I had the wonderful experience to interview Elizabeth Miki Brina and her book Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir. Her book is rich with details of her childhood and important historical moments told from the perspective of someone who lived it. Raw and powerful at times. This memoir will leave you thinking long after you are done.
Who are you and what do you do?
Photo credit Thad Lee
My name is Elizabeth Miki Brina. I’m the author of the book, Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir. I also teach at the University of New Orleans.
What's your memoir about?
The memoir is essentially about healing my relationship with my mother, a native of Okinawa, and my relationship with my heritage. It focuses on the complicated marriage between my mother and my father, a soldier who was stationed on Okinawa during the U.S. military occupation of Okinawa after he fought in Vietnam. It explores how the origins of their marriage – war and colonialism – manifested in the dynamics of our family, how they raised me and how I viewed myself.
You have a mix of historical context and personal stories in your book what made you decide to do that?
The idea for this book first started as an idea for an essay about my mother’s baptism. She had recently joined the Rochester Japanese Christian Congregation, and when I attended her baptism, I discovered that not only were all the fifty or so members Japanese, but almost all of them were women, almost all of the women were around my mother’s age and married to white American men who had served in the military. This was the first time I realized that there are many people like my mother, and that her marriage to my father couldn’t have been just a coincidence, an anomaly, an isolated incident. There had to be some common cause, some overlapping experience. However, in order to capture the impact of this realization, I had to explain the sense of otherness and isolation and inadequacy of my childhood as well as the history that brought these women to this church in Rochester.
Memoir is a brave choice what inspired you to write in this particular genre?
I honestly don’t know how to write anything else. I wish I could. I’ve tried. I only feel motivated to write when I write about myself and what has happened to me.
How long did the book take to write?
From the very start to the very finish, about six years.
What was the editing process like?
It all happened so fast. I finished the third or fourth draft of the book and then sent it my agent based on an introduction by a mutual acquaintance. She asked to represent me immediately. I got some notes and another chance to rewrite and revise but I kept stalling, kept thinking it wasn’t ready. Finally, my agent said, “Just trust me,” and then she started pitching the book and then one week later, it was sold to Knopf.
What's next for your writing?
Currently, I’m working on another memoir. But it's extremely young, and I’m quite scared of what it will or won’t become.
Fun questions
If you were stuck on an abandoned island what 5 things must you have (no rules)?
1. A device for listening to music.
2. A way to charge a device for listening to music.
3. A lighter.
4. A hundred cartons of American Spirit Yellow cigarettes.
5. A hundred bottles of red wine.
Header Photo by Ergita Sela on Unsplash
