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Review of a New Book About A Japanese-American Family
Originally from: From: Eric Astacaan <email>
THE SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS January 31, 1997
750 Ridder Park Drive,San Jose,CA,95190
(Fax 408-471-3792, print run 275,600)
(E-MAIL: <email>
Inspiration From Tragedy
After searing loss of sons, S.J. couple find healing through book
BY LORI EICKMANN
Mercury News Staff Writer
Most parents can look back and admit there were times when they could have
done better.
But few have done so in a manner so public and so wrenching as Al and Jane
Nakatani of San Jose.
The Nakatanis and their sons -- three young men who died between 1986 and
1994, two of AIDS-related illnesses and one of a gunshot wound -- are the
subjects of a new book, ``Honor Thy Children'' (Conari Press, $21.95),
written by Molly Fumia of Los Gatos. The book follows the Nakatani family
from a middle-class existence characterized by reticence, homophobia and
denial to a life of openness, acceptance and, little by little, healing.
``I thought sharing our story would be a contribution,'' said Al Nakatani,
a soft-spoken retired social worker who sees the problems his family faced as
a microcosm of society's troubles. ``We are not providing safe passage for
our young people, from childhood into adulthood. Things have to change. This
book has emerged as a possible tool.''
The Nakatanis and Fumia are scheduled to appear at 7:30 tonight at
Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose to celebrate publication of the
book. Al Nakatani said the heart of the book is a message about how outside
prejudices can be internalized, leading to even more damaging
self-denigration.
The Nakatanis lost their middle son, Greg, 23, in 1986. He was shot in a
dispute. Glen, 29, died four years later from an AIDS-related illness. Guy,
26, died of similar causes in 1994.
``The souls and spirits of Glen and Guy (the oldest and youngest sons,
both gay) were being damaged long before the physical effects of AIDS damaged
their bodies,'' Nakatani said. ``What happened is they did not have the
support of their peers, or of the homophobic society -- or of their
parents.''
The elder Nakatanis, who grew up in Hawaii, disowned Glen when they
learned he was gay. Al Nakatani said he and Jane, a retired elementary school
teacher, did not create a home that was a haven of support and open
communication for their sons. They never realized that the boys, who often
were the only Japanese-American students in their predominantly white
Cambrian Park neighborhood and schools, were taunted for their ethnicity and,
later on for Glen and Guy, for being gay.
Glen left home in 1977 at age 15, eventually entering the Air Force. But
Jane Nakatani said ``the black cloud'' descended on the family nearly a
decade later when Greg, an engineering student, was killed in a dispute over
a car. Two years after that, Glen revealed he was HIV-positive, and came home
to spend his last months with his family.
No more disowning
Seven months after his brother's diagnosis, Guy also learned he was
HIV-positive. This time, instead of disowning him, the Nakatanis were drawn
into Guy's single-minded mission to educate young people about AIDS and
prejudice. Al Nakatani began accompanying his son to school assemblies,
sometimes up to five schools a day. In the three years before he died, Guy
spoke to more than 40,000 students and parents nationwide.
It was during this time that Al Nakatani got to know his son. He learned
that Guy hated his Japanese heritage, hated being gay -- hated himself.
Believed the hate talk
``In the end, he came to terms with it all,'' Nakatani said. ``But what
had happened was that the denigration that had been hurled at him from the
outside -- Guy internalized it. He believed it.''
The Nakatanis have made it their crusade to honor the memory of their sons
by drawing awareness to the self-image problems that plague so many young
people, resulting in such tragedies as suicide and drug abuse.
The Nakatanis never accept payment for speaking to schools and
organizations, and they were not paid for telling their story to Fumia.
``Honor Thy Children'' was, perhaps, Guy's parting gift to his parents, to
help them continue the crusade. Just months before he died, Guy contacted
Fumia, whom he met when she arranged for him to speak at Bellarmine College
Preparatory in San Jose in 1993, and persuaded her to write his family's
story.
Fumia, author of ``Safe Passage: Words To Help the Grieving Hold Fast and
Let Go,'' has a master's degree in theology from Santa Clara University. She
also is the mother of six children ages 7 to 23; a seventh died in infancy.
``They are amazing people,'' Fumia said of the Nakatanis. ``Their story
can be very
enlightening for parents, surely.''
The Nakatanis, especially Jane, were at first hesitant to see their
family tragedies displayed so publicly.
``The nature of the issues we deal with in the book are very difficult,''
Al Nakatani said. ``Homosexuality and AIDS, but also parental culpability --
where could we have done better?''
But the Nakatanis said the response to the book has convinced them they
made the right decision.
A lesson from book
``One person said to me, `I'm glad I read the book because now I won't put
so much pressure on my son,' '' Jane Nakatani said. ``I'm hoping more parents
will want to communicate more with their children.''
The Nakatanis will be moving back to Hawaii permanently next month -- to
the home once owned by Jane's parents, a house that overlooks the cemetery
where Glen, Greg and Guy are buried. The couple said they will continue to
speak about the book, their sons and their journey from a life of grief to a
place of peace.
