Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm

by David Mas Masumoto

I discover a "lost" aunt, separated from our
family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental
disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942 when all
Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. She then became a
"ward" of the state. We believed she had died, but 70 years later
found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive?
Why was she kept hidden? How did both shame and resilience empower my family to
forge forward in a land that did not want them? I am haunted and driven to
explore my identity and the meaning of family—especially as farmers tied to the
land. I uncover family secrets that bind us to a sense of history buried in the
earth that we work and a sense of place that defines us.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Disability, Biography, Autobiography, History

257 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 18, 2023

About the author

David "Mas" Masumoto is an organic peach and grape farmer and author of Epitaph for a Peach (1995), which offers a glimpse of life on a family farm in Central California, Letters to the Valley, A Harvest of Memories (2004), Four Seasons in Five Senses, Things Worth Savoring (2003), and Harvest Son, Planting Roots in American Soil (1998). His organic farming techniques have been employed by farmers across the nation.

Masumoto earned his B.A. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.S. in community development 1982 from the University of California, Davis. He is the winner of the UC Davis “Award of Distinction” from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2003. He was a founding member of California Association of Family Farmers. He has served on the California Tree Fruit Agreement research board and has been a member of the Raisin Advisory Committee research board.

Masumoto and his wife have two children. They reside in an 90 year old farmhouse surrounded by their vineyards and orchards just outside of Del Rey, California which is 20 miles south of Fresno.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Beverly Hallfrisch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bumping up to a 3 as I really like the art.
As an introspective piece it was very repetitive. The first 100 or so pages I enjoyed, but the rehashing made me struggle to make it through the back half. This would have worked better as an essay.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a sad, sweet, personal story. So glad a read an op ed piece about it in the S.F. Chronicle. I liked the slow, personable memoir style of it.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I farm with ghosts. They live in our fields,” writes farmer poet David Mas Masumoto. “Ghosts inhabit our family history.” In 1942, while his family was evacuated from their California farm and imprisoned in Gila River Relocation center in Arizona, Masumoto's maternal aunt Shizuko was separated from the family and placed in a state institution for people with disabilities. Masumoto didn't know about Shizuko until recently, when a resolute hospice worker contacted him. A third-generation Japanese American peach farmer in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Masumoto is keenly aware of how past affects future. “We are haunted by the pruning scars embedded in the shape of a tree, eternally wondering if a simple act like snipping a young branch or sawing a tree limb is the proper choice.” Thus he is compelled to ask hard questions about his family's past when he learns of Shizuko and the gap she inhabits in that history.

A family saga written with empathic, lyrical prose, Secret Harvests explores themes of legacy, loss, and resilience. It's an homage to the stories families tell, and the stories they choose not to tell. Masumoto parcels this homage into bite-sized chapters written like journal entries, with each chapter accompanied by haunting linoleum-block imprint illustrations by Japanese American artist Patricia Wakida. The result is an exquisitely affective memoir that sheds light on one family’s ghosts, as well as addressing cultural tendencies that have long needed to be exposed.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author of this book is third generation, like me. I relate so much to the way in which he talks about his experiences, and I wish there was more of this kind of content out there.

When I read this book, I can really feel him trying to work out and unpack his own complicated feelings regarding family history, regarding the war, regarding his aunt Shizuko. It feels like I'm being taken along the journey as he treks it, pushing forward despite not knowing exactly where it'll end up. The prose is introspective and poetic, and I like the way he sets up the parallel between Shizuko being lost and the various loss experienced through incarceration.

Masumoto paints such a vivid (I tend to say vivid a lot) picture of farm life, of stone fruit harvesting and raisin drying - and the linoleum prints scattered throughout the pages are also are beautiful to look at.

One day I would like to try peaches from the Masumoto Family Farm.

[Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating read finding history within the Central Valley’s agricultural community, with a personal story of a families migration to the United States as Japanese Americans. This book opened my heart and mind to the difficulties that were endured by families and their disabled loved ones. I will forever recommend this book to friends and family as I myself am a local of the Central Valley!

