{"id":37986,"date":"2017-09-24T22:01:38","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T04:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=37986"},"modified":"2025-11-04T17:29:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T00:29:24","slug":"unnaturalized-generations-robert-terashima-explores-japanese-american-identity-in-a-new-chapbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/unnaturalized-generations-robert-terashima-explores-japanese-american-identity-in-a-new-chapbook\/","title":{"rendered":"Unnaturalized Generations: Robert Terashima Explores Japanese-American Identity in a New Chapbook"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>In 1966, Salt Lake City\u2019s \u201cJapan Town\u201d was demolished to build the Salt Palace Convention Center, taking with it a deep cultural memory of institutionalized prejudice. Although many Japanese immigrants came to America between 1884 and 1907, Asian immigrants were prevented from becoming naturalized citizens until 1952. A ban on Asian immigration after 1907 led to distinct generations of Japanese-Americans:\u00a0Issei<\/em>\u00a0who were born in Japan and ineligible for U.S. citizenship; their children, called\u00a0Nisei,<\/em>\u00a0who were citizens by birth;<\/em>\u00a0and their grandchildren, called\u00a0Sansei<\/em>. Excluded from full civic participation, Japanese immigrants set up businesses in segregated urban neighborhoods known as \u201cJapantowns.\u201d After the attack on Pearl Harbor, prejudice erupted and people of Japanese ancestry were relocated from the West Coast to various internment camps such as Topaz near Delta, Utah, which operated between 1942-45. If you don\u2019t know this history, Robert Terashima\u2019s poems offer a haiku-like crash course.Robert Terashima is third generation Japanese-American (Sansei)<\/em>\u00a0from Utah. His chapbook offers a family history told in pared-down Japanese-style poems. Brief historical notes provide context for non-Japanese readers. For instance, the cover illustration of a Japanese farmworker in Hawaii relates to the poem \u201cMigrant:\u201d<\/p>\n

Unexpectedly you turned up
\nin a pineapple field
\npicture in my history book<\/em><\/p>\n

In \u201cPearl Harbor Day,\u201d the poet\u2019s father and uncles are returning from duck hunting near Utah Lake, unaware of what has happened:<\/p>\n

With shotguns\u2013
\nFaces slant-eyed
\nsmiling.<\/em><\/p>\n

Terashima\u2019s poem deftly pulls layers of history onto the image of Japanese men with guns on the eve of World War II. The explanatory note declares, \u201cwe find this [poem] racist,\u201d and then quotes Simon Young of the Asian-American band The Slants, who says that when people complain about the band\u2019s name, \u201cI thank them for being offended on my behalf.\u201d Last summer The Slants won a U.S. Supreme Court case allowing the band to trademark their name after it had been rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for being too offensive. The decision in\u00a0Matal v. Tam<\/em>\u00a0notes that \u201cSimon Tam, lead singer of the rock group \u2018The Slants,\u2019 chose this moniker in order to \u201creclaim\u201d the term and drain its denigrating force as a derogatory term for Asian persons.\u201d These outwardly simple poems are more complicated than they seem.<\/p>\n

Likewise, \u201cUtah 1945\u201d starts with an overheard comment: \u201cThey\u2019re Japs. Let\u2019s string \u2018em up<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ichiro
\nless than five
\nfoot three<\/em><\/p>\n

Hesitates at the diner door<\/em><\/p>\n

You can feel the terror of what might happen, though in the poem the worst does not.<\/p>\n

Inevitably, Japanese-American citizens end up in the American melting pot. In 1966, Terashima avoids the draft, classified 4-F because of fused fingers, but is nonetheless found eligible for medical service, when ironically the other workers stand up,<\/p>\n

to shake my hand
\ncalling me a patriot<\/em><\/p>\n

In the concluding poem, the poet notices previously unseen figures in a Japanese ink brush painting,<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t that
\nsomething!<\/em><\/p>\n

To see it now
\nafter all
\nthese years!<\/em><\/p>\n

Terashima\u2019s themes of Japanese-American history and identity invite comparison to Brian Komei Dempster\u2019s \u201cTopaz,\u201d which won the\u00a02014 15-Bytes Book Award in poetry<\/a>. Comparatively, Terashima\u2019s poetry reads like a commentary on history, aiming specifically to awaken awareness of the past, and the historical notes emphasize each poem as a reaction to a specific event. By contrast, Dempster who is half-Japanese, half-white is far less certain of what things look like after all these years, and his powerful poetic exploration of Japanese-American identity comes across as more philosophical and complex. While Terashima\u2019s poems react to what happened, Dempster\u2019s poems explore how unfinished history persists into the present. The two books practically beg to be read together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Issei and Other Poems<\/em>
\nRobert Terashima.
\n(Philadelphia:\u00a0Plan B Press<\/a>)
\n2017
\n37 pp.
\n$13<\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1966, Salt Lake City\u2019s \u201cJapan Town\u201d was demolished to build the Salt Palace Convention Center, taking with it a deep cultural memory of institutionalized prejudice. Although many Japanese immigrants came to America between 1884 and 1907, Asian immigrants were prevented from becoming naturalized citizens until 1952. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1518,"featured_media":37987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[3231],"class_list":["post-37986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bytes","tag-robert-terashima"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/issei-636x800.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 10:34:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37986"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97706,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37986\/revisions\/97706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}