GOTO-HEALTH

An eagle swooping around Lake Washington on the air currents outside my window, I’m lifted and filled with “En” gratitude and with nature. Also symbolizes the draw to be American. 

 

“En (縁) in Japanese refers to a profound, often invisible, sense of connection, fate, or karma that binds people, places, and events together. It signifies serendipitous encounters and karmic bonds, frequently described as "invisible threads" that bring people into each other’s lives.” 

 

Research confirms the importance of knowing our  heritage and the value of learning, verbalizing, writing and remembering. Growing up in the Americans of Japanese Heritage community, “en” remembrances was part of all our family and social practices, especially with funeral and religious services.

 

In the 1880s in Hiroshima, Japan, my maternal great grandfather J, Jitsumatsu, was adopted by a childless Samurai family to carry on their Tsukamaki name. Gr Grandpa J married and his first son was born in 1887. There was no public education in Japan yet, but he was tutored by the local Buddhist priest to read and write. Therefore, he kept up with national news of that time when emigration was being popularized. He was aware of trade between Japan and the USA and in 1896 was one of the passengers on the first shipping route to Seattle with the Yusen Shipping company. During that time Hiroshima had suffered drought. This was also the time of Seattle’s Gold Rush outfitting those headed for Alaska and reaping the benefits of the spending when returing to Seattle with gold.

 

Many young men were being recruited to the USA to work with mining and on the railroad from Japan because no more Chinese could come with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The Japanese were know to be hard workers. He was likely one of the ones who were bragging and showing off when they returned to Hiroshima saying, “The streets were filled with gold.”

 

When Grandpa Kay (Kanichi) told me his story, in the 1970s, he repeated several times, how proud Gr Grandpa J was to have made three round trips from Japan and that all three sons were here in America. Gr Grandpa J was around 40-years-old when the average lifespan was age-50. He was known to have worked as a cook for the railroad gang in Umatilla, Oregon, when they were completing the Oregon Short Line from Utah to Washington.

 

In 2003, my husband and I published the stories in “Tsukamakis of Ontario”, where I was born in 1939 and grew up. Grandpa Kay with six families had migrated to Eastern Oregon to start over because the Japanese Dairy farmers in Washington were discriminated out of the business with the Washington Alien Land Law in 1921. We were not incarcerated, because Mayor Elmo Smith stood up for the Japanese and Ontario was outside the restricted zone. We visited Minidoka because so many family friends were there from the Seattle area.

 

I am filled with gratitude to have five grandchildren who are benefiting from these heritage choices. Grandchild #5, Kaori, created her painting, VALUING MY HERITAGE, at Mercer Island High School Art class as a freshman in 2025. It was accepted as part of the April 50th ANNIVERSARY SEATTLE CHERRY BLOSSO9M FESTIVAL art show at the Seattle Center Armory Loft. Organizer, Harley, said, “It was one of highlights of the exhibit and a Seattle reporter took several pictures of the piece.”