I Call to Remembrance: Toyo Suyemoto's Years of Internment

by Toyo Suyemoto, Susan B. Richardson (Editor)

Toyo Suyemoto is known informally by literary scholars and the media as "Japanese America's poet laureate." But Suyemoto has always described herself in much more humble terms. A first-generation Japanese American, she has identified herself as a storyteller, a teacher, a mother whose only child died from illness, and an internment camp survivor. Before Suyemoto passed away in 2003, she wrote a moving and illuminating memoir of her internment camp experiences with her family and infant son at Tanforan Race Track and, later, at the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah, from 1942 to 1945. A uniquely poetic contribution to the small body of internment memoirs, Suyemoto's account includes information about policies and wartime decisions that are not widely known, and recounts in detail the way in which internees adjusted their notions of selfhood and citizenship, lending insight to the complicated and controversial questions of citizenship, accountability, and resistance of first- and second-generation Japanese Americans. Suyemoto's poems, many written during internment, are interwoven throughout the text and serve as counterpoints to the contextualizing narrative. Suyemoto's poems, many written during internment, are interwoven throughout the text and serve as counterpoints to the contextualizing narrative. A small collection of poems written in the years following her incarceration further reveal the psychological effects of her experience.

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 13, 2007

Reviews

[Patti Raney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I visited Delta, Utah, earlier this year and went to the Topaz museum where I bought this book. I was so touched by Toyo Suyemoto's story and the story of all the Asian Americans that were uprooted from their homes and placed in internment centers during WWII. It was a difficult time. I was brought to tears as I looked at the beautiful artwork, the furniture they made from nothing and especially the poetry this lovely woman wrote while interned there. This book is filled with her story and her poetry. It is an event in our history we are not taught in public schools. A shame when we see what it was like for these individuals and families and the sacrifice they made. I found the human spirit amazing once again to see the beauty they brought to life while under these circumstances.

[Jeremy Zapalac]

It's tough to say that I enjoyed a memoir about human injustice, but this book was well-written and engaging, and taught me a lot about what Japanese-Americans experienced in internment during World War II. The experience was obviously a very negative one as a whole, but it is uplifting to see the ways that the internees made the best out of a bad situation; there are aspects of the best and the worst of humanity on display.

[JAE510 · Rating 4 out of 5]

an important first hand account of the inhumanity of the imprisonment of persons of Japanese heritage during WWII. interspersed are the authors poignant poems which convey the pain and suffering as well as the moments of optimism that kept the hope for a future spring alive.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir skips around and repeats itself a bit, but I found that totally forgivable considered what a moving account it gives of the Japanese internment at the Topaz camp. I feel pretty well-versed in this terrible part of US history, but I still learned a lot more about it in this book, and I found the author's story thought-provoking in relation to other parts of history and current events.