Homecoming (short story)

Short story by Toshio Mori about an Issei woman's first visit with her son Mamoru after he has been severely wounded in combat as a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team . "Homecoming" takes the form of a story told in the woman's first person voice to her grandchildren. It is one of several stories by Mori featuring the same woman published in the Pacific Citizen between 1949 and 1952 that later became the basis of his novel Woman from Hiroshima , published in 1978. The first half of the story is about her efforts to see her son after being allowed to leave Topaz to return to the West Coast . She is at first dismayed to learn that he has been moved to a military hospital in Auburn, California, known to be a hotbed of anti-Japanese racism. Arriving in Auburn, they see numerous anti-Japanese signs and are unable to find a place to stay until the Red Cross sends them to a Japanese American owned farm in the next town. The second half of the story is about her visit with Mamoru, whom she learns for the first time is confined to a wheelchair and may not ever be able to walk again.

Mori wrote several stories featuring the same cast of characters for Pacific Citizen holiday issues from 1949 to 1952. He later incorporated the stories into the novel Woman from Hiroshima , eventually published in 1978. '"Homecoming" also appears in the 1980 anthology Ayumi .

Might also like " The Remembered Days " by Toshio Mori; " Join Me in Laughter " by Toshio Mori; " One with the Angels " by Yachiyo Uehara;