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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
Joan T. Seko’s Toshio: My Nisei Father’s Journal follows the life of Toshio Morishima, a Nisei born in Fife, Washington, in 1910, through journal entries gathered by his daughter. His childhood begins on a vegetable farm before the family returns to its estate in Hiroshima, after their stolen property sends Toshio and his brother Saburo back across the Pacific to earn money. His adult life brings Haruno into the story, and the couple returns to America with their daughter Joan just before war closes the route between Japan and the United States. After Pearl Harbor, the country Toshio chose as home sends the family first to the Puyallup Fairgrounds, then to Minidoka in Idaho. From there, the memoir follows the Morishimas as they rebuild their lives after incarceration.
Joan T. Seko’s Toshio is a beautiful publication, and it is one of the first I have read of a victim of internment, proving just how much one person’s journal entries can add to the history everyone may have heard about, but that we do not actually know. I love how Seko preserves the small things Toshio included. He asks whether his $7.95 Sears bicycle survived after a car hits him, then remembers decades later why he refused orange marmalade after Minidoka. The best part is A Child of Minidoka, where Seko revisits the camp through her five-year-old eyes. When she asks whether the number on her tag means she is no longer Tomiko, Toshio tells her she will always be Tomiko. That one exchange says so much about what incarceration tried to take from families. This is a breathtaking and touching memoir for readers who appreciate Japanese American history—which is American history.
