Every sing oh righ? Our cracked, callused palms. Our floppy straw hats and threadbare clothes. Little old ladies clutched their purses and froze up on the sidewalk at the sight of our husbands and shouted out, 'They're here!' And even though our husbands had warned us-They're afraid-still, we were unprepared. Children took one look at us and ran away like frightened deer. 'Company orders,' one tearful milkman explained. Milkmen stopped delivering milk to our doors. Insurance companies canceled our insurance. Trimble, who pulled us aside one morning as we were mopping her kitchen and whispered into our ear, 'Did you know that the war was coming?' Club ladies began boycotting our fruit stands because they were afraid our produce might be tainted with arsenic. Or the longtime customers who suddenly disappeared from our restaurants and stores. Maybe it was the little girl down the road who no longer waved to us from her farmhouse window. “Overnight, our neighbors began to look at us differently. They took us as we stared up blankly at the ceiling and waited for it to be over, not realizing that it would not be over for years.” They took us coldly but knowledgeably - In 20 seconds you will lose all control -Īnd we knew there had been many others before us. They took us cautiously, as though they were afraid we might break.

They took us even though we hit them (.). They took us violently, with their fists, whenever we tried to resist. Please turn toward the wall and drop down on your hands and knees (.) They took us for granted and assumed we would do for them whatever it was we were told. They took us in the best hotels in San Francisco that a yellow man could set foot in at the time.

They took us downtown, in second-rate rooms at the Kumamoto Inn. They took us flat on our backs on the bare floor of the Minute Motel. They assumed we were the virgins the matchmakers had promised them we were and they took us with exquisite care. They took us gently, but firmly, and without saying a word. “That night our new husbands took us quickly.

Otsuka buddha in the attic