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A review by atwoodcc
Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir by Elizabeth Miki Brina
4.0
This was a hard memoir to read. Probably because I sit here in Okinawa on a base that is loathed, and I know why it’s loathed, and still I love this island and the people here.
Elizabeth’s memoir is really interesting - combining stories from her parent’s marriage before she was born, her trips to Okinawa, and feeling like an outsider in the United States because she was the only Asian kid in her town in New York.
There is so much history in Okinawa that clearly pervades Elizabeth’s being, and I think she connects these dots of herself, her parents, and the island so beautifully.
“My mother before me is a story. A story she can’t tell me in her own language. A story, she claims, she barely remembers. Or maybe she doesn’t want to remember. Or maybe she can’t remember because she was never taught how to remember. Because she was never told her life is important enough to remember. . I am trying to tell her now that her life is important enough to remember.”
Elizabeth’s memoir is really interesting - combining stories from her parent’s marriage before she was born, her trips to Okinawa, and feeling like an outsider in the United States because she was the only Asian kid in her town in New York.
There is so much history in Okinawa that clearly pervades Elizabeth’s being, and I think she connects these dots of herself, her parents, and the island so beautifully.
“My mother before me is a story. A story she can’t tell me in her own language. A story, she claims, she barely remembers. Or maybe she doesn’t want to remember. Or maybe she can’t remember because she was never taught how to remember. Because she was never told her life is important enough to remember. . I am trying to tell her now that her life is important enough to remember.”