Part 1: My Roots

Chapter 1: Parents

My father made thick, heavy photo albums for each of us siblings.

The tradition started with mine. 

Each album had the child’s name on it and frilled edges that felt almost too sweet.

Inside, every page was curated with photos he had taken with his Canon since the day we were born:

Me, in my mother’s arms on a hospital bed in New York City.

Me, a newborn in Tokyo, with my paternal grandparents and uncle.

Me, smiling and drooling the first time I sat up straight in our Jackson Heights apartment.

I loved listening to my father’s stories after dinner—his childhood, wild backpacking trips, and how he married my mother.

They met at an English school in Tokyo in the 1970s—my mother in her early twenties, my father in his late twenties. She was a rare beauty. I imagine it was love at first sight for him, but he had a dream to chase first.

He sold his auto repair business and went globetrotting.

Wherever he was, he continued to send letters to my mother’s address for several years.
By the time he reached New York, he was so broke that he looked like a homeless man.
Still, he landed a job as a busboy at a Japanese restaurant in Midtown.
From there, he worked his way up—first as a waiter, then as a bartender, and eventually, the manager.
He proposed to Mom with a diamond ring. They got married in Hawaii. Nine months later, I was born.
Dad always said that I was a honeymoon baby. I was the first child—and a girl, which had been his long-held wish. He had even picked out my name during his travels in the Himalayas.
He said it came to him while he watched the sunrise over the snow-covered peaks.

My mother wasn’t talkative, but I remember her saying—more than once—that she was never really into kids. After having me, though, she thought, “Your own child really is lovable.”

After my brothers were born about two years later, our family moved to the suburbs. Crime rates in New York City were especially high in the 1980s. My father was held up at gunpoint more than once while coming home at night. Our new home was in a quiet neighborhood lined with maple trees. The two-story house with its front and backyard, had a built-in bookshelf in the living room–a decisive factor for Dad, who was an avid reader.

We had good food every day—a wide range of dishes made with fresh ingredients, some sourced from my mother’s garden.
The Japanese are, on average, very food-conscious, and my father’s side of the family came from generations in the food industry. His mother was the daughter of a ryōtei—a traditional high-end Japanese restaurant where geisha once entertained. His older brother was an itamae, a trained sushi chef.
The uncle stayed with us for the first few years. His designated seat at the dining table was across from mine. Every day, he taught me the proper etiquette for eating different types of fish, and which parts were especially delicious but often overlooked.
My father always glanced over at my plate, admiring how neatly I’d placed the bones to the side, and said with delight, “Wow, you ate so beautifully.”

He sometimes cooked, too. His repertoire included various types of sashimi and hot pots—sukiyaki, anko-nabe, and nabeyaki-udon among them. He took pride in preparing each dish with care, often timing them to the seasons.

Not much is known about my mother’s side of the family, but she was a foodie in her own right. She always said in Japanese, “Clothes just have to be wearable, but food—that has to be good.”

After we moved, my father changed jobs so he could be home for dinner with the family every evening. Drawing on his experience and connections from the Japanese restaurant, he opened and ran a small Japanese grocery store. The shop was in a neighborhood where many Jewish and Japanese families lived.
My parents were respected, quiet pillars of the community, serving the affluent with Japanese-quality food. 

At home, my mother often called me into the kitchen to taste her cooking. Occasionally, she’d reward me with delicacies that never even made it to the dinner table.

Every year, she prepared ika-no-shiokara—fermented squid marinated in its guts, salty and deeply savory. She always gave me the mouth of the squid, the chewy, cartilage-like part nestled deep in the center of the legs. It was one of the most prized pieces, with a satisfying resistance that no other texture could quite replicate.

She could have saved it for herself, given it to my brothers, or not even mentioned it. But she always gave it to me.

In those moments, I felt like I was her favorite, too. 

Chapter 2: Education

I attended Japanese weekend school since kindergarten and started local schools from pre-K. After school, I helped my mother with the laundry and other chores.
The days blended in their monotony. I usually finished my homework during class and can only recall studying at home on two occasions: once to learn how to read the clock, and once to practice multiplication tables.

