Stan or Masato, Norma or Masako

Gerry Shikatani

"Mother is Mitsuko, Father now dead since 1974, January 22 Masajiro, Kimurasan still around over 90, Stan or Masato, Norma or masako, Junko is June but really it's just Junko, Miyako that same though she's now as much that Margaret, and Alan or Noboru, I'm Gerry or Osamu, 'Hi!'

There, I've done it, named my family here on a page" (208).

Such a peculiar exercise. My version:

Haha-ue is Reiko Fujibayashi, she kept her maiden name, Dad is Michael, Haji is Hajime though also Ira, Duchan is Ryuuchi but only when I want to annoy him, though generally in public now he's Ezra, and I'm Petra, or Michiko, whichever you can pronounce easier. A pleasure to meet you!

~ Such a split of consciousness that comes from having two names that mean so stridently of different cultures/places. It could get claustrophobically crowded within this family's psyche, with all these names floating around and taking on their own forces of personality. More and more as 'Petra' I feel different as 'Michiko', and it becomes a choice in the morning to be white or yellow. Or if undecided, I wait for the first person to greet me to name me and treat me this or the other half of my split ethnicity/identity, and go from there. I am an undecided soul.

The Shikatani public/private names: "Junko is June but really it's just Junko", the ways of fitting into a society that demands homogeneity of not only culture but also of physicality and name, and so it becomes easier to choose a pronounceable name so as not to feel alienated/isolated by the inability of an addresser to pronounce all the syllables of this name. My mom, Reiko: RAY - KO. Not: Reeee-ko. Though that happens often. Michiko: Mi-chi-ko. So often, though: Mich-ko/Mit-sh-ko/Mee-kak-o. Once, memorably, 'Mexico'. I liked being a country. Ryuichi: Dh-yuu-e-chi. So often: Roo-chee. So it becomes an easier thing to choose the public Western name, in order to protect the private Eastern name from a slaughtering of mispronounciation, an insistence on: "How do you say that? Am I saying it right? I want to get it right, say your name again for me, please, how does it go again? Your name is so different, I've never heard anything like that before, what does it mean?"

The name Shikatani writes under, Gerry, is testament: he cannot hide his ethnicity within an anglo name, his family name precludes this, but he can present himself as partially assimilated by virtue of 'Gerry'. Show through his Western-Eastern name coupling his willingness to become hybrid bridge.