Rising Son: Sunny Skies in America

Sunny Skies in America

I recall during my college days, where I majored in music, my mother handing me a note with some lyrics she wrote. She wanted me to write a song from them. I lost the note, but I remember the meaning of the words.

One phrase I can still remember...

"sunny skies in America"

She wrote about a conversation she once had with her younger sister, about explaining to her why she was leaving her. My mother and her sister, Yoko, lived together in Tokyo when the two of them were in their 20's. In 1964, my mom met my dad and they married a year later.

He was a sailor in the U.S. Navy; his boat was docked in Tokyo and he was in town looking for fun. I suppose in those times, a Japanese girl dating an American service man was like hitting the jackpot, because it meant going to America if she married him. When they married, he took her to Hawaii where his boat was headed.

My mom saw this as a chance to start a new life, hence the words "sunny skies". Up until then, her skies were always dark.

The interesting thing is that my mother's mother did the same thing earlier before, but she met and married a U.S. Air Force sergeant. This took place when my mom was 10 years old. Instead of taking my mom and her sister with them to the United States, she instead placed them in the care of her father (my mother's grandfather). In other words, she abandoned her daughters in exchange for a new life.

That seems to be a theme on my mother's side of the family, sacrificing the one thing most dear to them, in exchange for the opportunity to run away.

The dark skies that my mother lived under stemmed from the abandonment by her mother. She still doesn't forgive her mother for this, and I wouldn't blame her. My grandmother will probably take that sacrifice to her grave, knowing her, I'm not sure she really feels shame from it.

My mother and her sister were abused by their grandfather. His wife was actually his second, their step-grandmother. My mother tells me that she considers her her real mother, because she was the only who wanted her and loved her.

Their grandfather, Jitsutaro Ito, was actually a wealthy man, the owner of some kind of architectural firm in Tokyo. But he lived well outside of Tokyo, on a large parcel of land and operated a small farm there. My mother and her sister had the job of farm hands, growing and picking all the vegetables, cleaning the house, and doing pretty much all the labor.

He wouldn't even buy them tooth powder. She said she and Yoko would scrape sulfer from some rocks and clean their teeth with it. He provided them with just a few sets of clothes, and made them pick and hunt their own food. She told me about having to hunt sparrows. Remember, this was a wealthy man.

My mother ran away at 16 years of age, and managed to find jobs in Tokyo and Yokohama. Eventually, Yoko left home several years later, and the two of them lived together for awhile.

The truth is that when my mother finally did arrive in the USA, she found sunny skies only briefly. After that, it's been a long struggle to find happiness, and I'm not sure she hasn't stopped looking. But if you ask her, she'll tell you that coming to America was the best move she ever made.