I was sitting across the table from my furious mother.
“I said, what time is it?” she demanded.
When I answered incorrectly, I heard the sharp crack of a slap and felt heat bloom across my cheek.
“Why don’t you understand?”
Why don’t I understand? How am I supposed to answer that?
I don’t get any of it. Why reading a clock is such a big deal. Why she doesn’t explain it so I can understand. Why she thinks it’s right to scream and hit me like that.
Tears welled up, but I didn’t want to let them fall. I tried to push them back.
Soon I couldn’t breathe–my nose stuffed, hiccupping in a way that sounded humiliating.
Stop making that sound. You sound embarrassing.
I already knew tears meant nothing to her.
But I still couldn’t stop. I hated my body for not listening.
She showed no mercy–banging her fist on the table, still yelling.
In that moment, I realized: she hates me.
And that thought made me feel… light.
I wondered if my classmates were also slapped across the face at home.
Then I heard the moped.
It was hard to imagine.

That was not the first time she slapped me.
One day after school, I noticed a white cake on the kitchen counter, loosely covered with Saran Wrap. I couldn’t resist. I dipped my pointer finger into the whipped cream frosting and tasted it.
The next moment, I heard my mother’s sharp voice. Instinctively, I said, “No.”
She slapped me.
“I didn’t raise you to be a liar! Liars become thieves!” she shouted.
She grabbed my wrist. She didn’t have to drag me—rather than resist, I scrambled to keep up with her rapid steps. She opened the upstairs closet and shoved me in. The door shut behind me. I stood there in the dark, crying, stunned by her reaction.
I had often seen her slap my brothers’ bottoms or chase them with a wooden paddle. But I was supposed to be the well-behaved one.
I cracked the door open but didn’t dare step out. Instead, I turned on the light and looked around, trying to distract myself. Something covered in silky cloth caught my eye. Part of a photographic image peeked through the knot. I untied it.
Inside was a stack of magazines. Women in skimpy clothing stared out with distressed expressions, their eyes turned upward. I instinctively knew they belonged to my father. And in that instant, my tears stopped. A thought dawned on me.
If Dad, who keeps these, had said that to Mom, wouldn’t that be what she calls a lie? But Mom seemed so happy to hear it from Dad. She even hugged me and said, “Good for you.” That’s when I knew: I couldn’t trust Mom anymore.

My mother didn’t need to slap me to freeze me in fear. 

Long ago, we were visiting a family friend’s house. My mother sat around the table with other housewives while my brothers played with the host’s older daughters. I stood near my mother, quietly listening to their conversation.

I used to play with those daughters—girls I looked up to and wished were my real sisters—and with my brothers, too. But I no longer felt I belonged there—not after what had happened.

About a year earlier, the same family had visited our new suburban home. My brother and I were roughhousing. I banged his head against the wall, trying to show off. One of the daughters snapped at me: “Stop it! You’re the older sister!”
Her eyes were so fierce, I froze.
I think it was the first time anyone ever looked at me that way.
I hadn’t expected to be yelled at. I only wanted her attention—to prove how tough I was.
After that day, I stopped playing with my brothers.
“Because I’m the older sister,” I told myself.
I was so bitter, I started demanding they call me Onee-chan—Japanese for “big sister”—instead of using my name.
They were so innocent, they complied.
I was supposed to feel superior. Yet it made me feel even more alone.

---

Back at the gathering, the women were chatting about boy bands, then about romantic stories. My mother sat quietly, not contributing. It made me impatient—it was a topic I desperately wanted to join in on. I had a crush on my first-grade classmate.

The moment I made a sound, my mother snapped–her eyes sharp as knives: “Otona no hanashi! (It’s adult conversation!)”
I froze.
I didn’t want anyone to sense how embarrassed I was–it would be humiliating.
So I slowly backed away.
So slowly, in my mind, no one would notice.
My memory ends there.

I have always wanted to play with the classmate I had a crush on. He lived not too far from my house, and a narrow path led straight to his from the route we took to go home from school. But every day when my mother picked me up on time with my brothers, she never took that path —no detours, just the usual way home.

One day, I mustered the courage to “get lost.”
When she wasn’t looking, I slipped away and turned onto the path. My heart pounded as I walked quickly.
At the end of the path, there he was, standing in front of his house.
He called my name with a smile.
“Pass me the ball,” he said.
I tossed the ball I was holding, and he bounced it right back.
The moment the ball hit my palms, I learned what a bounce pass was–and felt a flicker of joy.
Just then–
An angry voice struck like lightning.
“Where did you go?!”
My mother’s eyes locked onto mine.
Stupid. So stupid to think I could get away with “getting lost.”
I couldn’t look at him.
I dared not shed a tear and followed her without a word.

