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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
“Yet these memories are impossible to forget, regardless of whether we actually lived through them. I believe they stay in our bodies. As sickness, as addiction, as poor posture or a tendency toward apology, as a deepened capacity for sadness or anger. As determination to survive, a relentless tempered optimism. I believe they are inherited, passed on to us like brown eyes or the shape of a nose.”
“Eventually I realized that the world is certainly big enough for her English, for all Englishes, for all the languages and dialects, each one another history, another journey, another map by which we discover ourselves. Eventually I realized that it is my responsibility to understand her, not her responsibility to make herself understood. But it took too long.”
“Sometimes, in real life, change can happen in an instant. This change, this epiphany of connection, that her trauma is my trauma, that our pain comes from the same source—this change is permanent. But sometimes, at first, it doesn’t last. It goes away and comes back. Then goes away and comes back.”
“I am trying to tell her now that her life is important enough to remember.”
“Maybe the gravitation is nurtured, but maybe it is also hardwired. You look like me, you are family, you will keep me safe, you are home.”
“Sometimes I let the water go stale, let the roots go dry. Sometimes I forget to rub their leaves with my fingertips and wipe the dust off with a cloth. Some of the stalks turn yellow and soft, but new stalks grow, and I cut them off and place them in jars.”
“Maybe that’s not true anymore. Maybe not now, after forty years. But for my mother, time is condensed. For my mother, forty years ago is the distance between two ends of a fold.”
“Her apologies used to bother me. My apologies used to bother me. I used to equate apology with weakness, with lack of importance. I used to feel bad for feeling bad for taking up too much space. Now I am grateful. So much wrong happens in the world, and there is never enough apology.”
“Eventually I realized that the world is certainly big enough for her English, for all Englishes, for all the languages and dialects, each one another history, another journey, another map by which we discover ourselves. Eventually I realized that it is my responsibility to understand her, not her responsibility to make herself understood. But it took too long.”
“Sometimes, in real life, change can happen in an instant. This change, this epiphany of connection, that her trauma is my trauma, that our pain comes from the same source—this change is permanent. But sometimes, at first, it doesn’t last. It goes away and comes back. Then goes away and comes back.”
“I am trying to tell her now that her life is important enough to remember.”
“Maybe the gravitation is nurtured, but maybe it is also hardwired. You look like me, you are family, you will keep me safe, you are home.”
“Sometimes I let the water go stale, let the roots go dry. Sometimes I forget to rub their leaves with my fingertips and wipe the dust off with a cloth. Some of the stalks turn yellow and soft, but new stalks grow, and I cut them off and place them in jars.”
“Maybe that’s not true anymore. Maybe not now, after forty years. But for my mother, time is condensed. For my mother, forty years ago is the distance between two ends of a fold.”
“Her apologies used to bother me. My apologies used to bother me. I used to equate apology with weakness, with lack of importance. I used to feel bad for feeling bad for taking up too much space. Now I am grateful. So much wrong happens in the world, and there is never enough apology.”
I should probably start by saying I am not an unbiased rater. I am half-Okinawan, half-white, and the joy at finding this memoir cannot be adequately expressed. Audiobook reas by someone WITH. MY. NAME.
My story is not this story. My relationship with my mother is not this relationship. But the connection, the representation, the history, is mine. Thank you.
My story is not this story. My relationship with my mother is not this relationship. But the connection, the representation, the history, is mine. Thank you.
Compelling as all hell. So beautifully and richly told. I learned SO MUCH HISTORY about Okinawans and even what challenges they face now. An excellent memoir.
emotional
informative
medium-paced
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Beautiful, sad, and lovely, and exposes again my massive ignorance of so many of the amazing cultures and stories that are a part of this really complex world.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
This book is one of the hardest reads I’ve had in a while, and I read a lot of hard books. But it will stay with me.
Until now, my perception of the Okinawan/Ryukyu Islands and its people were that they had something of a distinct identity, but a distinctness in the way that people from separate areas of the United States are distinct from one another. In other words, I still saw them as inherently Japanese. Suffice to say, Speak, Okinawa provided me with quite an education on the matter that I am feeling quite grateful for.
However, that history lesson was something that I completely expected, and it was the main drive to seek out the book in the very first place. What I didn't expect was the extent to which the author going to share details from her own life. She brings forth a blunt, intense, and raw honesty as she talks about her family and her lifelong and still ongoing journey to understand her own identity. There are plenty of heart-wrenching and painful moments that are shared with a lack of hesitation that I honestly respect immensely. Also, although the story told here is uniquely and beautifully hers and hers alone, at the exact same time there managed to be points that felt more than a little familiar as she described her complex relationship with her parents and ongoing efforts to understand herself.
A major thanks to Elizabeth Mikki Brina for both the history lesson and her willingness to open herself up so much to readers like myself.
However, that history lesson was something that I completely expected, and it was the main drive to seek out the book in the very first place. What I didn't expect was the extent to which the author going to share details from her own life. She brings forth a blunt, intense, and raw honesty as she talks about her family and her lifelong and still ongoing journey to understand her own identity. There are plenty of heart-wrenching and painful moments that are shared with a lack of hesitation that I honestly respect immensely. Also, although the story told here is uniquely and beautifully hers and hers alone, at the exact same time there managed to be points that felt more than a little familiar as she described her complex relationship with her parents and ongoing efforts to understand herself.
A major thanks to Elizabeth Mikki Brina for both the history lesson and her willingness to open herself up so much to readers like myself.