Mari Mizobe grew up in a family that understood the powerful and lasting effects of war. From an early age, Mizobe, whose mother is from Hong Kong and father is from Japan, had to learn to live with the tension created by a cross-cultural marriage between people from two formerly feuding regions.
In her presentation on Wednesday entitled “Letters From a Granddaughter: Living Between Two Cultures,”
Mizobe told an audience how she expressed her confusion and concern for family members who experienced World War II’s atrocities by writing them letters recently.
“I know you had an older brother who died in the war and whose body was never recovered,” Mizobe wrote in a letter to her grandmother. “It must have been so painful to lose your brother in the war.”
Mizobe also described the pain that many of her family members felt because of her mother and father’s marriage “across national boundaries.”
In a letter to her mother, Mizobe, a University senior majoring in international studies, wrote about how her mother’s sadness affects her.
“Why do you not speak to your brothers and sisters and only to your parents? You are my flesh and blood; when you cry I become sad too,” she read aloud.
Although many of her letters sounded as though written during her childhood, she explained that she wrote them only recently.
“The letters expressed my feelings that I had buried for a long time,” she said.
Mizobe was born in Japan and has lived in Hawaii, Hong Kong and Singapore. As a result of her bi-cultural heritage and living in different countries, she has heard conflicting accounts of Japan’s role in World War II.
“It’s been a constant conflict between different points of view,” she said. “I tried to put it together and make sense of it. On one side, Japan was victimized, on the other, Japan was vilified.”
Japan was involved in war long before the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. After Japan won the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, it began expanding into Asia, bolstered by its newly found sense of nationalism.
During World War II, the Japanese were accused of war crimes, such as rape and murder, against Chinese civilians. Japan has never formally apologized, a fact that Mizobe said contributed to “antagonism about my parent’s marriage.”
Although she said her family is happy now, she also said that the effects World War II had on her family would never be forgotten.
“Memories of war are very real,” Mizobe said. “Today a lot of issues have not been solved.
“I was never a victim of war. I have never been in a war zone. When we think of war, we think of the present and not about how our experiences today can affect future generations. War can affect people across generations in a significant way,” she added.
Lori Miller, a University senior, said she thought that “Mari’s presentation was very thoughtful and very personal.”
Mizobe’s presentation was the last in a six-part series called “Global Views: The impact of war on students’ lives.” Kate Bodane, the International Cultural Service Program coordinator, said that the presentations have been successful in both content and turnout.
“War continues to be something that needs to be talked about,” Bodane said. “This provides a unique way for it to be talked about.”