How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [59]
I THREW MY BLOUSE into the dry-cleaning hamper. I heard Helena flush the toilet, call out to me. I wanted to crawl into bed and hide. Not face my mother again, my mother with her precious spaghetti and her wounded heart. Not hear what I felt to be coming, news of her mortality that I was not ready to hear. I pulled on jeans.
“Are you ready?” Helena was at the bedroom door. “I’m starving.”
I cast off my mood and smiled at my child. “Of course.”
Some Wives who emigrate to America have the opportunity to visit Japan with their new families, causing the Wife to worry about the reaction to her half-Asian child. In America, the half-Asian child may be scorned. However, Japanese believe the half-Asian child to be pretty. Most love them, especially if they are lucky enough to inherit the round Western eyes while keeping some Japanese features.
—from the chapter “The American Family,”
How to Be an American Housewife
Three
Two weeks later, I stood in Tokyo International Airport. The place contained more Mom look-alikes than I had ever seen in all of San Diego, in all of my life. Although none of these people were related to me, I felt safe here, like I could go up to anyone and they would help me with the same big smile Mom gave to strangers.
I had never expected to be able to go to Japan, certainly not to meet the family I only knew from the occasional New Year’s portrait postcard or funeral or birth announcement. I had enough trouble putting a few dollars into my 401(k) without dipping into the grocery budget. Yet I had still hoped I could go one day, taking college Japanese classes, sponging up whatever Japanese culture my mother meted out. Being here now, so suddenly, was like awakening in an alternate universe.
Monitors played soundless music videos and commercials with giant dancing bubblegum balls; blue screens announced flights. This was what I wanted, if I could only translate the letters quickly enough. The screens scrolled through the English lettering too fast for my tired eyes.
“Are we there?” Helena shifted her red duffel. “You don’t know where you’re going.” I sensed rather than saw the eye roll, which was so frequent that I didn’t register it as disrespectful. My mother would never have allowed it. But I was not my mother.
The truth was, Helena was right. This was the first big trip I’d ever been on. I never even took the bus at home—how was I supposed to find a connecting flight? I had no idea if we were supposed to take a shuttle or the subway or whatever it was they had at this airport.
Helena pointed. “Terminal Fifteen. Flight 267 to Kyushu. That’s us.”
I smoothed her golden brown bangs. She dried her long hair stick-straight and would wear eyeliner if I gave in. “What would I do without you?”
“Probably die here in the terminal.” Helena took my hand—she hadn’t held my hand since she was little, and her hands were big and adult now—and walked confidently down past the terminal numbers. “Stick with me, Mamacita. I’m the brains of this operation.”
It is not advisable to teach your American-born children Japanese. It will only confuse their language development. Children who learn Japanese and English will speak English like their mothers—with an accent. This is, of course, not desirable.
Teaching two languages may also confuse them as to their identity. They are Americans and should learn only English, as Americans do.
—from the chapter “American Family Habits,”
How to Be an American Housewife
Four
We finally found the connecting flight and boarded, clutching wrapped sandwiches from an airport shop. Everyone took off their shoes and put on paper slippers. The Japanese were very hygienic, like Mom, a fastidious hand-washer and non-cross-contaminator. Some would say Mom was too hygienic, but I didn’t get a cold until I was in second grade. Her house was like living in a bubble.
As though awakening from a long half-dream, I noticed everything. At home I moved through my surroundings as quickly as possible, never seeing who was around me, always intent on doing what I