ABSTRACT
Ted Aoki was my father. When my son was born in 1996, Dad and Mom were overjoyed, especially since he was their first grandchild. We call him Alex, but that's actually his middle name. His first is Tetsuyoshi https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203082676/c959c9fc-da4c-48a9-a626-098941cd5cea/content/fig1-1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>, a patronymic devised by my father, whose legal name is Tetsuo https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203082676/c959c9fc-da4c-48a9-a626-098941cd5cea/content/fig1-2_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>. Ted is just an example of how nisei https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203082676/c959c9fc-da4c-48a9-a626-098941cd5cea/content/fig1-3_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (second-generation Japanese Canadians) often reconfigured their given names as near-homophones that are easier for English speakers to pronounce. Tetsuo means “philosopher,” and https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203082676/c959c9fc-da4c-48a9-a626-098941cd5cea/content/fig1-4_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> tetsu is the first kanji https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203082676/c959c9fc-da4c-48a9-a626-098941cd5cea/content/fig1-5_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Japanese Chinese character) in both my father's and son's names. The other kanji in Tetsuyoshi is https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203082676/c959c9fc-da4c-48a9-a626-098941cd5cea/content/fig1-6_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> yoshi (“righteousness,” “justice,” or “honor”) and comes from the name of my father's father, Sadayoshi https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203082676/c959c9fc-da4c-48a9-a626-098941cd5cea/content/fig1-7_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>. He and my grandmother were schoolteachers who came to Cumberland, British Columbia, after its community sent a request to Japan for someone to teach Japanese to its children. Tetsuyoshi can be translated as “obligated to philosophy.” My mother, June, rolled her eyes a bit when she heard about Dad's neologism, but she didn't linger on it; she just wanted to be with her grandson as much as possible—so much that Dad usually got crowded out. When we visited, we had to get my wife, Lucy, who Mom adored, to distract her in conversation, and once they were chatting merrily, I could sneak off with Alex and place him in my father's arms. Dad would walk slowly around, cooing to the tiny face that stared up at him. A man with his grandson, such a commonplace scene, nothing special at all, but utterly singular.
