Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto

Harry held one letter dear that he did not share, lest anyone doubt his sympathies. Found on the body of a Japanese soldier killed in action, its pages were worthless in terms of intelligence. A woman named Kashiko had given birth to a healthy boy eighteen days earlier. “The baby has grown bigger and is very cute,” she wrote in a new mother’s hurried hand. “When I think about how much we would be overjoyed together if you were here, I become teary-eyed, but the situation cannot be helped.” Harry’s eyes traveled down the vertical lines running from right to left. Kashiko wrote of stroking her newborn’s face, adding, “If this letter reaches you somewhere in the south, please be happy. I will raise our little boy tenderly, tenderly until you return.” She begged, “If this letter reaches you, please write back immediately. Please take care.” Harry didn’t doubt that the man would have killed him given the chance. Harry would have shot him, too, had they confronted each other in combat. Like any GI, Harry called the enemy “Japs,” but unlike many of his hakujin colleagues, Harry knew his foe was not a fanatical, bloodthirsty man. A fearsome, dedicated, often savage fighter, yes, but human, too. The man for whom the letter was intended was a loving wife’s husband and, surely, an elated first-time father. Harry possessed empathy, born of his familial connections and life experience. Regardless of how final the soldierly send-offs in Japan were, the truth was that this soldier’s fami...