Some days later, he came over to borrow some textbooks.
My mother called me in a bright, cheery voice, as if nothing had happened.
I was so bitter that I acted cold toward him.
I hated myself for it.

He used to cruise around the neighborhood on his moped.
Every time I heard the engine hum past my house, the sound filled me with a quiet ache—a reminder of how close he was, and how unreachable.
The thought of being so near, yet unable to be with him, was unbearable.
I crouched below the window, crawling like a fugitive in my own home. I wished I could disappear.
Was it my fault for being so stubborn?
But then again, I couldn’t even imagine my mother letting me play freely.
Who else would help her with the daily chores?

My brothers had each other–and a classmate who lived two doors down.
After school, they’d play video games in our living room, then head over to his house.
The boy was nerdy and quiet, but whenever he got excited, he screamed like a girl.
It drove me insane.
Every day, I wished he would just disappear–but in vain.
My brothers watched their favorite cartoons everyday: Pokémon, Arthur and The Simpsons. I thought it was all so childish.

One day, I asked for the children’s books to be thrown away. A sting tightened in my chest. Some had been read to me as bedtime stories in the soft echoes from the blur of distant memories. But now, they were just irritating reminders that I was still a child.

Letting them go wasn’t enough.

Chapter 3: Work 

On the day I turned ten, I got down on my knees, pressed my forehead to the floor between my hands–just like the samurai in historical dramas–asked my father for permission to work at his store on Sundays, the only day I didn’t have school.

If childhood meant powerlessness, then I would do what adults did: work. It felt like the only shortcut to being treated fairly–a way to prove that I was more mature than they wanted to believe. 

Voices in my head mocked me for being too dramatic.
But part of me was willing to bare any embarrassment just to show how serious I was– even as a child.
Another part knew it would satisfy something in my father, and that would work to my advantage.
My calculation worked.

Every Sunday morning, I went to work with my dad. I put price tags on items, worked the register, helped him make sushi platters, and did whatever menial tasks needed doing until dusk.
The first time he handed me a five-dollar bill was unforgettable. We didn’t get allowances, so getting paper money felt extraordinary.
But that bill meant more than just money–it meant I was getting closer to being an adult. In my mind, I already was.

One day, a classmate from Japanese school came into the store. She was wearing rollerblades and had come by herself.
Ashamed, I ducked under the counter and hid in the bathroom.
I couldn’t believe she was allowed to go shopping alone.
The way she rolled in–so casually, so freely–made it feel like she belonged to a different world.
One I couldn’t reach.

Chapter 4: Peers

Life started looking up in fourth grade, when an unfamiliar classmate approached me and invited me to play. Her name was Emi; she had recently moved from Tokyo. At first, I wondered, Why me?

But we enjoyed doing similar things–drawing, exchanging letters and diaries, and making accessories from beads.
Before long, we became best friends, hanging out every Saturday after Japanese school.

 
The first time I stepped into Emi’s room, I was surprised to see the huge pile of stuffed animals stacked on her dresser. I wondered how often she had asked her parents to buy them–and how she had asked.
She also had a sister two years older, and they often had matching items in different colors.
I envied her. I had always wanted my own older sister.

For Emi’s birthday, I decided to craft a gift. I gathered trinkets in a handmade cardboard box, glued on wrapping paper, and gave it to her. The following week, Emi told me that her sister had said “Wow,” and I took it as a compliment. Her sister even started writing letters to me. I was so happy. 

Half a year later, on my birthday, Emi gave me a stuffed animal and a card that said Happy Birthday! In small print, it also said, Isn’t it so cute? I paid for it. In that moment, I realized what she had meant six months earlier when she told me what her sister said. I sensed something dark from her words–and tried not to notice it.

At the end of the year, Emi and I were both bummed to be placed in different classes the next school year.
What made it worse was that Emi became close to a classmate named Mami. Mami wore the same clothes every week–like me–but she was fashion-conscious. Her uniform was a black fitted T-shirt, a plaid skirt, and thick black boots.
I, on the other hand, wore the same hand-me-downs from years ago.
I hadn’t minded my raggedy clothes–until Emi began illustrating the difference between cool and uncool, hinting mine fell into the latter.

