(Author’s note: I had some family issues pop up in the last couple weeks, and when it comes to family, I will always give focus to them. Here’s today’s fictioneers…)

Rose Colored Glasses
by Miles H. Rost
“I have a great life where I’m working, living, and being,” Goro said, putting on his hat.
“You’re in a camp house. You can only walk at certain times of the day. You have to be given tests,” Miyoko spat, disgusted.
“I have to have this attitude. If I don’t, I don’t survive. At least I can give everyone something to think about.”
“You let them treat you like good little cattle. They took us from San Francisco to here. They don’t care.”
“Miyoko, I know. I’m not wearing rose colored glasses. But, to help them, I’ll do what I do.”
I wish I knew the whole story here, but I think Miyoko thinks Goro is wearing rose-colored glasses, and that she is probably right and he never made it back home.
While we don’t know what’s going on after the story ends, if we follow the person who I based Goro on, one Goro Suzuki, aka Jack Soo, he actually ended up as a great character actor.
Ah! I remember Jack Soo from Barney Miller.
Miles,
Love the parable-like quality to this dialogue. Someone had to learn the lesson the hard way. We all need to take the rose-colored glasses off before it’s too late.
pax,
dora
And Goro still entertained the people at the camp, because it was the only real way they’d survive.
Nicely done. I sense the trauma. A sad time.
It was a terrible decision, and one that history has looked upon unfavorably. As long as we don’t repeat it (which would take a reversal of the Korematsu decision), folks like Goro will not have to be the entertainer for those imprisoned.
I’m flashing back to what I know of the Japanese internment camps of WWII. A terrible shame for those whose lives were uprooted because of a possible link to the enemy forces of Imperial Japan. A knee-jerk reaction to Pearl Harbor. You’ve done a masterful job here of summing up the emotional responses.
Though some of the folks in the camp, like the person who I based Goro around, ended up doing well despite the hardship. Goro being Goro Suzuki, aka Jack Soo. The guy who played Sgt. Nick Yemana on Barney Miller.