I Call To Remembrance By Toyo Suyemoto Summary

Toyo Suyemoto’s memoir of her experiences at the Tanforan Race Track and Topaz Relocation Center is the embodiment of perseverance in difficult times. War time is never easy but being relocated because of ancestry, losing all belongings, and going to a strange new place is even harder. In I Call to Remembrance by Toyo Suyemoto describes the horrific fear of being uprooted from her life. Throughout the book Suyemoto describes how much the Japanese-Americans had to endure throughout World War II but always brought back the Japanese idea of shikata ga ni and gaman. These ideas of accepting what must be and perseverance in the face of adversity are reflected throughout the memoir and are shown in many different examples of adversity. On December

The wood in the barracks would dry up in the summer and create a two-inch gap between the planks causing the dry sand to drift into the rooms and coat the window sills in a fine layer of dust. Instead of complaints from the Japanese-Americans they simply dealt with the dust by sweeping it out of the room knowing full well they would have to do it again tomorrow. There was no running water or bathroom facilities and the first night there Suyemoto had to use her coats and sweaters as temporary mattresses since only two were delivered. She was stripped of all luxuries and her family name become a series of numbers yet Suyemoto herself states that “the only way to survive was to adjust to conditions in this war-created

Suyemoto remarks “I could not grieve now, when Mother especially would not express her misgivings in tears.” Suyemoto’s mother’s attitude was the raw, untampered idea of shikata ga ni and gaman. Her mother is reflected throughout the memoir as a woman of strength and perseverance. She did not let the camps destroy her but instead made something ugly into something beautiful rendered with the loving touch of a mother and memories. Suyemoto modeled herself after her mother. She understood that they were not longer free not at “a desolate place, hemmed in by barbed wire and the elements.” When they arrived Suyemoto and the Boy Scouts started to play the familiar tune of the University of California, “I wanted to hide my face and weep for what could never be again. But not before all those people.” As much as the arrival was foreboding Suyemoto never did weep for the loss of her old life but instead squared her shoulders and persevered in adversity against the