When we visited Mami’s house, her mother spoke proudly about how her daughter loved rearranging the layout of her room. I was shocked. I didn’t know mothers could speak so positively about their daughters. 

I once told Emi, “I don’t like Mami.”
Later, she told me she had repeated it to Mami.
I felt betrayed.
It wasn’t even true–I was jealous, but didn’t have the words for it.
Mami seemed to have everything I didn’t–style, a supportive mother, and my best friend’s attention.

Emi had gotten into fashion too–multiple ear piercings, dyed hair, and new outfits every week.
She apparently got a $20 monthly allowance–the same amount I was earning working for my dad.
I never dared ask for any of that. Whenever I found something I liked, my mother looked at me like I was crazy, and her voice stopped me cold:
“That looks weird on you.”

She made me feel like I had the worst taste in the world–but she was the last person I’d go to for advice.
I dreaded wearing the ugly bra she bought for me. 

I remember pinning up the underwear I’d stolen from department stores in the dim boiler room.
My mother sneered, “You actually have taste–where it’s invisible.”
My embarrassment quickly gave way to surprise.
I was used to her outbursts when she thought something was wrong, but this time, she just sounded bitter. Almost…jealous.
I didn’t understand why. 
She had so much lingerie in her drawer–pieces she never wore anymore.
They couldn’t have been comfortable but I remembered her wearing them when I was really small. 
Somehow, I just knew: they were my father’s taste.

In eighth grade, my mother told me I couldn’t go to Japanese school anymore.
Why? Because she didn’t want to join the PTA.
“Please let me go. Please. Please. ”
I knew crying never changed anything, but I begged anyway as tears streamed down my face.
It was useless.
She ordered self-study worksheets instead–as if that could replace the only social life I had–even if it was just a few hours a week.

I filled my empty Saturdays with work.
As soon as I turned fourteen–the legal age for minors to work in New York State–I got a seasonal job over Christmas break.
At a busy jewelry shop, I rang up long lines of customers while wrapping endless boxes of gold accessories.
My nose ran from a cold, but I kept focused by turning it into a game: wrapping as quickly as possible using the least amount of paper.

Soon, I was scouted by Daffy, one of my father’s regular customers.
She was a Jewish entrepreneur who decorated party halls.
By then, I was working every weekend and holiday–sometimes past midnight. 
We never took breaks, but it was better than killing time like I used to do during the afternoons at my dad’s.

One night, just before New Years Eve, I came home and took a bite of a rice ball my mother had left out for me.

An emotionless tear slipped down my cheek. Only then did I realize my body was hungry.

Sensing an opportunity, I pretended to cry–like I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the food–kissing up to my mother.

She never set any limits on how many hours I could work, but I wanted to make sure that she would keep letting me. 

Decades later, I would find out from my mother that Daffy had asked to adopt me. Who wouldn’t want someone who worked like a machine, never needing breaks or snacks?


In ninth grade, I was allowed to return to Japanese school.
But everything had changed.

Emi had started acquiring luxury items—a Burberry scarf, a Louis Vuitton wallet, a Prada bag, a silver ring from Tiffany.
It was undeniable now: we lived in completely different worlds.
One day, I wore my new shoes to class.
Her new friend–pink-haired, dressed in frilly miniskirts that screamed fashion–glanced at them and said,
“Oh mocassins.”
I was happy she noticed–until she laughed,
“Mine are so much nicer.” 
Emi’s circle of friends grew, while our friendship slowly but surely fell apart. 

She was returning to Tokyo, like most Japanese families of major corporations do after a few years at the overseas branch.

I didn’t continue on to tenth grade.
I probably wouldn’t have cared to, even if Emi had stayed.

In public school, students from several local elementary schools merged into the same junior high and high school. Suddenly, there were more people–but I only felt more alone.

