Shikata ga nai

by daithí

each leaf

remembers the feeling of branches

–Micah Tasaka–

Imagine if the voices that we heard went back at least 5 generations.

With the exception of Indigenous people here on unceded territory–or migrants who just arrived–few Americans refer to great grandparents and other descendants. Our consumptive culture moves us only forward, as if what is of value is right before us and new.

Co-editors Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda have just published an anthology called The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration that will move us all toward such depth. It is a comprehensive gathering of memories that begins with first-generation Japanese-Americans up to and including the fifth-generation through their written poems.

In her foreword, Mitsuye Yamada (101 years at the time), wrote:

This anthology gathers a wide breadth of voices and reflections on a unified subject, offering a myriad of themes and ideas as diverse as the voices that share them. These writers offer fragments of their family stories; a thoughtful documentation of survivors' denial, anger, grief and triumphs passed down through generations, capturing an array of experiences from the profoundly emotional to mundane day-to-day life. (p. xv)

Having just finished reading the book, I personally can testify that it is a remarkable book because of its span and breadth.

Some of us may be familiar with Manzanar ( a WWII concentration camp in California) as an unfortunate event in American history. So unfortunate in that close to 150,000 people were placed in “camps,” told to bring no more than 150 pounds in personal possessions and that anyone with Japanese ancestry was removed from 108 military areas in the United States. Canada followed suit.

Rather than practicing erasure of history that is not comfortable, Saito and Shimoda have done an excellent job of culling poems that show the depth of suffering as well as compassion by those held behind barbed wire. If only more of us could absorb the multitude of voices about what happens when human beings are treated inhumanely. Then, and only then, we can stop saying in Japanese, “Shikata ga nai.” Translated into English, the phrase means “it cannot be helped.”

Then we might, like 600 Japanese Americans, show up at a Northwest Detention Center during a snow storm to fold thousands of origami cranes. Thousands of origami cranes for the women and children being detained there by ICE in 2020 on the Day of Remembrance. And on that day, Michael Ishii read his poem, “Tsuru for Solidarity.” It too can be found within this substantive anthology.

Note: The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration, published by Haymarket Press, 2025, Brynn Saito, Brandon Shimoda (coeditors).