‘Garage Door Opener’ opens eyes, hearts

The stage reading of Soji Kashiwagi’s “Garage Door Opener,” performed at MBT as part of the temple’s “Contested Histories: Finding Home” weekend, effectively employed humor to delve deeply into the pain and dysfunction between the Nisei and their children. The performance was given by five local actors—Dwight Sora, Anne Shimojima, Aurora Adachi-Winter, Roy Wesley and Diana Lee.

The garage filled with kamaboko boards, broccoli rubber bands and tofu containerscame to represent all the emotions, conflicts and resentment that some Sansei carry with them. Through the discovery of other memorabilia by Glen and Sharon, the adult children gain a wider perspective and a deeper understanding of the trauma their Nisei parents experienced through their incarceration.

The discovery of their father’s valedictorian speech on citizenship, which sang praises of this great country, stood in stark contrast to the rounding up of Japanese Americans and being thrown into forced confinement in horse stalls and barracks. It is no wonder he became an unsmiling, silent dad who communicated mainly through grunts behind his newspaper.

Although we can all have a good laugh at the commonality we shared with the “Garage Door” characters, we were also forced to think about the reasons why simple, ordinary items were hoarded or saved and never just casually thrown away. Imagine starting a new life in an unfamiliar region with just $25 in hand or surviving with the bare minimum through the Great Depression.

My dad, Dr. Ben Chikaraishi, has spoken of reusing coffee grounds over and over until you were literally drinking brown water and relishing his takuan sandwiches when they were lucky enough to have them.

This play was an impactful explanation of some of the effects that the life-altering trauma of incarceration and the depression may have had on the Nisei. Through all the laughter and tears that this play evoked, we must never lose sight of our parents’ and grandparents’ resilience, sacrifices and love.

Here are some other reactions from those who attended “Garage Door Opener:”

Tonko Doi I don’t consider the “stuff” my mother kept as hoarding. She kept letters,documents sent from Japan. Lots of them. My family was incarcerated at Rohwer in Arkansas and after camp, we relocated to Cincinnati. My mother, Tomoye Nakamoto Muraoka (who was named for the female samurai Tomoye Gozen), would write letters using the thin light blue stationery that said Par Avion. Every week, she would compose her letter to her family in Japan, sending information about our family in Cincinnati. Her family and friends would send us letters about themselves, thus we had a connection to her family. She was a Kibei Nisei. In 1923, she was 10 years old. My grandfather took the family to Yokohama where he worked for the Sun Maid Raisin Co. Around 1937, my mother returned to Los Angeles to visit her older brothers. That’s when she met my father, and they fell in love. Her father called her back to Japan and forbade her to marry my father. He thought if she married in America, he would never see her again. So she returned to Tokyo. And then she became very ill. People said she was sick because of a broken heart. My grandfather relented and asked my father to come to Japan. They married in Tokyo. They had a monthlong honeymoon touring Japan. I have receipts she kept of hotels they stayed at during that time. When they left Japan in 1940 to return to L.A., my grandparents’ greatest fear was that they would never see her again. She was finally able to return in 1964. Photos show the emotion in their faces as the family members met at the airport. My mother was not a “hugger.” I could see that if they did embrace, there would be a flood of tears and emotions. I understand why she kept the Par Avion letters and other papers. I cannot throw these letters away even though I cannot read them. They are written in Japanese. But they are my mother’s stories and maybe love letters from my father.

Carol Baba About a month ago, I opened my parents’ “figurative” garage, and I came across a number of long-hidden documents, photos and scrapbooks that I’d never seen before. Like Sharon and Glen in “Garage Door Opener,” I found some answers as to why they did the things they did, as well as about things lost, acquired or forgotten during the War. This made the reading all the more poignant for me.

Mary Doi Soji Kashiwagi’s delightful comedy/drama rang true on so many levels—both as a Baby Boomer narrative that is/will be familiar to many Sansei who have unloaded their parent’s garages and also as a cautionary tale to my generation not to burden our kids with the same kind of “stuff.” What I loved about the play is how those familiar kamaboko boards and broccoli rubber bands stand in for the many-layered Nisei value of “mottainai” or how Glen’s buried baseball speaks volumes about his father’s unvoiced but heart-felt pride in his son’s childhood accomplishments. But for me, the even more intriguing question is what will the Sansei leave behind for our kids to throw out and how will this detritus describe our values and identity?

Cynthia Mee Many things raced through my mind as I watched “Garage Door Opener,” especially similar family experiences. Although I’m from a different culture, historically recognized as a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), I have common understandings of my childhood history.The brother and sister in the play were definitive and defensive of their family memories. I have similar defensive memories as the youngest of three children in my family—my brother being the oldest and my sister the middle child. My parents constantly compared me to my perfect brother and sister. But despite the fact I wasn’t perfect like them, I had a redeeming characteristic “I was just like grandma.” My father and uncle dearly admired their mother and frequently compared me to her. This “saving grace” got me through the frequent pain of not feeling good enough. The first time the son in the play said “Dad saved my baseball” tears came to my eyes. When he repeated that line, the tears streamed faster than I could control. I knew that his dad saving his baseball meant the same thing to the son as “just like grandma” meant to me, even to this day.

David Toguri (from Tonko Doi’s perspective) I was sitting next to David Toguri during the performance of “Garage Door Opener,” and I could feel that he was angry. He was shaking his head and was visibly upset. He told me he got so mad when the father in the play, Shig, talked about people questioning his loyalty. “He was locked up, the government took everything away and made us prisoners of war. HORSE!@#%.

article by LYNNE MATSUMOTO with comments from Tonko Doi, Carol Baba, Lisa Doi, Cynthia Mee and David Toguri (from MBT Bulletin June 2019)