When I began hosting the ACC Writing Your Life Story Zoom Workshop last year, I had no idea whether anyone would sign up. But we have had a Spring, Summer and now a Fall series and wonderful participation.
Jean Iyeki, who is in her 90s, has been a faithful weekly participant in the Workshop since we began, and she shared childhood remembrances of her family’s time at the Topaz Internment Camp during WWII in the ACC Spring 2021 Newsletter. She continues to be a weekly participant.
This summer, Jean asked if she could invite her friend, Sada Hatanaka, to join the group although she noted that Sada was traveling during most of the summer and moving to live with family members in Kentucky in the Fall. I talked with Sada by phone and sent her the Writing Guide. She told me she was 94 and she really wanted to write the story of her family’s internment at Heart Mountain because she had not talked about it with her children or grandchildren but now feels that “it’s really important that they know what happened and I’m not getting any younger!” Honestly, it was hard for me to imagine that she would have the time to settle into writing her experiences given the travel and transitions she was going through and that our class meets during dinner time in her new time zone.
Nonetheless, Sada has been a regular participant in our weekly Zoom group and has begun writing and sharing her family’s experiences from that infamous December 7, 1941 morning, to their temporary settlement at the Pomona Fair Grounds, and then on to Northern Wyoming where they were interned until the end of the War. Since Sada is a few years older than Jean, and was a teenager when her family was interned, she has more detailed recollections of having to leave their Los Angeles home, the initial internment processing, and the long train trip to the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp. Her sharing often leads other workgroup participants to ask questions and provide supportive feedback–all of which can be helpful to her in imagining what additional questions her family might have as they begin reading her story.
The Writing Your Life Story Guide includes a variety of topic areas. Some weeks Jean and Sada have share reminiscences of their time living here in the Sacramento Valley, starting back in the 1990’s. Recently, when our writing topic focused on our hobbies, leisure time activities, and other things we look forward to doing, Jean shared what she had written about the wonderful times she and her husband had with a group of friends that included Sada and her husband. This group would go to each other’s homes throughout the year for dinner parties. They were memorable times that were great fun and that they both still remember vividly.
Having Jean and Sada sharing their stories is very special to all of us who are participating in the Writing Your Life Story Workshop. And while I know many of us wish we could get back to in-person group gatherings, it’s Zoom that’s made it possible for these longtime friends now over 2,000 miles away from each other to be writing and sharing their stories with each other and all of us. And for that we are grateful.
The next ACC Writing Your Life Story Workshop will begin on January 26. You can sign up at accsv.org/online.
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