Lunchtime in the cafeteria was the worst.
From a distance, I’d spot classmates from elementary school–girls I used to sit with every day, back when lunch tables naturally split between boys and girls.
Now the groups were more mixed, more defined. Cliques had formed.
I didn’t belong to any of them.
The truth was, I never really belonged.
Even back then, sitting among the girls in elementary school.
One memory that stands out is:
Every time I picked up my flute case, the instrument would crash to the floor.
Someone had undone the latches.
I was guarding it when one of the girls gestured for me to come closer, as if to tell me a secret.
I realized that all the girls were in on it when they ran away laughing, while my flute pieces spilled out again. 

Desperate not to be seen as a loser, I sat with people I barely connected with–telling myself they were at least better than the obvious social outcasts.

So I was surprised when, during summer recess in eighth grade, I got a phone call from a girl named Sally.
She had sat next to me in French class and we’d partnered up a couple of times during exercises, but we’d never talked outside of school.
Out of nowhere, she asked if I wanted to hang out.

Sally lived on the second floor of a small, narrow house. At the top of the stairs was a modest dining kitchen. To get to her bedroom, you had to pass through her mother and stepfather’s room. They were lying on the bed watching TV. I felt rude passing by them–like I was intruding–but that unease was quickly drowned out by the intensity of Sally’s anger toward her stepfather.

Otherwise, Sally was a talkative clown. She was constantly cracking jokes, laughing so hard it became contagious–I often found myself laughing with her. She loved to talk, especially about her relationships with older men, describing her experiences in graphic, vulgar detail.

Sally was admirably defiant. She told me that one Halloween night, she was grounded by her stepfather, so she jumped out of her bedroom window, broke her nose, and still went clubbing.

She also had great taste in music and went to concerts of Metallica, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, and other alternative rock bands. I used to listen to J-pop with Emi and we’d go to karaoke together, but heavy metal was different. It touched my soul.

Sally stopped coming to school but I kept going to her house after school. She always had older friends from outside of school, some of them dealers.

It was Sally who introduced me to marijuana. I was excited– I’d always wanted to try. My dad used to say that he would smoke with me when I was older. 

The first time, I didn’t feel anything–apparently that was common. The second time, we went to the dealer’s house.
“Look at these nugs” the dealer proudly showed us. It was my first time seeing them, so I was bewildered by their shape. Soon, a blunt was passed around.

There were four girls there, and two of them passed out on the bed. They could have been raped, but nothing like that happened. So much for Reefer Madness.

What I remember most was how funny and surreal it was to watch the dealer pack giant Ziplock bags of weed into a life-sized Dr. Seuss hat.

I liked getting high. I’d always figured I would–now I knew for sure.

Through Sally, I befriended Candice. It was nice to have a friend in school now that Sally had officially dropped out. Candice used to live in Tennessee with her drug-addicted mother, living in poverty. Her life was full of chaos and survival–it sounded like something out of a movie.

Compared to that, my life felt painfully ordinary. Boring. I found myself thirsting for her misery.

Then, just as I was getting lost in her stories, my mother’s car would pull up. She always came too early. I’d feel a heaviness in my chest as I surrendered to it.

Chapter 5: Home

At home, I would help my mother get ready for supper while my brothers watched The Simpsons. When Dad came home, we’d all gather around the dining table, put our palms together, and say “Itadakimasu” in unison.

I’d had a huge appetite since I was little—so much so that my uncle used to call me a pig until I cried. But my father always praised me for eating well. My mother cooked more than enough food, yet we were taught never to waste a single grain of rice. They say it takes eighty-eight steps before rice reaches the table.

My father had grown up in post-war Japan and had experienced real hunger. He’d also traveled to Africa, where people still starve. I understood how lucky we were to eat like this.

Because of that, I felt like I had no right to complain about anything. The least I could do was show gratitude. Remembering that award-winning photo of a malnourished child being watched by a vulture, I told myself I was eating on behalf of children like her.

So I ate. And ate. And ate–until my stomach hurt.

I would run upstairs to the bathroom, sit on the stool, and take a few pills until the pain went away. 

Every night, I wondered why I couldn’t stop before overeating. I wasn’t bulimic—I was naturally skinny, and I hated vomiting. I told myself it was because my parents were great cooks. There were not many families that ate as well as we did.

Whenever I mustered the courage to ask if I could sleep over at a friend’s house, my mother would say, “You already did.”

