Short Reflection on Reunion for Keetly, Utah

Following E.O. 9066 on February 19, 1942, Japanese Americans on the West Coast had a short period where they could “voluntarily evacuate.” The FBI already detained community leaders without charge. But given that you were not detained or waiting for a loved one’s release, your option to voluntarily leave the West Coast was also contingent on the acceptance of eastern states and communities towards your relocation.

Some people like my Uncle (grandpa’s brother) Fred made it happen. He met with the governor and community leaders of Utah and convinced them to let him set up a farm for Japanese Americans, to show their loyalty growing what he would later call “food for freedom.” He was able to lease land in Keetley, Utah, an abandoned mining town they could use to get started. As the snow melted, they found a rocky sage desert, not rich agricultural land like they were used to or promised. But they endured, spending the wartime years unincarcerated.

My growing up in Utah was a coincidence of my parents’ work. When we first moved, in a time before I remember, Grandpa and Grandma came to visit. They were building the Jordanelle Dam at the time, which would cover the former site of Keetley, and Grandpa wanted to visit. The road was closed, but he told my dad to drive through anyway. He asked the work crews to see place one last time.

There’s an old road that runs along the shore and continues beyond the threshold of the water. We were looking for the newly named “Wada Way.” As we walked through tall grass, looking for the sign, Lisa commented that they only thing Wada about this trail was that I was making it. We were lost. Then over a ridge, we saw it. A small group was already gathered there, in town for the reunion. There, looking back at me from the past, was a picture of Grandpa, showing me to this place once again, from beyond the threshold.

I played a shime that I made earlier this year for the Obon dancing, slung across my shoulder with my mom’s purse strap. I couldn’t fit a larger drum for the trip. It was remembrance, but also something I had never done before, not exactly. How does this life, this music, unfold?

Drone photo: Ryan & Walter Kitagawa