How To Become An Immigrant

My grandfather was stationed in Okinawa, Japan during the Vietnam War. He was in the U.S. Army for 20 years, and was in Japan for a large portion of the time that he served. It was in Okinawa that he met my grandmother, Hisaco. Shortly after meeting they got married and my grandfather was able to return back to his home town of Fort Worth, Texas for a little while, and my grandmother traveled back to Texas with him. About a year later, my father was born at a hospital in Fort Worth. Right before my dad’s fifth birthday my grandpa got called to return to Okinawa to active duty, so the trio returned to Japan and lived on an army base near the coast. When my father turned five he started school in Japanese schools. He says that the population in the elementary school he attended was split down the middle of half Japanese children, and half American children, due to the close proximity of the school to the army base where many American families were living. …show more content…
My father told me that the island of Okinawa was so small that he could walk around the entire perimeter, as a child, in about a day; which he said that all of the children that he played with and went to school with would often do. He told me that he and his friends would go exploring around the tiny, exoctic island for hours on end. They would play in the crystal clear water and find all kinds of ocean life, such as, crabs, jellyfish, and sea turtles. When my dad wasn’t in school or exploring the island he would learn about japanese traditions and history from my