Reunion (short story)

Short story by Hisaye Yamamoto centering on a Nisei man named Tak who attends a pilgrimage to Poston , where he had been incarcerated during the war. The story begins with his noticing a striking woman at the reunion dressed in buckskin; he wonders if she is Native American. A visit to the memorial at the site conjures memories of his family's wartime experience: removed from Los Angeles, they left Poston to resettle in Chicago ; his older sister had left earlier on her own to study nursing in Cleveland. He went to high school in Chicago and to college back in Los Angeles, eventually marrying and raising three daughters. But after his wife's death just a year prior, he found himself alone. On the bus ride home, he is surprised to find the buckskin woman on the same bus. She sits across the aisle from him, and he overhears her talking about being twelve in camp and being fascinated by an American Indian man who visited the camp on a white horse that he sometimes let the inmate kids ride. He also discovers that she is a widow. After imagining different scenarios about the woman and the Indian man, he works up the courage to ask her to join him for lunch.

"Reunion" appeared in the 1992 Rafu Shimpo holiday edition.

Might also like " Makapuu Bay " by Wakako Yamauchi; " One with the Angels " by Yachiyo Uehara; " Memories of Pop " by Jiro Saito