[Jim Kownacki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew of the Japanese interment camps but not the reality of what really happened. Eye opening for me. The chapter on caregivers is very touching.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetically written, but often repetitive, this memoir tells the story of a Japanese American writer and farmer who is unexpectedly notified about a relative he wasn't aware of. He tells of research to understand, which takes him along a journey of his family's history within the context of American history, and his family's internment at a camp during WWII.
He discovers that a disabled aunt, Shizuko, then in her early 20's, was left in the care of the state of California when the family was interned at a camp in Arizona. After that, the family lost touch with her, and she was believed to have died.
Masumoto reveals the information he uncovered through interviews with reluctant relatives and confidentiality protecting bureaucrats, searching through census and building records, and eventually through meeting Shizuko, by then in hospice, in person.
He credits her spirit and resilience for her long life, and is grateful to the caretakers who steadfastly worked with her over seven decades of institutionalization.
His family's story is one of persistence despite injustice.

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This moving memoir by Mas Masumoto weaves together the political tragedy that hit his family -- the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II -- with a personal tragedy -- the separation from the family of his aunt, who, after suffering meningitis as a 5-year-old became intellectually disabled. Because of her disability, she was not relocated to a camp, but taken to a series of mental health facilities and care homes. The writing is lyrical, but I was especially entranced by the illustrations, woodcuts by artist Patricia Wakida. Her renditions of the farmworkers in the fields, close-ups of clasped hands and braids, a lonely figure sitting on a bench are so moving. I had to pause at every page.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written book that explores Internment, Resettlement, and the complexities of intersectionality in a thoughtful and thought provoking way. Much of this book reminds me of the interviews I've heard and done with other Sansei regarding Internment connecting this story of the Central Valley to the larger story of Internment and Resettlement. The exploration of generational trauma and how it ripples throughout is so clearly reflected in the flashbacks and the flashforwards embedded in each chapter. What I appreciate most about this book is that it provides a deeper historical view of the Central Valley's Japanese community during that time, a topic that is missing in many histories.

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beyond what sad connotes. Extremely repeating in both phrase and message. It is a personal account that countless humans over time have lead. Yes, a quite similar life relation tale with no fanfare and even less generational compensations. Not always in any form institutional facility but in various limitations of such longitude.

I do not recommend this read. Very depressing read. And, IMHO, illustrative of the present awful inequality to path regardless of original national identity race or familial condition for Asians. My people had very similar examples of illness disability without the longevity.

What you see in this title is not what I felt was the core.

[Barbara Tellman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely memoir of a Japanese American family from immigration to the modern day. A secret is found by the author (grandson) when he receives a phone call from a funeral home in Fresno, CA where he learns that his family has a member who is mentally disabled from childhood encephalitis. He takes the readers back in time to before relocation for people of Japanese ancestry during world war II. Shizuko was 5 when she got encephalitis, and ended up being 5 forever - 94 years in various care homes, until she was found alive (barely) in one in Fresno. A remarkable story, but many editorial errors made it a bit hard to read, from time to time.

[Leslie Conner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a 3 generation story of immigration, family, new country, differences in abilities and those things not spoken. I found the book historically enlightening but also a philosophical zen meditative appreciation of life and all you can not change. The family are farmers unable to buy a farm because of laws against them. Then a 4 year relocation imprisonment in the desert of Arizona during WWII. Huge upheavals, poverty and an unaccepting community force lack of medical care, insecurity, and a philosophy of acceptance of fate. Worth reading.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I struggled a bit with the back and forth concerning his disabled aunt and his writings about her in his fantasy wishes if she had been a part of the family and not institutionalized and not had meningitis as a 5 year old and no antibiotics.( He wrote her story in italics and interspersed it with Japanese phrases).

Learning more about organic fruit farming in California and the Japanese Internment was helpful to be aware of as it was so much a part of his parents and grandparents lives.

I really “liked” reading about Sugi’s memorial service.( near the end)

[Grace Matherne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be lovely. It was a wonderful acceptance of gaps in familial knowledge but with a still healthy dose of curiosity to find out more. I loved some of the phrases he shares that have been passed down to him or have helped him to move forward. I think his ruminations on Shizuko are well thought out and kindly worded. An insight into a family history peppered with a time in American history little talked about.

[Winton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an honest and moving account of Masumoto’s family history; as well as an important reminder of our own national history. This includes relocation camps for Japanese Americans and the way we’ve often hidden family members with disabilities. His poetic weaving of story, memory, imagination, spirituality and grief touched me deeply.

