Courtesy of Joe Soong
Life Story Class is a writing group composed
of women in their 70s, 80s, and 90s in Long Beach.

Rose Yamauchi, left, and Mary Nakazawa.

On a Satur­day morning, eight of us sat in a second floor classroom at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. We were in the midst of a six week writing class taught by Naomi Hirahara, author of the Mas Arai series of novels and a former Rafu Shimpo editor.

It was time to present our weekly writing homework to the class. One by one, our stories were read aloud and it was clear that all were written with care. But there was a story, writ­ten by Rose Yamauchi, that stood out from the others. Heard at one of her family reunions, Rose’s recollection of a story from her late husband’s youth was striking descriptive. Her writing brought back images of a past lifestyle that was nearly forgotten.

She detailed how a family’s life revolved around the making of tofu. Soy beans were soaked and ground, al­lowed to curdle in brine, and pressed. Five gallon galvanized tin containers were filled with tofu squares, loaded into the Graham truck and delivered to eagerly waiting customers in cities with names such as Salinas, Hollister, and Gonzales. Listening to her story, I could almost taste the nearly sweet flavor of freshly made tofu.

Later, I found that part of the reason why her writing seem so vivid was that she, along with Mary Nakazawa, who was also in Hirahara’s class, had been practicing their craft in the Life Story Class, a writing group com­posed of women mostly in their 70s and 80s, with the oldest in her early 90s. At Mary’s invitation, I attended one of the group’s weekly meetings, held Thursday mornings in the Youth Room at St. Cyprian Church in Long Beach, Calif.

In the class, I listened to the Life Story Class members read the personal stories they had written on a topic that was assigned the previous week. Each story was unique, reflecting the per­sonality and life experience of the au­thor. Some were poignant, some were funny. Some of the stories were brief, while others were more detailed.

To keep writing week after week might seem like a daunting task, but the class found their own memories were triggered when they heard personal recollections from the other group members. One person’s experi­ence might remind another member about a long forgotten event in their own life.

Members also took turns running the class for a month at a time. This rotation helps keep everyone active and involved in the class, which has been meeting for more than ten years and has about a dozen active partici­pants. The class is not exclusively for women and there have been men in the group at times, explained Rose, but none were currently members.

To memorialize their life experi­ences, the group has self-published several collections of their stories. Their first work, “Memories in Words and Verse,’’ came out in 1999. In 2002, they assembled their recollections during the World War II years in “The Way We Were: Wartime Homefront and Frontline Stories.”

Completed in 2007, their most recent work was titled “Down But Not Out,” a compi­lation of their personal expe­riences in the Great Depres­sion. Rose said that the subject of the group’s next compila­tion would be either on the women’s libera­tion movement or on life after World War II. Another high­light was their participation in the “Greatest Generation” celebration a few years ago. They appeared at Millikan High School in Long Beach to read some of their stories to the school’s appreciative students.

I asked Mary and Rose about what inspired each of them to write and what they had learned from the Life Story Class.

Mary, a retired medical technician, has been with the group for four years and saw the weekly writing class as motivation to continue writing, while also acting as a support network.

Mary originally met Rose at a writer’s conference led by Hirahara at JANM in 2004. At the conference, Rose invited Mary to join the group. Although they had not previously met, they discovered that both had been in Jerome during the war, but did not know each other at the time. Mary spent four years in camp, with one year in Jerome. Rose was interned for ten months, with four at Jerome, before going leaving for college.

The inspiration for Nakazawa’s writing came from several old photos that originally belonged to her mother, who died in 1991 at the age of 90. For several years after the end of World War II, Mary’s mother, who was in the United States, sent weekly aid packages of American goods, includ­ing clothing, food, and coffee, to her relatives in Japan, many of whom were living in poverty.

In 1952, when Mary’s mother went to Japan to visit her family, her grateful relatives, in appreciation, told her that she could have anything they pos­sessed. She asked for photographs of her family, including those of Mary’s grandmother and great grandparents and brought the photos back to the U.S. The pictures eventually came into Mary’s possession and inspired her to write about her parents.

Retired as a pharmacist in 1989, Rose wanted to document the lives of her parents and the history of the greater Japanese-American communi­ty for her children and grandchildren. She realized that when her generation passed away, their stories would be lost to future generations.

A reminder on how easily memo­ries can be lost came when her so Mark mentioned to Rose that she should write about how she and her husband had met. Since it was clear to her how she and her husband had met, Rose, at first, thought the topic was too obvious. But then she realized that it if wasn’t so clear to her son and probably even less clear to her two grandchildren, then it needed to be documented.

To that end, in addition to contrib­uting to the Class’ anthologies, Rose completed a collection of remem­brances of her own parents’ lives, including photos of the original Japa­nese passports they used to emigrate to the United States in the early 1900s.

Yamauchi, who has been with the Life Story Class since its inception, said that writing was easier than she thought and, as an unexpected benefit, provided a link to others that she didn’t know existed. Even though she and Mary were the only asian members in the group, there were common life experiences that crossed racial lines.

Many had grown up in large families and could relate to each other when they shared similar childhood stories. Other experiences, such as the hardships suffered in the Depression, made them realize that some events af­fected everyone, regardless of race.

Rose and Mary also had an op­portunity to tell about experiences unique to their Japanese-American background. Anti-Japanese restric­tion laws and the forced relocation to interment camps were unknown to many of the group’s members and were eye-opening, especially for those who lived in the Midwest, as they learned about the adversity and discrimination Japanese Americans had to endure. After the weekly meet­ing of the class had concluded, I had some time to pass as Rose drove some of the members home. While I waited in the Youth Room, I was joined by two ladies from the group, both of whom graciously insisted on keeping me company until I was able to rejoin Rose and Mary.

Although I had only briefly spoken with them during the class, the three of us now talked like old friends about our writing, our families, and anything that came to mind. Perhaps they had appointments they needed to rush off to, perhaps not. They never mentioned it and, instead, shared their time and their thoughts with me, as if it were their pleasure.

After meeting the women of the Life Stories Class, it occurred to me that it was actually the other way around. In the presence of their grace and wisdom, the pleasure was all mine.

Thanks to Rose, Mary, Margaret Noriega, Betty Ray, Rosemarie Cole­man, Ruth Blake, Peg Cain, Marion Becker, Doris Gallion, Mary Ann Canavan, and Connie Pracht for their hospitality.
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Joe Soong writes from Alhambra. The opinions expressed in this col­umn are not necessarily those of The Rafu Shimpo.