Hiroshima in the Morning

Acknowledgments

334| Acknowledgments| I went to Hiroshima in June 2001 as a US/Japan Fellow to live for six months and to research a novel. I interviewed many survivors and spent a lot of time with the peace activists; the September 11 attacks exploded my world; my marriage unraveled. But just as memory records blame and relives joy in ways that others who were there may not agree with, this version of events is distinctly my own creation. This narrative was written to explore how we tell our stories. The voices of the atomic bomb survivors are “fact”—culled from transcripts and translations from more thirty hibakusha testimonies . The rest I have recreated with deliberation: I have changed names, omitted extraneous details, and occasionally fiddled with the clock. Ami is a composite character—the consequence of having had so many different people help me during my time there, including more than ten interpreters. I am also sure that, over ten years, my memory has failed me. Ultimately, this memoir is best read as a reflection of who I believe myself to be as I write these words. My deep gratitude to the US Japan Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs for the fellowship that became a life-changing opportunity . The generosity and assistance of the Hiroshima community was astounding and indispensable; I could not have begun my research there without the help and friendship of so many people, including Christopher Blasdel, Professor Kan Katayanagi , Keiko Ogura, Marie Tsuruda, Masumi Takabayashi, 335 Hiko and Nancy Tokita, Mary Hamaji, Professor Rinjiro Sodei, Shoichi Fuji, and Kenji Mito. My wonderful guides, translators, and friends include Megumi Shimo, Mika Yoshida, Kazuko Enami, Stephen Outlaw-Spruell, Toshikazu Sumida, Noritoshi Narita, Shizuo Inoue, Michiko Yamane, and Keiko Miyamoto. I was also given great support by the Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace, the Hiroshima YMCA, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the Chugoku Shinbun, the International House of Japan, the American Consulate in Japan, the World Friendship Center, and the Radiation Effects Research Foundation . Also, in California, the Friends of the Hibakusha. More than thirty people shared their stories with me, including Hiromu Morishita , Keiko Murakami, Michiko Yamaoka, Nobuko Ueno, Isao Aratani, Dr. Hiroe Hamano, Dixie Setoyama, Yachiyo Kato, Dr. Fumiko Kaya, Yasuko Uemoto, Suzie Sunamoto, Tatsuko Yasui, Kosuke Shishido, Pierce Fukuhara, Mitsuko Yamamoto, Nobue Hashimoto, Mamoru Hamasaki, Pe Hak Te, Chieko Tabata, Hajime Tsukamoto, Dr. and Mrs. Takeko Nakayama, Chioko Kono, Violet Kazue de Cristoforo, Tokio Yamane, Mr. Kanaoka, Akira Nakano, Katsuko Kaimatchi, Tadashi and Sumako Matsuyanagi , Yasuhiko Taketa, Dr. Kohei Daikoku, Rev. Ryoga Suwa, and the others who asked me not to acknowledge them by name. I will never forget their courage and their honesty. I have shelves full of books on Hiroshima, the internment camps, and the Japanese Americans. Here, I want to acknowledge two indispensible works that are referenced in this text: Where We The Enemy?: American Survivors of Hiroshima by Rinjiro Sodei who I had the privilege of meeting at Hosei University in Tokyo (Westview Press, 1998), and And Justice For All: An Oral History of the American Detention Camps, by John Tateishi (Random 336 House, 1984). I first encountered the quote I have taken my title from in Carolyn Forche’s poem “Testimony of Light” (The Angel of History, Harper Perennial, 1994). The poem borrows it from Peter Schwenger’s book, Letter Bomb: Nuclear Holocaust and the Exploding Word (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). A book is more than its research, and a memoir is more than the life lived. It is born in the aftermath. To my family; to my family of friends; to my family of writer friends, and teacher friends, and student friends—to everyone who read this book in any of its many incarnations or helped bring it into the world, everyone who believed in me and lived with me while I wrestled it from life to art: thank you for your generosity, and support, and love. Although I can’t name all the people who have touched it with their grace and talent during the past decade, I would like to acknowledge Kenny Fries, Beth Kephart, Eloise Flood, Bino Realuyo, Tina Nguyen, John Searcy, Prageeta Sharma, Kate Moses, Ming Yuen-Schat, Majo Tinoco, Manisha Sharma, Jonathan Hadley, Pat Klesinger, Rebecca Brown, Elena Georgiou, and Douglas A. Martin. Abiding thanks to Ellen Levine at Trident and Amy Scholder at...