong. The book, which she began manyyears ago, opens in 1906 with a Japanese picture bridecoming to the United States for the first time. To portrayan accurate account of a turn-of-thc-century Japanesewoman, Houston spent a rewarding six months alone inJapan in 1992, conducting in-depth research through agrant from the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission andthe National Endowment for the Arts.

Houston explained to Hong that she had ended an ear-lier draft of the book 'just before World War II. I couldn'twrite any fictionalized accounts of the war, specificallyabout the camps. In the past, I could only write from myown memories, from the family's history. But more recently,I've written three short stories about fictionalized accountsof camp. So in the second draft of my novel, I plan to gobeyond the war, to include the war and the camps."

When Houston is not writing, she said she especiallyenjoys reading about spirituality. "I've been studying Bud-dhism for about twenty years. I'm very interested in heal-ing," she explained to Hong. "There seems to be twodifferent paths to my life—half of me is the healer and theother half, the more male part of me, is the writer. Per-haps the healer part of me will help me finally finish thisyear the novel the writer part of me began," she laughed.

Sources:

Books

Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki. Autobiographical profile inContemporary Authors Autobiography Seri.es, edited by JoyceNakamura. vol. 16. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992,

Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki, and James D. Houston. Far,well to Manzanar. New York: Bantam Books, 1973.

Other

Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki, telephone interview witTerry Hong, August 4, 1994.