How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway Page A

farming their little patches of land and that the government, like a samurai landlord, would take care of them. That was how the shuku system originated, in fact—from samurai. “If any of them were smart,” Father said, “they’d take advantage of the Americans being here and make money off them.”
    For months, my parents debated about what I should do. Then finally it was my mother who sat me down one day when I was eighteen, a few months after I finished high school. With honors. “Shoko. You’re a very smart girl. Too smart for your own good, I’ve thought.”
    I bowed my head.
    Mother ran her hand over the lacquered black table. “We have decided it’s time for you to work.”
    My mind raced. “Where am I going to work? With the fishermen?”
    Mother’s voice was flat. “We’ve heard there are plenty of jobs with the Americans. Good jobs.”
    “But what if I don’t want to work for Americans?” My brother hated Americans. He wasn’t a realist, like my parents were. But I was conflicted. I resented the Americans, but I thought about what it would mean to get away from my little village. To meet people who had seen more of the world than this little corner, to see what other places were like, through their eyes. I got excited, despite myself.
    “It’s best for the family. For you. We cannot keep you anymore.” Mother folded her hands in front of her and looked at them. Mother looked at least two decades older than her forty-one years. Though she wore a hat every day, her face was still deeply tanned and lined, with darker freckles marring her hands. Her eyelids were beginning to wrinkle and droop. I wondered if she ever regretted that my father had given up his law job for the priesthood. I would never ask her; she would only tell me no. Besides, he could have lost his law practice during the war anyway, as so many had.
    Mother continued. “You work and send money home. That way, we can pay for Taro to finish school. He is the son.”
    I understood. With a college degree, a boy like Taro could do so much more than I could ever hope. He would raise us all up. “I’ll go right away.”
    It didn’t occur to me to be frightened. Other girls were in my situation, too. Girls who saw opportunity where there had been nothing before. There was no reason to be afraid, only reason to hope. America was here, and like my father said, we had to get used to it.
    I rented a room in a Kumamoto City house with my childhood friend, Shigemi. The owners were Japanese and made a living renting rooms to girls like us. I thought I’d be a secretary at the naval base, or get a job at a nightclub, something where I could meet powerful people. But I had to take the first job I could get.
    Shigemi got me a job as a maid at an American officer’s house in Kumamoto City, where she worked as his cook. It didn’t pay much, but it was enough. More than I was used to. Enough to get my hair done at a beauty parlor and buy a few nice things for the first time in my life. I would rather have had a pretty new dress than a fancy meal any day.
    The officer’s home was the first American-style house I’d ever been in. It had wooden plank floors, big windows, no shoji screens, lots of heavy upholstered Western furniture. The officer, Captain Leonard, was married. His wife visited every six months or so, and her next visit was coming up soon. He wanted it to look very neat.
    Luckily, Captain Leonard wasn’t a messy man. He did keep his shoes on, though, which tracked in extra dirt. The first day I was there, I put on my starched white maid’s uniform and tied a scarf in my hair. It would be another week before I went to the beauty parlor to have it set, so I wanted to keep it pristine. Then I put on the sensible black nurse’s shoes. I went into the den with a dust cloth, singing in English, “Let me go, let me go, let me go, lover.” I stopped short. I’d never seen so many books! Thick, leather-bound, gold-printed books lining