Adios to Tears: The Memoir of a Japanese-Peruvian Internee in U.S. Concentration Camps
Seiichi Higashide, 1993, 2000
University of Washington Press
259 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780295979144
Summary
Adios to Tears is the very personal story of Seiichi Higashide, whose life in three countries was shaped by a bizarre and little-known episode in the history of World War II. Born in Hokkaido, Japan, Higashide emigrated to Peru in 1931. By the late 1930s he was a shopkeeper and community leader in the provincial town of Ica, but following the outbreak of World War II, he—along with other Latin American Japanese—was seized by police and forcibly deported to the United States. He was interned behind barbed wire at the Immigration and Naturalization Service facility in Crystal City, Texas, for more than two years.
After his release, Higashide elected to stay in the U.S. and eventually became a citizen. For years, he was a leader in the effort to obtain redress from the American government for the violation of the human rights of the Peruvian Japanese internees.
Higashide's moving memoir was translated from Japanese into English and Spanish through the efforts of his eight children, and was first published in 1993. This second (2000) edition includes a new Foreword by C.Harvey Gardiner, professor emeritus of history at Southern Illinois University and author of "Pawns in a Triangle of Hate: The Peruvian Japanese and the United States"; a new Epilogue by Julie Small, cochair of Campaign for Justice-Redress Now for Japanese Latin Americans; and a new Preface by Elsa H. Kudo, eldest daughter of Seiichi Higashide. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1909
• Where—Hokkaido, Japan
• Education—architectural degree, Hozen Technical Institute
• Death—1997
• Where—Honolulu, Hawaiik US
Born into rural poverty in a remote mountain village in Hokkaido, Japan, young Higashide eventually made his way to Tokyo. Engulfed there in a struggle to survive that included collecting and reselling bottles, selling newspapers, and performing hard manual labor, he engaged in night-school studies in engineering and architecture, fields yielding him no opportunity in Japan. Always a student and contemplating migration to Peru, he studies Spanish to ease his immersion into a strange world. Tears marked his sailing from his homeland in 1930, at the age of twenty-one.
Inured to hard work and uncertainty in Japan, Higashide encountered both in Peru, in addition to a language barrier, prejudice, and countless points of cultural collision. He labored many months, room and board his only remuneration. He taught school. His work ethic, earnestness, and other positive qualities gradually won him helpful contacts and advancement. In 1935 he married Angelica Yoshinaga. Launching into shopkeeping and family building, he prospered in both. By the late 1930's he was a community leader in Ica, a provincial town five hundred miles south of Lima. But just when he was savoring success and some affluence in his adopted homeland, storm clouds gathered.
Anti-Japanese rioting and the approaching collision of Japan and the US skewed Higashide's prospects. Events of December 7, 1941, and the swift issuance by the US of the Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals (blacklist) hit home when his name, as a community leader, appeared on the initial list. For a long time, however, he evaded deportation.
Seized finally early in January 1944 by four policemen while he dined with his family, Higashide was spirited north to a urine-soaked jail cell in Lima. Ten days later, his distraught wife, pregnant with their fifth child, saw him forced aboard ship in Callao by Peruvian police and American soldiers. Sailing away a second time, he again shed tears.
The family was reunited in July 1944 at the Immigration and Naturalization Service facility (guarded with barbed wire, watch-towers, and armed personnel) in Crystal City, Texas, in the US.
Released after more than two years of internment, the Higashides moved cautiously, haltingly into mainstream American life, another bumpy beginning in a strange land. Years mounted into decades; roots deepened. Citizenship, schooling, hard work—all contributed to their pursuit of the American dream.
For years Higashide was a leader in the effort to obtain redress from the American government for the violation of the human rights of the Peruvian Japanese internees. In 1981 he testified before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. (From the book's Forward.)
Book Reviews
What tears must have been shed by this former hostage of America in writing this heart-wrenching masterpiece. Readers will be inspired, enthralled, and will end up caring deeply.
Michi Nishiura Weglyn - Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of American's Concentration Camps (2000)
Adios to Tears mingles suffering with success. It is a very personal story, not a definitive history. It's structure— occasional disjunctions and repetitions, flashbacks, anticipations and heartfelt outbursts—add an extemporaneous and emotionally rich quality that is pricesless and sincere. The story mirrors one life in three countries on as many continents, relating family, immigrant community, and the wider world of radically differing cultures.... Adios to Tears does cry—for justice.
C. Harvey Gardiner, Ph.D. - Pawns in a Triangle of Hate: The Peruvian Japanese and the United States (1981)
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Adios to Tears:
1. Talk about young Seiichi's ambition to become educated. What did an education mean to him? What obstacles did he face in achieving his goal, both within his own family and society?
