Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation, Silence, Shame, and the Resilience of a Family Farm

I discovered a lost aunt, separated from our family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942 when all Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. We believed she had died, but 70 years later, we found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive? Why was she kept hidden? How did both shame and resilience empower my family to forge forward in a land that did not want them? I am haunted and driven to explore my identity and the meaning of family, especially as farmers tied to the land. I uncover family secrets that bind us to a sense of history buried in the earth that we work and a sense of place that defines us.

Format: Hardback
Length: 232 pages
Publication date: 01 June 2023
Publisher: Red Hen Press

I discovered a lost aunt, separated from our family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942, when all Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. She then became a state award recipient. We believed she had died, but 70 years later, we found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive? Why was she kept hidden? How did both shame and resilience empower my family to forge forward in a land that did not want them? I am haunted and driven to explore my identity and the meaning of family, especially as farmers tied to the land. I uncover family secrets that bind us to a sense of history buried in the earth that we work and a sense of place that defines us.

I discovered a lost aunt, separated from our family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942, when all Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. She then became a state award recipient. We believed she had died, but 70 years later, we found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive? Why was she kept hidden? How did both shame and resilience empower my family to forge forward in a land that did not want them? I am haunted and driven to explore my identity and the meaning of family, especially as farmers tied to the land. I uncover family secrets that bind us to a sense of history buried in the earth that we work and a sense of place that defines us.

Weight: 470g
Dimension: 164 x 237 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781636280776