Hiroshima Remembrance Reflections by Motoko Fujishiro Huthwaite
Pointes For Peace Picnic
August 6, 2003

Thank you for remembering the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki here in America, over half a century since the first and only atomic bombs were dropped on humankind. We Raging Grannies have a special song for you, which I hope you will learn to sing with us--but first just a bit of background.

Like you, I was born in the United States, which makes me an American. Unlike you, my parents had both come from Japan and registered me in the family register in Japan, which made me a Japanese. That meant I had dual citizenship, I was both an American and a Japanese.

I was a teenager in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and I thought to myself, "Those nasty Japanese. How could they do that to us?" Then, after going back to Japan on the repatriation ship the Gripsholm in 1942, I was in Tokyo when the atomic bomb was dropped, and I thought to myself, "Those nasty Americans. How could they do that to us?"

It took a bit of growing up to realize I couldn't always be on the good side and blame the other. I could never believe all the bad things the Americans said about the Japanese. I couldn't believe all the bad things the Japanese said about the Americans. I knew and loved people on BOTH sides.

I was not in Hiroshima or Nagasaki in August 1945. I was living in Tokyo at the time and overheard the adults some days afterward talking in low, shocked tones of a terrible, incredibly powerful single bomb which could wipe out a whole city! The next time the air raid siren went off, we were sure it was Tokyo's turn for the atomic bomb. I remember, unlike the usual excitement when we tried to stamp out the incendiary bombs ourselves or formed bucket brigades to put out the fires, this time we all got into the bomb shelter in dead silence and sat--waiting to die. However, as you all know, Japan surrendered and Tokyo was spared.

Last month I happened to have two house guests for a week from Japan. When I asked the ladies what I should tell you tonight, one lady, Naoko, burst out passionately with 'No more Hiroshima!' That is the title of our song.

After singing every old folk song and children's tune we could think of, seeking to avoid copyright problems, we suddenly remembered an old Japanese children's chant, the traditional Japanese version of Eeny Meenie Miny Mo, to which we could put the words.

Now I need two or three children as volunteers to show you how the game goes. (Put your fists out like this. At the end of each verse, the last fist I touch has to be put back. The fist that stays to the end is IT or the winner!) "Zui zui zukkorobashi Gomamiso Zui, Chatsubo ni owarete toppinchon, Nuketara dondokosho, Tawara no nezumi ga kome kutte chu, chu, chu, chu!" Now you all know the melody. It is in the pentatonic scale. You can play the whole thing on just the black keys on the piano. Try it!

The ladies next told me all the personal stories of victims they knew. I'd like to share just two. Naoko had a relative who lost his father and brother in the blast but he himself was away at school and survived. Badly burned, to this day his back is covered with scars. Like other victims, he is always worried about cancer. However, he grew up, found a good job, got married, but when their first child was born, the boy was deformed.

Another story that Kazumi told was of a woman who was so thirsty as she ran away from the fire, that she saw a tomato on the road and picked it up and ate it. She upchucked it right away, but she is sure the tomato saved her life. When she got to the river, she saw it full of people who had drowned, trying to drink the water.

Daily we read in the newspapers of nuclear threats from Korea. Some of us have been aware that the small bombs we dropped on Iraq contained DU (depleted uranium) which contains radioactive material which can affect generations to come. A number of Raging Grannies and others are going to Oakridge, Tennessee, next weekend to demonstrate before the Y-12 plant where they are STILL making nuclear bombs here in the United States. After all the fuss we make about other nations making weapons of mass destruction, the whole world needs to know and stop America from making bigger and more deadly bombs, more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki!

Here is our song. I'll sing one line at a time, if you'll follow! My sister grannies will help you.

No more Hiroshima, Nagasaki too.
Nuclear's a no-no, No more DU.
Just one bomb, a city is gone.
People dead and dying,
The living facing worse,
Endless woe.

Burn scars never heal, cancer everywhere.
Home and work, all are lost.
Does no one care?
Generations come and go,
But deformity, disease and death
Keep following those who were there.

by Motoko Fujishiro Huthewaite, Naoko Owaki & Kazumi Sakaguchi