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Hey #AsianDiasporaCreators. I'm Kira, a queer 4th gen Japanese-American. I'm an illustrator & comic artist and the first in 3 generations to speak Japanese. My family history is a messy story of picture brides, internment, and WWII vets and I carry that legacy with me, always.
My paternal family can only trace itself back to Hiroshima, and that's just an oral accounting of where my great-great grandparents emigrated from, there's no records to confirm it. No one remembers what prefecture my maternal great-great grandmother, the picture bride, was from.
No one is even sure we're only Japanese, because it turns out my maternal grandmother's father was her step-father, and no one discussed who her biological father was from. It was one of those things we "just don't talk about."
It is speculated my grandmother's biological father was an Okinawan immigrant to Oahu, but NO ONE KNOWS
I talked about my family's history with internment and World War II in this thread. WWII changed the trajectory of my family's relationship with Japaneseness. Children born pre-Pearl Harbor? Japanese names, ie Makoto. After? American names, ie Harold. https://twitter.com/kirameks/status/1284947552987570176?s=20
