In my Japanese American family, coming together to celebrate holidays or special events means food, lots of food. For holidays like Thanksgiving, most of the dishes reflect traditional American sensibilities, up to a point. We decided to lighten up our Thanksgiving carb menu this year by eliminating the mashed potatoes – but keeping the stuffing, rolls, yams and, of course, the Japanese white rice.
No other holiday reflects my Japanese American roots as much as New Year’s Day, which we celebrate on January 1st. Our Japanese grandparents brought with them to America, over a century ago, the tradition of the special New Year’s foods called Osechi ryori. The traditional foods are symbolic of hopes and wishes for the coming year. Soba, buckwheat noodles in soup, are eaten for prosperity. Kuromame, black beans, symbolize good health. Konbu (kelp) is eaten for happiness. Kazunoko (herring roe) represents the wish for many children.

My favorite New Year’s food is Ozoni, mochi soup. Mochi are dense, smooth cakes of pounded sweet rice that undoubtedly have an enormous number of calories and are sadly lacking in true nutritive value.

From Flickr user HAMACHI!

But the tradition of that bowl of ozoni, eaten on New Year’s morning, has continued to be honored by four generations of my family in America.

The survival of that tradition is, upon reflection, really rather remarkable. It was carried here to America by my grandmothers as very young women facing an unknown future in a strange country. It survived our family’s incarceration during World War II, when they were forced out of their California homes into an internment camp in the Utah desert. And it survived their return to California in the face of post-war prejudice and hostility.

After working over 25 years in banking, three years ago I started doing some financial and administrative consulting projects for MomsRising, and I just never left. Given my family’s history, the work MomsRising does to promote family economic security has deep personal meaning. My grandparents and parents lost homes, livelihood, possessions, and community ties during World War II. The struggles of families today are both different, and the same. My grandparents and parents worked tremendously hard to bring their families back to economic security after the war. My generation and the next have been the lucky recipients of their efforts, for which we will always be grateful.

I am sad to admit that my children and I don’t speak any Japanese. We are truly American in almost every way. But we are proud of our Japanese American heritage, and eat that bowl of ozoni every New Year’s morning without fail. It sits like a lump in our stomachs all day, reminding us of who we are.