Best Of Elizabeth Miki Brina's Speak, Okinawa

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir by Elizabeth Miki Brina

"We can't remember our name. The one we gave ourselves in the beginning. Maybe we never had one. Maybe we didn't need one, back then, when we were left alone. A name offers power and prominence. Both, we didn't want. Today we call ourselves Uchinaa, which is how we pronounce "Okinawa," which means "a rope in the offing." Because if you look at us on a map, we look like a knotted rope tossed carelessly from the sky onto the sea. We are the largest of an island chain called Ryukyu, which is how the Japanese pronounced Liu Chiu, which is what the Chinese called us many centuries ago."

"In the hills and forests and shores, most of us still shared the land. Most of us still caught fish. We all still wore our long hair tied in knots on top of our heads, held in place by wooden pins. Those were our crowns."

"I used to be angry at my mother for settling, for merely surviving, for not being a hero, a bold and fearless protagonist. I used to be angry at my mother for telling me stories, real sto-ries, without offering any resolution or wisdom. Stories I was too young to comprehend fully, too young to forgive."

"I believe we inherit sin as much as we inherit trauma. I believe inherited sin is its own form of trauma. But maybe we have a chance at redemption. By being aware, being honest. By giving up power. By letting the world change. By changing ourselves. 

By apologizing. 

By forgiving? 

What would atonement and forgiveness look like? 

Within a person, a family, a nation?"

I recall her responses to previous breakups and heartaches. "Oh, come on. Why are you so upset? He doesn't like you. Just forget it." The bluntness I once mistook for mistranslation, for not understanding me and the depth of my emotional injury, was perhaps her way of provoking me to get over myself, to put my privilege in perspective, and focus on what I still had-what I still have. My youth, my freedom, my blank slate of a future.

p. 222

Maybe it's the story of love overcoming misunderstanding. Of love resulting from misunderstanding.

p. 229

He was never hungry before five o'clock in the evening, a habit he acquired from his years in the army. My mother hated skipping meals. So he paced the aisles and held her bags while my mother browsed. He sipped tea while my mother ate, and when she complained of eating by herself, he ordered snack and shared dessert. He didn't feel angry or deprived. He felt like a husband.

p. 230-231

Kyoto is a stunning and inimitable city. So stunning and inimitable that when Kyoto appeared on the list as a possible target for the atomic bomb, Henry Stimson, the U.S. secretary of war, who had recently authorized the internment of one hundred thousand Japanese American citizens, who had previously traveled to Kyoto while he was governor of the Philippines, implored President Harry S. Truman to remove Kyoto from the list. Surprising that a man capable of such callous policy could recognize the exceptional cultural significance of Kyoto, not only for the nation of Japan, but for the entire world. Kyoto is a city that ignites humanity.

p. 231

Years later, I will ask my mother about her sisters, how they lived, how they died. She won't have much to tell me. Maybe she doesn't have the words. Maybe she doesn't want to dwell in that place for too long. Or maybe she dwells in that place always and forever, therefore doesn't know how to extract it, look at it from the outside, and describe it. Because she grew up with death. Death was in her house. Death was in every house.

p.245

I used to deny my parents love for each other, because 1 didn't understand it, because it didn't fit some mold, didnt align with some image of love I had conjured. I thought that love, true love, should involve something more than just commitment. 

My father never thought of leaving. Only of letting her leave. 

My mother never thought of leaving. Only of threatening to leave. 

Maybe love is choosing to stay. Maybe love is choosing to stay every day until the choice becomes permanent.

p.250

"Here. I'll show you. What's your favorite song?" She tells me the name of the song, and I do my best to type the romaji let-ters. "Can you repeat that?.. Say it slowly." "Ginza no Koi no Monogatari," "Love Story of Tokyo," as sung by Yujiro Ishihara and Junko Makimura. It's a song I've heard many times. First released in 1961. The most popular duet in Japan. My mother used to sing it while cooking and cleaning. 

p.288