Mackerel Sky (short story)

Short story by Jeff Matsuda in which a young Sansei man recalls various stories about his Issei grandfather: visiting him and his grandmother when he was a child; recreating the old man talking about his youth in Japan and his early years as a laborer in the U.S.; and visiting him with his mother when he was in college, and his grandfather was a nearly deaf old man. In the process, the narrator recalls his grandfather's internment: as a fisherman on Terminal Island , he was arrested a week after Pearl Harbor and sent to Bismarck and then to an unspecified camp in New Mexico, while the rest of his immediate family spent the war years in Japan.

"Mackerel Sky"—the title comes from the term fishermen like his grandfather used to describe a sky with many dot-like clouds that was considered a sign of good luck—appeared in the Rafu Shimpo holiday edition in 1991.

Might also like " Kubota " by Garrett Hongo; " Roar of Silence " by Manzen (Tom Arima); " Memories of Pop " by Jiro Saito