``I saw the book as an opportunity to become free; it could be part of the
healing process,'' Al Nakatani said. ``And the book can begin a dialogue
within other families. We all have to do better. Too many children are
dying.''
IF YOU'RE INTERESTED
Al and Jane Nakatani and Molly Fumia will appear at Bellarmine College
Preparatory in San Jose at 7:30 p.m. tonight for a celebration of the
Nakatani family and ``Honor Thy Children.''
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE February 2, 1997
901 Mission St.,San Francisco,CA,94103
(Fax 415-896-1107, print run 570,300)
(E-MAIL: <email> (http://www.sfgate.com)
A Couple Lose Their Three Children and Gain Wisdom
REVIEWED BY, PATRICIA ABE
HONOR THY CHILDREN
One Family's Journey to Wholeness
By Molly Fumia Conari; 315 pages; $21.95
Only toward the end of ``Honor Thy Children'' does the book's
subtitle -- ``One Family's Journey to Wholeness'' -- make perfect sense.
Wholeness does not immediately come to mind in describing Alexander
and Jane Nakatani, a San Jose couple whose three children all died before the
age of 30, one son killed in a senseless shooting, two others dead of AIDS.
Yet Los Gatos writer Molly Fumia shows how the Nakatanis' transformation
redeemed their experience from a story of unthinkable loss into a vital
message.
Fumia, author of two previous books on bereavement, spent hundreds of
hours
interviewing the Nakatanis. ``Honor Thy Children'' traces their ordeal with
graceful compassion and delicacy, and demonstrates that wholeness and healing
can be achieved under what seem like impossible circumstances, and that love,
trust and acceptance are necessary in every family.
Japanese Americans from Hawaii who settled in San Jose, Al and Jane
reared their three sons on Japanese stoicism, along with the rectitude of
Al's military background. Even though each privately thought the other too
stern and demanding with their sons, for both, ``success was measured by
separation (from the parents), and by the honor brought to the family by
self-directed children.''
The strict ``business of living in this family,'' of ``meeting
certain expectations,'' left no room for the possibility that life might
diverge from the traditional path that Al, a licensed social worker, and
Jane, an elementary school teacher, took for granted.
Their first shock occurred in 1977, when their oldest son, Glen, ran
away from home at age 15. Glen had been concealing his homosexuality for
years and ``planning his exit from the family.'' His parents swiftly
responded by disowning Glen, removing all pictures of him and traces of his
existence from their home. With Glen's brothers cowering on the staircase, Al
declared, ``I have no son.''
In 1986, somewhat reconciled with Glen but not with his sexual
orientation, Jane experienced what she considered at the time ``the worst day
of my life'' She discovered her youngest son, Guy, with another man. When Guy
admitted to being gay, Al, who hoped he could ``make things turn out
differently,'' told his son, ``Maybe you're not gay, Guy. Lots of young
people experiment.'' Guy, Fumia writes, could respond only with a wan smile.
It's painful to read how Al and Jane considered their middle son,
Greg, by then an engineer working in San Diego, ``their last claim to
normalcy.'' Taught to ``demand his rights . . . to be strong and stand up for
himself,'' Greg was killed at a taco stand in a senseless argument over a
dented car. Al wondered privately if he had taught Greg ``too well to be
righteous and strong.''
By the next year, Glen had informed his family that he was HIV
positive; he was, in fact, dying of AIDS. Al felt himself ``falling into some
new darkness,'' as he and Jane, described by Fumia as ``painfully
homophobic,'' struggled to learn the vocabulary of the disease. Within
months, in August 1988, Guy, who had promised his mother he never did
anything risky, also developed full- blown AIDS.
Attending to Glen's dying, Al and Jane came to regret their behavior
and attitudes. When the reality of the situation finally hit home, the
Nakatanis' emotional outlook softened; they started to show the love they had
always felt for their sons but had been unable to express. At the same time
they encountered scorn and prejudice from members of their community, which
hardened their resolve to make Guy's last days better than Glen's. With
remarkable candor, they bared their self-censure to Fumia and her tape
recorder. Too late, they said, they had discovered that unless parents
``nurture an environment of trust and communication, you may never know
if (your child) is troubled. Worse than that, you may aid in the destruction
of (a child's) spirit, without even knowing it.''
In spite of his new career as an AIDS educator -- he reached more
than 40,000 people before his death -- Guy, Fumia sensed, was holding
something back. In a heartbreaking revelation, he whispered, ``If only
someone had said it. . . . That it's okay to be gay. That I could live my
life and find love and be successful, even though I'm gay.'' After Guy's
death in February 1994, Al continued his son's educational mission; ``Honor
Thy Children'' is their testament. ``Ultimately,'' Al says, ``my family's
story is not about AIDS or homosexuality, but about what happens to all of us
when a child is denigrated, whether it be because of race, gender, sexual
orientation, size, or shape -- the reason doesn't matter, and the damage is
the same. Anything that wounds the self-esteem of a child is the enemy we
should all be fighting.''
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