Karen Tei Yamashita - Letters to Memory

Also by Karen Tei Yamashita

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Dear Reader:

In 1995, while packing up the contents of her Chicago apartment in preparation to move to a retirement village in California, Kay Yamashita suffered a stroke, fell into a coma, and died. When introducing herself to others elsewhere, Kay had always announced that she was from Chicago. This city seemed to be a part of her persona; she planned to have her ashes scattered across Lake Michigan. I thought she would never leave Chicago, and she didnt. Chizu, older sister and close companion, flew to be with Kay until she died. I, too, took a flight from Los Angeles, wanting to be with my two Chicago aunties one last time. Probably every cousin of my generation at some point lived with or was hosted by Chiz and Kay in Chicago. Some of us got jobs at Cook County Hospital, where Chiz was a nurse. We toured the Chicago Art Institute as guest members; enjoyed invites to the opera, ballet, or symphony; were feted in restaurants beyond our means, taken shopping to improve our wardrobe, and instructed on which wine and what dinner course; and in short, were reminded constantly that Chicago was not a hick town but a cosmopolitan center of art, culture, architecture, and politics. Now that I think about it, I realize it wasnt really Chicago as chic city that mattered so much as Kays relationship to it, her assumption of urbanity and stylish elegance.

When I arrived at Kays fourteenth-floor studio apartment at Sandburg Terrace, I found that its carefully spare decor of Asian art and furnishings was now a packed clutter of boxes. Where, I wondered, had all this stuff been stored in that tiny apartment? I slept on the large sofa at one end of the room, and Chiz slept on the small twin bed at the other. Between us was a maze of disorganized hoarding. Awoken in the middle of the night, I wandered around her lifes accumulationphotos, books, cards, magazines, art, clothing, taxes, dishes, knickknacks, souvenirs. It was all too much, this boxing and discarding. The doorman had found her crumpled in the corridor near the door, unable to escape. In the dark, squeezing between boxed walls, I found my way to the other side of the room where Chiz slept. I stood there watching her, puzzled as to why I felt so lost. Suddenly Chiz awoke, astounded, seeing me standing in my nightgown like a dumb little kid. She sat up and grabbed me, embraced me with urgency, and I found myself enfolded in safety and sadness.

In the next days, among the stacks of Kays stuff, we found two manila folders containing onionskin copies of typed letters. One folder was a set of letters addressed to nisei students relocated during the war from camps to colleges and universities outside of the West Coast. This was Kays wartime work for Nisei Student Relocation. The second folder contained personal correspondence; this folder I slipped away for myself. I did not ask permission, but I also did not really read the letters until many years later, after the passing of the last of the seven Yamashita siblings: Chizu, three years after Kay in 1998, and sister Iyo in 2004.

What all of us children of the Yamashitas discovered is what every partner, child, designated relative, or friend understands about the dead: they leave stuff behind, and, depending, it could be a lota lifetime of stuff. When my cousins figured out that I could somehow be a useful repository of the past, they began to send me, well, everything. Boxes and envelopes arrived, piled up, the musty air of attics and garages seeping forth. When I got the university library special collections involved, my sister, Jane Tomi, exclaimed, This is brilliant! and unloaded more stuff. Gradually, we collected an archive of our parents correspondencethis residue of their thinking and writing lives shared across the world and now across time.

Today, there is certainly much more in this archive than the original wartime letters. Hundreds of photographs and documents, pamphlets and paintings, homemade films and audiotapes and gramophone records, and diaries have been added. You may examine and peruse this material for yourself. For myself, I have extracted a sliver of this record to ponder some questions. I admit mine is a different or particular way of reading and seeing our story, and I ask only for your curiosity and careful intelligence. Readergentle, critical, or however, I count on you, as another guide through this labyrinth.

With respect,