A review by sophc996
Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir by Elizabeth Miki Brina

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

4.5 stars - a heartstirring, raw, impossibly vibrant memoir of brina’s life as the daughter of an american soldier and his korean war bride. brina writes with candidness and deep emotion about her complicated relationship with her parents, especially her mother, and her evolving view of her asian identity more broadly. there is something terribly moving about the chapters of this book where brina recounts how she treated her mother as a child, the regret she feels for never understanding what it must have taken for her mother to leave her home in okinawa and marry a man she hardly knew. prescient too is her examination of her father’s political views and how little they resemble the version of him she remembers protecting her as a child. my one gripe is with the chapters where she goes into okinawa’s history of occupation — it feels like too ambitious of a project for such a short book, and i question the use of “we” as a narrative device. if they were part of conversations she had with her relatives — even recognizing the language barrier — they would have felt much more personal and true to form.