Mas Arai—protagonist of an Edgar award-winning mystery series—is an A-bomb survivor who became a Los Angeles gardener, gambler and grandfather. A taciturn, working-class Japanese-American who only reluctantly becomes a solver of crimes, Mas is the kind of character who not only entertains, but also expands the literary landscape.
He is the creation of Pasadena author Naomi Hirahara, '83, who mined her father's experiences in writing Mas's exploits. The late Isamu "Sam" Hirahara, born in Watsonville in 1929, spent most of his youth in Hiroshima where his immediate family had returned after his grandfather died in a farming accident. He survived the bomb and returned to the States.
In Strawberry Yellow (Prospect Park Books), Mas returns to Watsonville for the funeral of his cousin, a brilliant horticulturalist. He had developed a berry—mysteriously named for Mas—that promises resistance to the crop-devastating blight of the book's title. Here, with passages from Strawberry Yellow, Hirahara talks about her work.
. . . the Ford's look was more shibui, restrained. More Japanese in an American-made body. What Mas also appreciated were the Ford's running boards, which were positioned right below the doors—easier to step in and out when you were only five feet two.
I'm oriented to root for the underdog. My father, to the public, was very unassuming, a short man, 5 foot 3 on a good day. People would look at him and think, "That's just a gardener." But what a wonderful, funny person he was, with an incredible history. His situation was that he was born here, with full American citizenship, not dual citizenship. Sometimes people in Japan would view him as the enemy. He was a man without a country.
With a character like that, I could tackle the bombing [as she did in the first of the Mas Arai mysteries, Summer of the Big Bachi]. It took me a very long time, 15 years, working to get the voice.
I want to feel like I'm bringing something to the table that someone else isn't. There are Asian-Americans everywhere, and that needs to be reflected in literature and movies and more. Very ethnic-specific stories can have universal aspects.
The coastal air somehow softened Watsonville, like opaque curtains wafting in an ocean-scented breeze.
After the war, my father did some tenant strawberry farming and helped bring his older brothers over here. Strawberry growing is different than other crops. Delicate, it has to be hand-picked by humans, not mechanized, so there's always that element of labor.
In the 1950s, during the housing boom, in all parts of California, there was a need for gardeners. Everyone wanted a pretty lawn and, because of the weather, you needed a gardener 12 months of the year. My father saw a good opportunity and moved south to Altadena, with borders on wealthy areas.
My family would visit Watsonville in the summertime, stay in his aunt's and uncle's big Victorian house off Highway 1. We don't have many relatives, but magically, when we went there, we were surrounded by Hiraharas.
"Watsonville may be on your birth certificate, but you don't know what it feels like to get a notice that you need to leave your life for a shitty fairground with thousands of other people. To get the runs and stand in line for the bathroom with no stalls. To leave a field of ripe strawberries, the best crop you've ever had, for birds to eat. To watch your daddy die in the desert from all that dust."
I worked as a reporter and editor at the Rafu Shimpo [a Japanese-English newspaper in Los Angeles] in the '80s and '90s. The main readership of the English edition was nisei—second generation. Reparation payments, the apology issued by the president—all of that was going on when I was working there. That's when I interviewed and talked to people who were interned. Finally, by that era, people were sharing more. Shame had been removed.
Rafu Shimpo was a great opportunity to build my writing skills and be exposed to it all—the homeless, politicians, the crime that influenced my love for the mystery genre.
I have a thematic arc for the series—which I'm thinking now will end at No. 7. The internment; the bombing; diaspora in New York and Okinawa; problems that affect my generation. This book is technology. The next one, I want to tackle the cult of celebrity. The last one Mas returns to Hiroshima, going full circle.
Vanessa Hua, '97, MA '97, is a Bay Area writer. Her conversation with Hirahara was edited and abridged for this article.
