Cho Shimuzu has done what many of us likely wish we had done. He documented his family’s story.
He told the International Examiner his memories were resurrected while spending time with his mother during her months in hospice care. Cho vigorously jotted down his recollections in long hand on note paper.
“There were all these blanks,” he said. “I realized I didn’t know anything about her and her past.”
That was in 1983. He said his sister would later find his notes and destroy them, fearful they would upset family members.
Yet what was in those notes were etched in Cho’s mind and are the basis of his new memoir Cho’s Story: Through The Eyes of a Nisei Son.
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Cho details life in Washington’s Puyallup Valley in the 1930s. He also reaches into his heart and talks about the impact of incarceration on Japanese Americans, his fears of being bullied as a child and his frustrations with not being good in sports.
Cho hopes his book will spark meaningful conversations between Nisei and Sansei.
You can read what motivated Cho to write his book in the International Examiner
