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Grandfather’s Journey is a picture book chronicling the life of writer/illustrator Allen Say’s* grandfather from his youth in Japan to raising a family in San Francisco, to his eventual return to Japan.

What I liked:

• Say’s beautiful watercolor illustrations draw on both Japanese and European artistic traditions and, I believe, will appeal equally to US-based and Japan-based audiences. The directness of his compositions, juxtaposed with his quiet colors, produces a cultural blend that to me reads as one example of the unique work created by Nikkeijin/Nihonjin who have spent significant time inside and outside Japan.
• Say presents traumatic moments – in both his personal life and in Japanese history – directly but in an understated way typical of how I feel Nihonjin/Nikkeijin often express themselves. I can only speak to my personal experience, but I definitely relate to the idea of presenting a difficult topic honestly while avoiding extraneous chatter as much as possible. To me, this is also different from our tendency to handle heavy topics via subtle allusions and nuanced comments. I don’t expect all Nikkeijin/Nihonjin to share these views, but hopefully something of what I said will strike a chord.
• The very first illustration in the book, the watercolor of a photograph of Say’s grandfather, grabbed my attention immediately because of its striking resemblance to the black-and-white photographs of my mother’s father and grandparents on display in my grandmother’s house in Japan. That house has since been demolished, according to my mother, to make way for road development, but seeing Say’s illustration instantly brought back memories of my many visits.

What I learned:

• I knew there were Issei who returned to Japan, but after reading Grandfather’s Journey I’d like to learn more about the ones who, like Say’s grandfather, returned because they wanted to, not because they were deported or because they found the US unwelcoming after the war.

Questions I had:

• I wonder if Say ever considered creating a bilingual version of this book? Or perhaps he proposed it but his agent/editor/publisher rejected it? I think Japanese text would add another layer of engagement to the story without taking away from the English text, by mirroring Say’s grandfather’s experience of living in two cultures.
• How does Say self-identify? Nikkeijin or Nihonjin? Issei? The question of generation seems especially interesting in his case, since his grandfather might be considered Issei, making his US-born mother Nisei, but then he himself was born in Japan and later moved to the US so…Issei again? Can Issei be descended from Nisei? I’d be interested in hearing from any fellow Nikkeijin with backgrounds similar to Say’s – how do you self-identify?
• Who does Say write and illustrate his books for? Does his work have a wide audience among Nihonjin? The complexities of Nikkeijin/Nihonjin relationships aside, Say’s background and artistic style seem like a combination that would appeal to Nihonjin.

Follow-up:

• Read Say’s other books – at least, the ones I can acquire. It looks like some may be out of print or difficult to purchase, but I hope I can get most of them!
• See if I can find bilingual books authored by Nikkeijin. So many of us are bilingual that I hope at least one of us found the experience worth representing in a book.

*Say is a Romanization of 清井, his real family name. I looked this up because I only recently realized he is Japanese and I couldn’t figure out what name was meant to be represented by “Say.” I wonder who decided on this Romanization – as my fellow Japanese-speaking Nikkeijin/Nihonjin know, the spelling isn’t phonetically intuitive.