Unfinished Dreams

This weekend and last, 3 University of California campuses held ceremonies which conferred honorary degrees to people of Japanese decent whose collegiate education was derailed by the Japanese Internment during World War II.

Today, I was lucky enough to attend the ceremony at UC Berkeley.

http://honorary.universityofcalifornia.edu/ Take some time to watch the videos; they are worth the few minutes.

I also had the privilege of attending a luncheon for the students (who are now around 80-90 years old) where I was able to see them as people rather than specks from the Haas Pavilion bleachers. I didn't know any of them personally, so I hovered around the edges of the ballroom watching and listening. Many of the recipients of the honorary degrees came with their families, who loyally assisted by walking and wheeling their honorees around the ballroom. One woman, dispersed by the Internment, flew back to college from Texas to receive her degree.

These Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) students had their educations interrupted by war and wartime hysteria. Some said they continued their studies elsewhere, but most others said the diaspora after the Internment permanently altered their professional dreams.

And in their sagging eyes and sun-blotched skin, I saw my Nisei grandmother. Just a few miles away in Oakland, she said she'd rather stay home and watch my dog as I went to the event.

Though she did not go to college, I know her intent was to become a nurse. But the Internment altered those plans, and, moving to Minnesota after Topaz, she traded her white gloves for black-stained hands from the acid of peeling tomatoes.

After the ceremony, I went back to her house and told her about the day. I tried to tell her how strange and surreal it was. About how I've never seen so many Japanese honored before. But for all my excitement and awe, she returned a genuine but terse, "That's nice."

For a participant of the Internment, she rarely speaks of it; and in return, neither do I. All I could do was write this blog for her, even though I know she'll never read it.

I may not become a nurse, Grandma, but I'll walk your unfinished dreams to lucid sunlight.