2. What are some of the cruelties and injustices in his homeland that shocked and angered Seiich, even as a young child?
3. Seiichi ran off to Sapporo for a possible job. During the interview, when asked if he had the approval of his parents, what prompted Seiichi to tell the truth? Why didn't he lie to get the job? Was his truthfulness a result of his own character, his upbringing, or Japan's cultural values...or all three?
4. Peru hosted one of the largest Japanese communities in the Americas. It would be interesting to research the community— how it developed, it's cultural practices, the development of social bonds within, and its connection to the larger Peruvian society.
5. What cultural differences did Higashide notice between the Peruvian Japanese and his Japanese homeland? In describing Mr. Karihara and his Electric Light Company, for instance—does his tone seem appreciative or condescending?
6. How did the maxim, "shortsightedness is a forbidden luxury," help Higashide build up his business? What other practices and philosophies helped him prosper? What role did his wife play in developing the business?
7. In the beginning of World War II, the first rumblings of anti-Japanese sentiment seemed just that...rumblings. Trace the gradual deterioration in the treatment of the Japanese Peruvians by the host country—from those initial rumblings to round-up and eventual deportation. Were you struck by parallels with Nazi Germany (in kind if not degree)?
8. Higashide felt guilty for naming Mr. Yamoshira as the past president of the Japanese Association, especially as Yamoshira was singled out before Hagashide was. Was Higashide at fault?
9. The Lima officer in charge of deportation told Higashide that he had to operate under "the demand of the United States. We are not in a position to take opposing measures," he claimed. What U.S. national interest was at stake in Peru at that time? How genuine, or serious, was the threat by Peruvian Japanese to the U.S. war effort?
10. Discuss this lengthy passage by Higashide. Its sentiment lies at the heart of his book. Higashide had always looked upon America as the "model for the rest of the world." He goes on to say, however, that regarding their deportation from Peru and internment on U.S. soil ...
Americans in the United States also were not blameless. Why had that country moved to take such unacceptable measures? Where was the spirit of individual rights and justice that filled the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. If I termed Peru, even provisionally, a "third rate country," was not American, in this instance, no different? [Sic]
Even if under emergency wartime conditions, was America not in violation of individual rights? This was not, I felt, only a matter of inter-national law, it was a broader issue of human rights. Of course, undeniably, the Axis powers perpetrated similar outrages, yet could I not hope that America alone would not do so?
Does American safety ever trump the protection of individual rights? If so, at what point, and who makes the determination? If not, how is American safety to be ensured? In either case, what kind of oversight should be put in place?
11. Eventually, the U.S. referred to the Japanese Peruvians as "enemy aliens" by the U.S. What similarities might exist with regards to suspected terrorists after 9/11?
12. Discuss conditions of the camp in Crystal City, Texas. At one point, Higashide called it a "barbed-wire utopia." What did he mean by that phrase? Did the conditions, even if humane... or even pleasant, justify the policy of internment or make it perhaps acceptable?
13. Talk about the irony that after the war 12 Central and South American counties refused to allow the Japanese internees re-entry—and, as a result, the internees came to be classified as "illegal immigrants" by the U.S.
14. Regarding the tragic circumstances of Mr. Wantanabe (who died shortly after his wife, the two having been reunited after a 10-year separation), Higashide said, "A life disrupted could not be healed and reconstructed as before." Couldn't this same statement apply equally to all peoples involved in war? Or was there something different about the Peruvian Japanese interned in the U.S?
15. Why did Higashide decide to remain in the U.S? And, again, what obstacles did he and his family face in creating a life and eventually becoming citizens.
16. One of the central questions this book raises, particularly in the forward by C. Harvey Gardiner, is the lack of redress by the U.S. for Latin American Japanese internees? In 1988 Japanese American internees received an official apology and $20,000 from the U.S.—and that took more than 45 years. In 1998, as part of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by Latin American Japanese, the U.S. offered an apology and $5,000. Some accepted, though hundreds refused the settlement as unfair. Other lawsuits since have been filed and dismissed. Discuss the fairness—or unfairness—of this lack of proper redress. (See Campaign for Justice press release, 8/7/08)
The ultimate questions raised by this book concern current U.S. policy:
- Could this kind of internment happen in the U.S. today?
- Is it happening now?
- Should internment (secret or otherwise) ever be permitted in order to protect U.S. lives?
- Who makes that determination?
- How do we safeguard human rights when some, inside or outside our borders, using covert means, would threaten American lives?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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