The Buddha in the Attic Quotes

They were handsome young men with dark eyes and full heads of hair and skin that was smooth and unblemished…They looked like our brothers and fathers back home, only better dressed, in gray frock coats and fine Western three-piece suits. Some of them were standing on sidewalks in front of wooden A-frame houses with white picket fences and neatly mowed lawns, and some were leaning in driveways against Model T Fords.

We reached out for our mothers then, in whose arms we had slept until the morning we left home. Were they sleeping now? Were they dreaming? Were they thinking of us night and day? Were they still walking three steps behind our fathers on the streets with their arms full of packages while our fathers carried nothing at all? Were they secretly envious of us for sailing away?

On the boat we carried with us in our trunks all the things we would need for our new lives: white silk kimonos for our wedding night, colorful cotton kimonos for everyday wear, plain cotton kimonos for when we grew old, calligraphy brushes, thick black sticks of ink, thin sheets of rice paper on which to write long letters home, tiny brass Buddhas.

They took us by the elbows and said quietly, ‘It’s time.’ They took us before we were ready and the bleeding did not stop for three days. They took us with our white silk kimonos twisted up high over our heads and we were sure we were about to die.

They took us while thinking of some other woman […] and then cursed us afterward when they could find no blood on the sheets. They took us clumsily, and we did not let them touch us again for three years. They took us with more skill than we had ever been taken before and we knew we would always want them […] They took us swiftly, repeatedly, and all throughout the night, and in the morning when we woke we were theirs.

The first word of their language we were taught was water […] ‘Learn this word,’ [our husbands] said, ‘and save your life.’ Most of us did, but one of us—Yoshiko, who had […] never seen a weed in her life—did not. She went to bed after her first day at the Marble Ranch and she never woke up.

Expect the worst, but do not be surprised by moments of kindness. There is goodness all around. Remember to make them feel comfortable. Be humble. Be polite. Appear eager to please. Say ‘Yes, sir,’ or ‘No, sir,’ and do as you’re told. Better yet, say nothing at all. You now belong to the invisible world.

They admired us for our strong backs and nimble hands. Our stamina. Our discipline. Our docile dispositions. Our unusual ability to tolerate the heat, which on summer days in the melon fields of Brawley could reach 120 degrees. They said that our short stature made us ideally suited for work that required stooping low to the ground. Wherever they put us they were pleased.

They did not want us as neighbors in their valleys. They did not want us as friends. We lived in unsightly shacks and could not speak plain English. We cared only about money. Our farming methods were poor. We used too much water […] We were taking over their cauliflower industry. We had taken over their spinach industry. We had a monopoly on their strawberry industry and had cornered their market on beans. We were an unbeatable, unstoppable economic machine[.]

We gave birth at five in the morning […] and that night our husband began kissing us in bed. I said to him, ‘Can’t you wait?’ We gave birth quietly, like our mothers, who never cried out or complained […] We gave birth easily, in two hours, and then got a headache that stayed with us for five years.

We gave birth but our milk never came in and after one week the baby was dead. We gave birth but the baby had already died in the womb and we buried her, naked, in the fields, beside a stream, but have moved so many times since we can no longer remember where she is.

They ate at the table like grown-ups. They never cried. They never complained. They never left their chopsticks standing upright in their rice. They played by themselves all day long without making a sound while we worked nearby in the fields…And whenever we tried to pick them up and carry them home they shook their heads and said, ‘I’m too heavy’ or ‘Mama, rest.’

They were silent, weathered men who tramped in and out of the house in their muddy overalls muttering to themselves about sucker growth, the price of green beans, how many crates of celery they thought we could pull this year from the fields. They rarely spoke to their children, or even seemed to remember their names.

They gave themselves new names we had not chosen for them and could barely pronounce […] Many called themselves George. Saburo was called Chinky by all the others because he looked just like a Chinaman. Toshitachi was called Harlem because his skin was so dark.

A few of us began receiving anonymous letters in the mail, informing us that our husbands would be next […] Others reported that their husbands had been threatened by angry Filipino workers in the fields […] Hitomi, who had worked as a housekeeper at the Prince estate for more than ten years, was held up at gunpoint in broad daylight as she was heading back into town.

They pulled on their overalls in the countryside and helped us prepare for the harvest one last time, for we had been ordered to till our fields until the very end. This was our contribution to the war effort, we were told. An opportunity for us to prove our loyalty. A way to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for the folks on the home front.

Most of us left speaking only English, so as not to anger the crowds that had gathered to watch us go. Many of us had lost everything and left saying nothing at all. All of us left wearing white numbered identification tags tied to our collars and lapels.

There was a girl who left knowing she would have been valedictorian at Calexico High. They were children who left still baffled by decimals and fractions […] There was a boy from Hollister who left carrying a white feather in his pocket and a book of North American birds given to him by his classmates on his last day of school […] There was a girl from Caruthers who left dragging a jump rope behind her of which she refused to let go.

A woman who used to rent to the Nakamuras says they were the best tenants she’s ever had. “Friendly. Polite. And so clean, you could practically eat off their floors.” “And they lived American, too,” says her husband. “Not a Japanese touch anywhere. Not even a vase.”

Harada Grocery has been taken over by a Chinese man named Wong but otherwise looks exactly the same, and whenever we walk past his window it is easy to imagine that everything is as it was before. But Mr. Harada is no longer with us, and the rest of the Japanese are gone. We speak of them rarely now.