More than three decades ago, I graduated from Boston University with a master’s degree in journalism, and since then I’ve worked at different publications, including Scientific American and the Harvard Business Review. But recently, as I’ve been approaching retirement, I’ve become increasingly restless, wanting to move beyond writing just about technology and business. I now want to tell my family’s stories.
Unfortunately, I have huge gaps in my knowledge, crucial things I don’t know about the lives of my parents, grandparents, and other relatives. As a Sansei, or third-generation Japanese American, I was often too uninterested or ignorant to ask the older generations of my family important questions while they were still alive. In many cases, they may have purposely withheld painful information to protect me from the discrimination and hardships they endured, especially during World War II. So, to fill those gaps in my knowledge, I’ve had to rely on my imagination in order to write about my family in any coherent way. I’ve also changed many details and simplified various complexities, in hopes of conveying certain fundamental truths. As such, my stories are works of fiction, meant to preserve the spirit and essence of my family.