Reader, I’ve been at this blank page now for something approaching fifteen minutes. My problem is very simple – I like to start these ‘reading reviews’ with at least a token summary of the book in question but I’m having a tremendously difficult time describing exactly what Letters to Memory is all about. In a time like this, perhaps the best approach is to simply take a step back, approach the task methodically, and try not to accomplish too much with one sentence or paragraph.
So, Letters to Memory – what does the title mean? I think it notes the loose theme the author bases this collection on. For Yamashita, each essay, letter, or photograph she gets her hands on is a new key that unlocks an old memory. The specific details of the source don’t really matter – it could be a government notice describing the reasoning (‘reasoning’) behind WWII Japanese-American relocation, a yellowing decades-old photograph of her extended family, or a letter written from one cousin to another at an unknown date. As Yamashita points out, the dead usually leave behind a lifetime of stuff and embedded in each of those objects is the lingering spirit guide who knows the way back to a long-lost recollection.
The author is a Japanese-American. I write that tentatively, Japanese-American, knowing my own exasperation and frustration with the magical hyphen that seems to take away a lot more than it offers. It’s not a plus sign for a reason, you know? I think Yamashita would be fine with my use of it, though – when she notes how ‘Japanese-Hyphenated-Americans’ seem to have a certain compulsion to leave places such as picnic tables, rental units, and
As for the book itself, on balance I think it occupies an important but underrepresented niche in the literary world – books that meditate on the implications of a homeland. There is a strong case for the importance of feeling rooted in a place. And from my experience, saying that someone ‘never forgets where she/he came from’ is considered a positive remark. But there is also the other side of the idea that begs the question – why must our birthplace or family origins play such an important role in who we become?
The contradiction raised by The Homeland might be the biggest challenge I’ve struggled to face. Letters to Memory doesn’t have anything specific to say about this challenge but it does acknowledge at least how the dream of a homeland is simultaneously the most beautiful and most dangerous creation of the mind. How we collectively approach this same contradiction at the societal level seems like it will be the biggest challenge humanity will face over the course of my remaining lifetime.
