Many writers describe the early stages of drafting as telling the story to yourself. Lately, I have wondered, for diaspora writers* creating stories of our cultures and communities, does this process ever really stop?
Two weeks ago, I listened to some nikkei – nisei or sansei, I think – recollecting twentieth century Japanese American history. Afterwards, my mom noted how different their experiences were from hers, as a Japanese person who came to the US years after the war.
Earlier this month, I watched part of the Asian Americans history special. It mostly seemed to focus on the Asian Americans + American dream narrative – I don’t recall any detailed discussion about the relationship between Asian immigrants and the indigenous peoples of this continent, for example. At least most of the speakers appeared to be Asian American scholars, which I suppose is progress by US media standards.
Between these two experiences, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a diaspora writer (mostly in terms of nikkei) telling stories about our histories and cultures. My dad’s parents, the ones who actually lived the era of US concentration camps, were gone before I was born. Even if they were here, short of recording their words verbatim, any writing I produced about them would be my interpretation of someone else’s lived experiences. This is not a bad thing, so long as I remember that my work is an interpretation, just one possibility of many.
Have you ever witnessed live interpretation or live translation? Often, it is necessary for the interpreter or translator to make a judgment call. Subtitles on television shows are another example. How about oral history, a recorded interview with someone who lived the experience in question? Depending on the situation, maybe the interviewer is asking questions, designed to draw out the portions of the interviewee’s experiences which the interviewer deems important. And, if the interview also involves interpretation or translation, how many more ways are there to shape the resulting narrative? Later, maybe the interviewer cleans up the recording, adding another layer of editorial intervention. Again, none of these processes are “bad,” so long as anyone accessing the information understands it to be one version, not the version.
When we, the diaspora, think about history, when we try to write history, what are we doing? What does it mean when we are two, or three, or four generations removed from the events we are studying? What does it mean if, like my relatives in Japan, we are contemporaries of the events, but were at a geographic or linguistic distance from them? These are all questions for us to consider, not because they should stop us from doing our work, but because thinking deeply about our own positions relative to our work will hopefully enable us to produce better, more responsible work, whether that work comes in the form of a scholarly text, a painting, or a fantasy novel.
Sometimes, I ask family and friends in Japan for their thoughts about our history. Many do not understand my interest. Why does it matter now? Or, more politely, that sounds very interesting but is not something I know much about. These answers amaze me, because I would love to meet the relatives from my dad’s side who stayed in Japan when my grandfather immigrated, but also make clear the difference between my position and theirs.
As several diaspora writers have suggested, maybe this curiosity is particularly compelling to those of us in this space. I have seen some writers frame this curiosity as a search for home, or identity, or some other form of belonging or assurance. It seems like a very personal quest, shaped by the experiences of each individual embarking on it. In the end, though, is it about being embraced by a community or culture? Is it about being able to see yourself clearly against, perhaps even in contrast to, the backdrop of a community or culture? Is it about affirming the right to self-identification, in the eyes of those around you? Is it the desire to lose your notoriety, perceived or real, in a sea of people who look like you?
I believe all of these questions can and do coexist in many of our minds. These questions lead nikkei creators to study abroad in Japan, or sign up to be English teachers, or take a trip to a backcountry village our grandparents or great-grandparents once called home, even if no one who lives there now knows our family name. But, no matter what we are doing, or where we are, or which languages we speak, it seems to me we are all engaged in the act of storytelling. We write down or record our family histories, craft a narrative – sometimes in the form of a collage or museum exhibit – from surviving artifacts, study a language and learn whether we know it well enough to cobble together our own interpretation when no translations are available, or stand up in front of an audience and share a story out loud. We all know there is no master narrative, no single unified version everybody agrees on. Even our scholars are telling stories, though it is easier to assert the illusion of authority when one’s interpretation is the product of synthesizing and remixing a thousand other people’s interpretations (research and analysis), laced throughout with words which might be inaccessible to readers without a certain educational or linguistic background (academic jargon).
As I asked at the beginning of this post, do we, the writers of the diaspora, ever really stop telling ourselves our stories? Stories are the continuum, the ways we share and transform knowledge within and beyond our community, each of us bringing our own particular experiences to our work while simultaneously, if we are responsible, being informed by the works of our peers. Each of us has many stories to tell and each story is itself constantly changing as its creator(s) learn and grow. Our own experiences – as nikkei, as Japanese Americans, as Asian Americans – have taught us there is much we do not know, and some things we may never know, about our ancestors and our histories. Through our stories, we have found ways to fill these gaps, by telling ourselves, and each other, our own interpretations of what might have been. Perhaps, to be a diaspora creator is to be a perpetual storyteller, not only in practice but in identity, always knowing that, while this draft might be “done,” our own story is still in the midst of being told.
*This is not to say non-diaspora creators cannot relate to these same creative processes. It is also not to say non-diaspora creators exist in some vacuum free of uncertainty by virtue of not being diaspora. My personal interest is in diaspora writers, so for the purposes of this post, I have limited my thoughts to how diaspora writers, specifically, engage in the act of storytelling, relative to our position(s) of being diaspora.
NICOLE NOGI 
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