I started coming home past midnight, hoping she would be asleep–but of course, she was waiting, and fuming.
“What time do you think it is?” she yelled, then slapped me across the face.
And just like that, the nightmares came rushing back–the same terrifying images I’d been seeing for years in my childhood dreams.
Only this time, I was wide awake.

What if it hadn’t been a dream?
What if it was a memory?

If so, I promised myself I would take it to my grave.
As much as I despised my mother, I felt like I needed to protect her.

To me, she was living inside a fragile bubble.
I couldn’t bear to pop it.
It would have felt too cruel—because I saw my mother as a very little girl.

A sad, angry child who was abandoned by her own mother.
My mother never spoke about it.
I only remember my father talking about it once, long ago.
“She said, ‘that woman left us behind.’”
I saw my mother as someone desperate to prove she could be a better mother–as if nothing she could do to her children was worse than what had been done to her.

“How many times do I have to tell you to call?!”
Why would I call when I already know what she’d say–
Come home.
I never had the words to satisfy her rhetorical questions, so I pretended to cry.
I was a supporting actor to her leading role: the mother worried sick over her loving daughter.

This continued through high school and into my community college years.
“I can’t believe you anymore,” my mother would say, like I was some kind of criminal.

Sure, I was breaking curfew, smoking underage, drinking recklessly, taking illegal drugs, shoplifting–even doing things I still won’t say out loud behind her back.
Yes, I saw the potential problems in all of it.
But nothing felt more dangerous than being at home.
Out there, no one hit or yelled at me.


But eventually, I grew exhausted.
Socializing broadened my world but always left a horrible aftertaste–dreadful hours with my mother at home.
I stopped going out. When my “boyfriend’s” mom said, “I feel sorry for my son because you’re always busy,” I had to laugh inside.
I even quit weed, just to prove I could–and give myself one more reason to look down on my mother for being so naive, easily brainwashed into thinking that it was some kind of moral failure. What humored me the most was that, back when she was young, she once went to the airport just to see her favorite band, the Doobie Brothers.
As usual, I focused on keeping my grades up to maintain financial aid and worked part-time jobs.
My plan was simple: save enough money to leave—for good.
I’d never tried to run away before; the chance of getting caught as a minor, with no one to depend on, was high. My escape had to be discreet. Perfect. Final.

For distraction, I started fixing up the house.
The wallpaper was yellowed from years of my father and uncle’s chain-smoking. The walls looked tired, depressed. The paint was peeling, too.
These things had always bothered me, but no one ever did anything about them.

So I scraped off the old layers, filled the cracks with plaster, smoothed the surfaces, and repainted the ceilings and walls fresh.

Meanwhile, I started giving my mother a couple hundred dollars a month as rent. I wanted to see if that would make her treat me like an adult.

Chapter 6: Intimacy

Around that time, I got stuck in a complicated relationship with a classmate.

His gaze made it obvious from the start that he liked me. I pretended to not notice, but the more I got to know him as a friend, the heavier my dread became.
He had great taste in music –but I didn’t like him that way.

We ended up being physically intimate–not because I wanted to, but because I was afraid I’d lose him as a friend if I didn’t.

In moments like that, my father’s voice echoed in my mind:
“Women are passive.”

Whatever that meant, I knew one thing for sure: I didn’t want to be that.
So I took the initiative.
I hoped I’d enjoy it, like everyone said they did.
But as soon as he was finished—which was immediate—I realized I had already known how I would feel.
The next day, I told him over the phone: 

“I feel dirty.”

Still, I figured I had to take responsibility for my actions.
So I wrote him a letter asking if he wanted to be my boyfriend.
My body was shaking in protest, but masking my true feelings was my top priority.
I asked him to burn the letter immediately.

He didn’t fit the stereotype of men I knew, which made it harder to break things off.
After the first time, I told him I wanted to abstain from sex, hoping he’d lose interest in me.
But instead, He said I was admirable.

Admirable?
I thought all men wanted was sex.
That’s all the first guy I’d slept with wanted.
Every guy I knew just tried to get into your pants.

When I said, “This guy told me he’d get blue balls if he didn’t…,”
He said, “Some guys say that to get what they want.”

I felt so stupid.

When he hugged me from behind, it felt like my heart—frozen in ice—had started to melt.

Later he said, “I see my future with you.”
And all I could think was: What kind of future?
You don’t even know me.
I never even liked you the way you think I do.

