Asian Fortune News – Aozora Brockman
“A few summers ago I found myself listening to a concert at the annual Okinawan festival in O’ahu, Hawai’i. I closed my eyes and began to sway to the sound of the strumming of the sanshin and to the melodic tilting of the woman singer’s voice. She sang in a way that enveloped me in love, yet pierced me with nostalgic sadness at the same time. Later, as I began to dance with others on the grounds in front of the elevated stage, I realized that the overwhelming feelings of love and nostalgia came from the fact that she sang in Japanese. I had been raised speaking Japanese in my home in Central Illinois, so hearing the language made me feel safe, protected. But when I returned to my seat to catch my breath, I realized that the audience members, mostly made up of local Japanese, were conversing in English between the songs. For some reason this conflict of language between the stage and the audience was jarring to me. Did those in the audience long to know what the lyrics meant? Did they ever feel like they missed out on not learning Japanese? I thought back to how I learned in one of my college courses that after being put into camps during World War II, Japanese American second and third generations (called nisei and sansei) tended to disengage themselves from the Japanese community. Japanese language schools that were numerous before the war became almost nonexistent. I was saddened by the thought of Japanese Americans feeling as if they had to show that they were as “American” as possible by distancing themselves from both Japanese culture and language.”(more)