Stories and Moving Pictures by Marlene Shigekawa

When I was six, I would watch my mother drive our 1949 blue and gray Chevy, observe how she would shift the gears and step on the clutch. I would memorize every movement so that when I grew up, I could drive my car like she did and alone go to a field or the beach and take my easel and paint the surrounding landscape or seascape. I wanted to be an artist.

When entering my elementary school cafeteria for lunch, I was surprised to see my drawing made from colored crayons hanging with other drawings. There on the wall was one drawing from each class. I remember drawing myself near the chicken coop where I would be feeding the chickens. Of course, in my creation there was the obligatory elementary school image of a sunburst in the upper right-hand corner, myself dressed in the yellow and brown poke-a-dot dress my mother had made and my black hair in pigtails. My mother always made sure that I was color coordinated. Yellow ribbons were tied to the end of my pigtails. Another time, when driving home from school with my mother, I saw giant red strawberries with faces adorning the windows of Curry’s ice cream shop. The following week, my drawing of giant red strawberries not only with faces but dancing legs greeted all that entered the cafeteria.

Why were my drawings displayed on the cafeteria wall not just one week but several? The pictures I had in my head traveled from me to that display wall where other eyes could see them. There was this black-haired girl appearing on the wall where many blond haired, blue - eyes classmates could see her. My imagination, how I saw my world, was shared and I was surprised. I think I gained some confidence in feeling that what I imagined was something special to share. But why would anyone want to know about me?

I discovered that what I wanted to say, to write about, my perspectives were meaningful, but I was not the right person to share them. While in college, I wrote an essay on the topic of Freedom is Slavery that caught the eye of the student editor of our college publication. But I quickly learned from the faculty advisor that when readers saw my name that readers would think of the “South Seas,” an Asian person, and that nobody would believe that I wrote the essay. My article was not published. I encountered the same reaction when told by a university professor that he doubted that I wrote my beautifully written essay on Lord Byron’s poetry. My need to be accepted stifled my need to become outraged. My rage did not come until later.

My divorce was a painful gift that prompted me to explore what I really wanted to do with my life. I became aware that I wanted to become a film director. The stories and the pictures that I was compelled to tell were associated with shame and unspoken family pain and humiliation, surrounding the Japanese American incarceration experience. My mother, 5 months pregnant with my brother, exiled from vibrant Southern California to the hot, desolate Arizona desert, told of how she got off the train, and was forced to drink water filled with mud. The pain, humiliation and rage were there, hiding just underneath the surface, now bubbling over. 

My initial creations were children’s picture books. I asked my favorite uncle to do the illustrations to accompany my stories, family stories I heard as a child. I allowed my shiny wooden blue jay, crafted by my maternal grandfather in the incarceration camp, to take flight in my first children’s book, Blue Jay in the Desert. It led to numerous book readings. Wide- eyed students listened and stared in disbelief at my grandfather’s carved blue jay pinned to my chest, triggering insightful questions. White teachers expressed their gratitude for stories that had been kept hidden away for years. Japanese American audiences relived the pain, leading to validation and some healing. My legacy was linked to their legacy. I still couldn’t quite fathom that my creation with my uncle could have such an impact, that others were moved from a simple act of telling a story using pictures. I realized that my healing had become healing for others in processing collective/community pain. Then I remembered the messages I had received in college.

I have now shifted from the printed story to moving picture stories or films. So, my goal of becoming a counselor/therapist has shifted from a treatment office to the film screen. I never thought that I would become a documentary filmmaker. For the Sake of the Children captures the voices of not only those imprisoned but the voices of their children and grandchildren. Again, I was surprised but grateful that audiences were moved to a collective healing experience.

With all of this, I have traveled from feeling ashamed of my Japanese American background to feeling proud, finding strength from my family survivors, from moving from being private to having a public persona. Then I remember my drawing, which was displayed in my school cafeteria. That sunburst in the corner now takes center stage, shining brightly. At the same time, I continue to struggle and feel the conflict of wanting to be accepted and wanting to speak out and be an advocate, of fighting prejudice and seeking social justice. It is a life-long struggle that fuels me to create.

Bio – Marlene Shigekawa

Marlene Shigekawa is a San Francisco Bay Area based writer, producer, and director. With a personal and professional background in multiculturalism, she strives to create inspirational social justice stories. She is the Executive Producer and Co-Director of the documentary film, For the Sake of the Children, which has screened internationally.  It explores the legacy of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II and the intergenerational trauma experienced by descendants of those incarcerated. Born in the Poston Incarceration Camp and, now, the president of the Poston Community Alliance, she helps to preserve the history of the Poston site, located on the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation in Arizona.  She has won several awards for her narrative feature script Hawk Dreamer, which explores a cross cultural friendship between a Japanese American and Mohave Indian leading to their battle for civil rights. She is currently in production for her short film, The Blue Jay, which is based on Hawk Dreamer.

Additional published works include Blue Jay in the Desert, which was the first children’s book in the U.S. that focused on the Japanese American incarceration, and its sequel Welcome Home Swallows. 

Book reading of Blue Jay in the Desert can be found at: https://vimeo.com/457325592