Book Launch: The Poet and the Silk Girl, a memoir by Satsuki Ina

Sunday, March 24, 2 pm (Hybrid)

The Poet and the Silk Girl follows the harrowing journey of the Ina family through wartime race-based incarceration and traces the echoes of trauma across generations. Join us for this book launch with filmmaker, activist, and psychotherapist Satsuki Ina in conversation with her son cartoonist and illustrator Adrian Tomine.

The Poet and the Silk Girl illustrates through one family’s saga the generational struggle of Japanese Americans who resisted racist oppression, fought for the restoration of their rights, and clung to their full humanity in the face of adversity.

In 1942 newlyweds Itaru and Shizuko Ina were settling into married life when the United States government upended their world. They were forcibly removed from their home and incarcerated in wartime American concentration camps solely on account of their Japanese ancestry. When the Inas, under duress, renounced their American citizenship, the War Department branded them enemy aliens and scattered their family across the U.S. interior.

Born to Itaru and Shizuko during their imprisonment, psychotherapist and activist Satsuki Ina weaves their story together in this moving mosaic. Through diary entries, photographs, clandestine letters, and heart-wrenching haiku, she reveals how this intrepid young couple navigated life, love, loss, and loyalty tests in the welter of World War II-era hysteria.

With psychological insight, Ina excavates the unmentionable, recovering a chronicle of resilience amidst one of the severest blows to American civil liberties. As she traces the legacies of trauma, she connects her family’s ordeal to modern-day mass incarceration at the U.S.-Mexico border. Lyrical and gripping, this cautionary tale implores us to prevent the repetition of atrocity, pairing healing and protest with galvanizing power.

Renowned cartoonist, Adrian Tomine, son of the author will join the event to be in conversation with his mother and together explore the intergenerational impact of the family’s wartime experience on identity and literary expression. Adrian published his comic book series at the age of 16, and he has since illustrated highly touted covers for The New Yorker magazine. His graphic novel Shortcomings, named a New York Times Notable Books of the year, was adapted for film and released in 2023.

“A powerful quilt work of memory, The Poet and the Silk Girl sutures the traumatic wounds of Japanese American incarceration with care for the past and struggle for the future.”Andrew Leong, author of Lament in the Night

Published by Heyday Books, Hardcover, 6 x 9, 312 pages

Book sales & signing to follow. Light reception.

RSVP for free event, in-person or online. Limited space available.

SPEAKER BIOS

Adrian Tomine began self-publishing his comic book series Optic Nerve when he was sixteen, and in 1994 he received an offer to publish from Drawn & Quarterly. His comics have been anthologized in publications such as McSweeney’s, Best American Comics, and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Both his graphic novel Shortcomings and his memoir The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist were named New York Times Notable Books of the year. Since 1999, Tomine has been a regular contributor to the New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters.

Where’s the Cat: The End of a Quilt Journey

by Carolyn Hayashida

November 20, 2023 to January 12, 2024

Never claiming to be a quilter, Carolyn Hayashida has found her quilt journey’s end. From a young age, she was drawn to sewing and studied art and fashion design. Her first quilt was a gift to her husband for his 50th birthday, the Family Kamon quilt. 

She was invited to JASEB (now J-Sei) through Bess Kawachi Chin who invited her to share her Sashiko designs in her clothing creations. She later frequented JASEB when her mother was active. She was later asked to coordinate the JASEB Quilting Class. She learned from the talented quilters and began to incorporate her unique designs into her quilting projects. Carolyn has a keen eye for combining fabrics and personalizing each creation with her stitching talents.  Come visit the gallery to find the cat, rabbits, and to discover an array of Japanese cultural motifs in her work. Gallery Hours:  MWF 10-1, TuTh 1-5

Carolyn Hayashida will be at the J-Sei Artisan Faire: Sunday, December 3rd, 11 am to 4 pm.  Stop in to see her at the faire, then go upstairs to the gallery at J-Sei to see the quilt show.

Haruko Obata: A Life of Flowers

Saturday, September 9, 2 pm — In-Person and Online

“If you know flower arranging you do not grow old, for it is eternal.” Haruko Obata

Haruko Obata (1892-1989) was a pioneering Bay Area ikebana sensei who began displaying her classic Japanese flower arrangements to Americans as early as 1915. Kimi Hill will share her grandmother’s story based on a 1986 oral history, exploring Haruko’s youth in Japan as well as her life as the wife of artist Chiura Obata and a mother of four children,
her forced incarceration at Topaz, and her long career as an artist in her own right. Assisting in this presentation will be Sogetsu Ikebana teacher Keiko Kubo and J-Sei ikebana students who will create ikebana arrangements to accompany the program. Presented by Friends of Topaz Museum and J-Sei.

Please reserve a free ticket to receive reminders and a ZOOM link.