[Holly Tabor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing and powerful book. Wonderful examination of identity, inclusion and exclusion, acceptance and shame, and issues related to racism and abelism. Thank you for sharing and telling this story.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just amazing.. love his writing style, and I learned so much.

[Kate]

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national book critics circle shortlist 2024

[Suzie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn’t finish the book. It’s too jumpy and needs to go deeper into concepts. The story lacks the depth it deserves.

[Sharon Johnson]

Inspirational story of an organic peach farming Japanese American family who is unexpectedly reunited with a long thought dead disabled family member.

[Anna Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

nothing bad to say. very glad i was able to have this as one of my final portland reads

[tyler collin · Rating 4 out of 5]

very enjoyable book, at some points repetitive. maybe like a 3.5, i found myself losing interest at points. would have worked better as a shorter piece, but i did enjoy my experience with it!!

[Patricia Tacuri · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read this year. As an immigrant I loved how this autho wrote about his family's history in America.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has about four themes, told in a non-fictional way, in part.

Mr. Masumoto is writing about his own family and is trying to share the history of his family. However, it is hard because his forbears liked to keep things quiet and deal with issues as they came. If they were bad, they tried to survive and make the best of it but didn’t dwell on it.

This leads to the second theme: the mass incarceration of American Japanese were forced from their homes and put into “camps” because they looked like the the enemy that bombed Pearl Harbor. This was hard to deal with because many relatives were forced to go fight in the war, but the rest of the family were being held because they might be dangerous.

Third is the missing aunt that Mr. Masumoto has now discovered since the home in which she is living has notified him because she is dying. He didn’t even know about the existence of an aunt who was disabled and institutionalized. It seems as though the family has forgotten they left her behind when they were incarcerated. Or she was moved and they didn’t try very hard to find her. Mr Masumoto finds her and tries to put together some pieces of her story before she dies.

What he so beautifully ties together is their farm and how they have worked and tended to it all over the years. And with each generation they all did it a little differently, but it got better all the time. This is linked to their lives and how they have lived it. Beautiful illustrations and added poetry. This book is a good historical novel.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Mr. Masumoto's first book (EPITAPH FOR A PEACH) much more than this one. His premise of finding out all he could about the aunt who had been institutionalized when the rest of the family was sent to the internment camp during WWII was a good one. He wanted to find out where she was in the 70 years they had presumed that she had passed away. And he was lucky enough to be able to visit her during her last days and hear from the care staff all the quirks and special things she did to make her life a joyful one.

Everything he related about his search for information was well-written, but he seemed to get lost in detail and go off wandering in philosophical directions. It seemed like the publisher had given him a word count that he was using filler to meet.

I enjoyed the reading when he was on point, but lost interest when he went off the track.

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad story of a lost aunt in a Japanese farm family, all but one surviving family members sent to the Arizona Gila River Internment/Relocation camp.

Shizuko became disabled due to meningitis and was placed in a facility, deemed low risk. The family assumed she had passed long ago and were surprised to hear 70 years later that she was on hospice. Discovered only because a diligent mortuary worker researched to find her family.

The author explains Japanese phrases, culture, beliefs, events and includes his own poetry in the chapters detailing farming life, being relocated, returning to California and farm life, and how there was joy in his aunty' life, on her own terms.

[Jan Wold · Rating 5 out of 5]

My sister recommended this book and I am so glad she did. It is full of many life lessons. I stopped many times to ponder the words/thoughts of the author and how they apply to me. I am not Japanese, nor am I a "person of color". However, my maternal grandfather was an immigrant to the US, and I could imagine what it was like for him working in the mines and my grandmother trying to raise 4 children during the depression after my grandfather died.
I did feel the author repeated himself a lot and that is why I gave the book 4 instead of 5 stars.

[Karen Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remembering and going forward

Blending philosophy and history to create tradition, David Mas Masumoto is a voice both for people with disabilities and those who cherish joy from life created by hard work . He compares the past to the present showing how they intertwine and live on.

[Corky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreaking and intensely introspective. A memoir that meditates on the experience of being othered and how that shapes individuals, families, and generations as a whole.

An intriguing mix of family history and reimagining of what remains unknown - highly recommend.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a touching book that weaves together a tragic part of United States history with the plight of the disabled as well as the threads of an immigrant family. In a unique way Mas blends past, present and future to create a mosaic of life's meaning.