It's tough writing about your family, even tougher I think writing about your Japanese Grandmother when she was the heart + soul of your family as mine was. Years after she passed away, I'm still trying to understand how much of my own cultural identity came from her, from our conversations, our meals + our holiday traditions, from her stories of Japan + of our Japanese family in Tokyo + Osaka. After taking a class on war + memory with Viet Nguyen at USC during my early PhD years, Viet allowed me to write a lyrical essay instead of an analytical one for our final paper, which was an amazing blessing. After a lot of intermittent revision over two years + more recently with the CNF editor at
Kartika Review, Jennifer Derilo (who I respect/adore), my lyrical essay "The Transfusion of Yukiyo Kanahashi" is now live. In many ways, it's heartbreaking + raw + honest + powerful. But my hope is that this essay will keep her memory alive while also providing me (+ the reader) the space to take apart our own preconceptions about our selves while celebrating the erosion of memory + even life. I make no bold claims about this essay except that it helped me celebrate my sobo's life + the Japanese ancestry in our family while also giving me the cultural + emotional space to finally let go of her + share my imperfect memory of her with the world (reader). If you wanna buy a black and white hardcopy of issue 15, go
here. If you don't have funds to drop, you can also read my essay on line
here.