Thanks to him, though, I was able to take a huge leap forward—away from home.
One day at his house, a paperback caught my eye.
It cover was start: blood-red and black, the Japanese flag, a silhouette of a soldier.
The title read: The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II.
I asked if I could borrow it.

Chapter 7: Identity

As I read Iris Chang’s New York Times bestseller, something inside me began to fracture. My Japanese identity–something that had been imposed on me, something I’d clung to–started to crack and crumble. 
My parents had raised me to be Japanese.
My mother condemned me constantly for not acting “Japanese enough,”
as if being Japanese were the highest virtue.
Even Emi used to call me “too American” when my opinions didn’t align with hers.

Part of me wanted to rebel, “Well, what do you expect? I’ve never even lived in Japan.”
But Americans didn’t see me as one of them, either.

My earliest memory of being forced to face this was in Pre-K or Kindergarten.
A white kid came to me, singing, “Chinese, Japanese, Indian Chief.”
When I tried to join him, he ran away laughing.
That’s when I realized that I was different– and that I was being made fun of for how I looked.

As I got older, people kept asking, “Where are you from?”
“No, I mean… where are your roots?”
Their persistence was a constant reminder that I was an outsider.
They wouldn’t be satisfied until I said it—Japan.

Then came the inevitable: “Cool. I love anime.”
Some would add, “I think the Japanese are better than other Asians.”

My parents seemed to believe this, too.
They had acquaintances who were Asian, but would sometimes make fun of them out of the blue.
They seemed to think they were just being funny or clever.
The racist comments seemed to boost their self-esteem.

But then, some Asians hated me for my Japanese roots.

In seventh grade, a Filipina told me there was an Asian girl who didn’t want to speak to me because I’m Japanese.

She seemed sorry to deliver the message, but I couldn’t care less back then. 

I instinctively knew it was because of Japanese imperialism.

I had seen the term in a history textbook.

But I thought, What do you want me to do about it?

So many countries invaded, colonized, and massacred others back then.

I was taught the Holocaust was the worst.

While I shrugged it off, I was also surprised—how could someone still hold a grudge for something that happened decades before I was born?

Now, looking back, I could understand better how that Asian girl must have felt.

Japanese military’s evildoings against innocent people in other Asian countries—and beyond—were mind-blowing.

The random and systematic rape of children and women of all ages, along with live human experiments for biological warfare, were infamous and unparalleled in their cruelty.

So evil that, even after losing the war and falling under U.S. occupation, the Japanese government was able to bargain with General MacArthur.

Fearing that the results of these experiments might fall into Soviet hands, MacArthur granted immunity to many responsible parties in exchange for their data.

Most of them were never tried—and many continued to hold influential positions, including in medicine. 

The fact that General Shiro Ishii, leader of Unit 731, possessed data so dangerous that even Adolf Hitler didn’t have access to it speaks volumes about those atrocities.

I was furious. Why didn’t anyone tell me this part of history?

I’d gone to both American and Japanese schools—wasn’t I supposed to be more educated than most?
The Japanese remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki with reverence. My mother even took me to the United Nations to see a photo exhibition on the atomic bomb’s aftermath.
But no one told me about the Japanese military’s violations of children’s and adults’ rights across Asia—through rape, torture, and biological warfare.
Given the scale of those atrocities, their absence from the curriculum couldn’t have been accidental. It had to be deliberate—a conscious whitewashing.

What was going on in Japanese education?

Sure, it wasn’t just Japan. In American schools, we never learned how Western settlers massacred Native Americans—or how Africans were enslaved and still face systemic discrimination today.
History textbooks would look very different if Native Americans, Africans, or Chinese were running the education bureaus instead of the usual powers.

But since people saw me as Japanese, no matter where I was born or raised, I felt a responsibility to know.
So, I applied to a university in Tokyo.

To my surprise, my mother seemed supportive—especially since her usual knee-jerk reaction to my wishes was almost always negative.
When I said I wanted to be an artist, she scolded, “You don’t even draw every day.”
When I talked about traveling the world on a cruise ship, she opposed it outright.

But this time, I understood how her mind worked.
I was entering a prestigious university, going to live with my paternal grandparents, and had enough savings to cover tuition.
In that situation, she had nothing to lose or worry about.