I discover a "lost" aunt, separated from our
family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental
disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942 when all
Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. She then became a
"ward" of the state. We believed she had died, but 70 years later
found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive?
Why was she kept hidden? How did both shame and resilience empower my family to
forge forward in a land that did not want them? I am haunted and driven to
explore my identity and the meaning of family—especially as farmers tied to the
land. I uncover family secrets that bind us to a sense of history buried in the
earth that we work and a sense of place that defines us.
